fused o anoastomised into one whole during adult life, have
been separately enumerated — a circumstance which may,
to some extent, account for the excess in the number of
bon'es described in this Samhitá (1) [1] . Likewise the theory that
Sushruta might have included the teeth and the cartilages
within the list of skeletal bones comes very near the truth,
but It does not reflect the whole truth either. The fact is
that the orignial Sushruta Samhita has passed through
several recensions; and we have reasons to believe that the
present one by Nagarjuna is neither the only nor the
last one made. The redactors, according to their own light,
have made many interpolations in the text, and when
Brahmanas, they have tried to come to a sort of compromise
at points of disagreement with the teachings of the Vedas (2). [2]
Therefore it is that we come across such statements in the
Samhita as "there are 360 bones in the human body, so
it is in the Vedas, but the science of surgery recognises three
hundred skeletal bones." What lends a greater colour to the
hypothesis is that Sushruta, who, in the Chapter on Marma
Shariram, has so accurately described the unions of bones
and ligaments, anastomoses of nerves, veins and arteries etc.,
- ↑ (1) See Gray's Anatomy (1897) p. 288 and 301 Figs. 248 and 262.
- ↑ (2) (
Indic characters) Charaka Sháristhánam.
obligatory on Government, ;is well as on private individuals, it was almost impossible to secure a full-grown anatomical subject in Pauránic India, the more so when we consider that the Hindus look upon the non-cremation and mutilation oi a corpse with a peculiar horror as it prevents the spirit from purging off its uncleanness in the funeral fire, and bars its access to a higher spiritual life. Naturally in later and more ceremonial times the interred corpses of infants, less than 2 ears old, had to be unearthed and dissected for anatomical purposes; and these portions of the Sushruta Samitá might have been modified by the subsequent commentators in order to conform them to occular proofs.— T. R.
