Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t8.9

c7.s3.t8.9

1. Akṣi-koṣa, eyeball. The organ denoted by this term is included among the bones only in the system of Suśruta. The system of Ātreya, as reported in the Medical Versions of Charaka (§ 4) and Bheḍa (§ 12), does not include them, and in this respect it is followed by Vāgbhaṭa I (§ 37). In the Non-medical Version (§ 16), it is true, the eyeballs are included in Ātreya’s system; but its testimony cannot avail against that of the Medical Versions; and the probability is that it adopted the eyeballs under the influence of the system of Suśruta (§ 17, cl. 3). But even as regards the latter system, the eyeballs have experienced strange vicissitudes. For they are absent from Suśruta’s list in its Traditional Recension (§ 27), though Suśruta explicitly mentions them in his class-list of the bones as well as in other passages of his Compendium. That his list in its genuine form (§ 34) must have included them has been shown in § 30, cl. 4.