Chapter 370 - The constituent parts of a body (śarīra-avayava)

[Sanskrit text for this chapter is available]

Fire-god said:

1-2. The auditory organ, skin, the two eyes, tongue, nose, intellect, the five elements and their qualities (such as) sound, touch, colour, taste and smell, the anus, the organ of generation, the two hands, the two feet are the embodiments of sky. Their functions are emission, exhilaration, taking, movement and speech and the like.

3. Five among these are organs of action, five are organs of sense. The five great elements are objects of senses having the mind as that which governs.

4. The soul is unmanifest. The principles are twenty-four. The puruṣa is the supreme. (The soul exists) just like the fish in the water attached and detached.

5. The qualities sattva, rajas and tamas dwell in the unmanifest (Prakṛti). The inner being is the puruṣa. It is the Supreme brahman, the cause.

6-7. One who knows this Supreme puruṣa, attains the supreme position. There are seven sacs in the body. The first one is the sac of blood. (The other sacs) are those of phlegm, of undigested food and of bile. The fifth one is that of digestion. The receptacles for wind and urine (are the sixth) and seventh. The uterus is the eighth one in women.

8-9. The sac of digestion gets dilated by bile and the vagina by internal fire. The uterus would resemble lotus and expand during the menstrual period. There it holds semen together with blood. O Sage! semen deposited in the vagina is led to the uterus in course of time.

10. Even during the menstruous period, the vagina would be surrounded by wind, bile and phlegm. It would not get dilated then.

11-12. O Fortunate one! heart, lungs, liver and spleen are formed in due succession. O Knower of virtue! spleen and liver of men are formed from the essence of the serum that gets condensed. Lungs (are formed) from the froth of blood.

13. Blood is then converted into bile and it is then known as taṇḍaka. Heart is formed from the spreading of fat and blood.

14. Intestines of mortals are formed from the spreading of blood and flesh. They should be known as three and a half vyamas^[1] (long) in men.

15. They are three vyāmas (long) in women according to those learned in scriptures. Its rise in passion is said to be from the union of blood and wind.

16. Heart assumes the shape of a lotus from the expansion of phlegm. That cavity hangs down and the soul remains therein.

17. All the feelings which accompany consciousness remain there. Spleen is to its left and liver is on the right.

18-19a. Lungs are on the right side of the (above) lotus. The sense organs are formed from the veins and arteries in the body which carry the phlegm and blood. They are the means to cognise objects.

19b-20. The orb of the eyes is white. It is a paternal element and it owes its origin to the phlegm. The orb is black arising from wind and it is a maternal element. The entire skin is formed from the bile and it is formed from the father as well as the mother.

21-24. The tongue is formed out of flesh, blood and phlegm. The testes are from the marrow, blood, phlegm and fat. One has to know the ten vital places of life in the body (namely) head, heart, navel, throat, tongue, semen, blood, anus, pelvis and ankles. Sinews are said to be sixteen in the two hands, two feet, including four on the back and the neck. The membranes are sixteen from head to foot in the body. Flesh, sinews, arteries and bones are firmly placed around the wrist and ankles separately.

25. There are six brush (-like formations) in the hands, feet, neck and anus as pointed out by men.

26. There are four thread-like flesh formations in the region of the spinal column. There are ninety muscles, which bind them (in their places).

27-28a. There are seven sīvanīs[?] (a kind of thin muscles), among which five are on the head, one each in the penis and the tongue. There are sixty-three bones. Together with the minute ones there are sixty-four in all. The teeth and nails are twenty.

28b-30. Hands, legs and the tips of these are the four places (of bones). Bones are sixty in the fingers, two on the heels, four at the ankles, four at the elbows, the samenumber on the shanks, two each at the knee, cheek and thighs which arise from the hip and shoulder. One has to know in the same way at the akṣasthāna, shoulder and hip.

31. There are one at the penis, forty-five on the back, and similar number of bones at the neck, collar bones and cheek.

32. The base of these which are two, have their places at the neck, eye, throat, nose and feet. The ribs together with the palate and lumps of flesh are seventy-two.

33. (There are) two temporal bones. There are four (bones) on the skull and the head. There are seventeen bones on the chest. There are two hundred and ten (bones) of the joints.

34. Among the sixty-eight in the arms sixty-one remain distributed. In the neighbourhood are eighty-three (bones). The sinews are nine hundred.

35. (There are) two hundred and thirty (bones) and seventy in the interior. Six hundred go upwards. (The bones) of the arm have been described.

36. The muscles are five hundred. Forty (among them) go upwards. There are four hundred in the arms and sixty in the interval.

37-39. There will be twenty-five more, ten more on the breast, thirteen in the organ of generation and four in the uterus in the case of women. There are thirty lakh veins in the bodies of men. There are also others numbering nine (thousand) and fifty-six thousand. They carry the (vital) fluid, the moisture and the fat inside the body just as the channels (carry water) to the basins (around plants).

40-43. O Great sage! There are seventy-two crores of hair. O Twice-born! The añjali^[2] measure of marrow, fat, urine, bile and phlegm, feces, blood and fluids are in order one and a half times more than the preceding one respectively. The semen is half añjali. The ojas is half of that. Wisemen point out that the menstrual fluid (in women) is four times. Knowing that the body is a mass of dirt and impurity, one should discard and (take interest) in the soul.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

A vyāma is a measure of length equal to the space between the tips of the fingers of either hand, when the arms are extended.

[2]:

A measure of corn.