Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c10.12

c10.12

The joints (*sandhi*) are exhaustively described. According to Suśruta, they are 210 : 68 in the extremities, 59 in the trunk and 83 above the neck. The joints in the extremities, jaw and hip are movable, the remaining are immovable. To these joints on the bones are added the innumerable ones in muscles, sinews, nerves and arteries. The number of *snāyus* (sinews and nerves, literally ‘bindings’) is 900 : 600 in the extremities, 230 in the trunk and 70 above the neck. There are 500 muscles (*peśī*) : 400 in the extremities, 66 in the trunk and 34 above the neck. Women have 20 more : 10 in breast which develop only after puberty, 4 in vagina, 3 in uterus and 3 for the propagation of semen and blood. The 700 vessels (*sirā*) starting from the navel moisten the body, just as a garden is watered by water-trenches. Mention is made of 10 basic vessels (*mūlasirā*) in the heart which lead *ojas* through the whole body (AS), and also of 72000 tubes (*nāḍī*) which start from the heart (Yājñ). One hundred and seventy five vessels contain wind, and an equal number of them contains bile, phlegm and blood. The wind-vessels are reddish and are full of wind, the bile-vessels are hot and blue, the phlegm-vessels are cold, whitish and immovable, the blood-vessels are red and lukewarm. In blood-letting certain vessels are to be avoided. The 24 (according to Car, Viṣṇu, Yājñ. 200) reeds (*dhamanī*, i. e. vessels and nerves) start likewise from the navel, yet it is denoted as an error to consider them simply as a sub-section of *sirā*. Ten *dhamanīs*, going upwards, cause the five sense-functions, viz. the breathing in and breathing out, yawning, sneezing, laughing and speaking. Ten going downwards, conduct downwards the wind, urine and faeces, sperm and ovum, and four, running circular through the body with innumerable branches in the whole body, throw out perspiration. According to Car, Viṣṇu, Yājñ, there are 3956000 (2900956) *sirās* and *dhamanīs*. The *srotas* are another kind of canals of which there are two each for the breath, food, water, chyle, blood, flesh, fat, urine, faeces, sperm and ovum. Important for the physician’s practice are the 107 *marman* i. e. dangerous points in flesh, arteries, sinews, bones and joints, the places of which are sufficiently described. They are also divided from the view-point as to whether wounds are forthwith fatal, or bring death only after some time or are fatal after extracting an arrow or similar foreign matter, or only cause lameness or pain. To the first class of *marman* belongs the heart which is the seat of three *guṇas* and of spiritual activity (Su. 3.6.30; AHr 2.4.13; Aruṇadatta). There are 16 sinews (*kandarā*)