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(Sixth Section)
THE MUSCULAR SYSTEM
In man ( manusya ) and most animals the ability to move depends upon a group of specialized, contractile cells, the muscle fibers. Man and most five-sensed vetebrates are quite muscular animals. Almost half of the mass of the human body consists of muscle tissues ( māmsapeši). According to Jaina Biology, there are stated to be five hundred muscle-tissues or ( blocks of muscle ) of man, four hundred and seventy of woman, and four hundred and eighty of enuch (neuter belonging to the third sex )2.
Visudhimagga mentions nine hundred muscles in the human body3 which plaster over the frame work of bones like a well plastered witin thick clay, 4 while the Suśruta5 refers to five hundred muscles like Jaina Biology. Visuddhimagga further states "muscle lies in both directions (origin and insertion) and it is plastered over the three hundred and odd bones and is bounded below by its surface wbich is fixed on to the collection of bones above by the skin all round each by each other.6
According to this work, the shape of the muscles of the calves (fibulae) is like that of cooked rice in a palm-leaf bag, that of the muscle of femur (quadriceps femoirs ) is like that of a rolling pin ( nisadaota ), that of the muscle of the buttock (gluteus maximus ) is like that of the end of an even, that of the muscles of the back (trapezius and Latissimus dorsi) is like the shape of slab of palm sugar, that of the muscle between each two ribs (Serratus anterior or Intercostalis Interdus) like that of clay mortar squeezed thin in a flattened opening, that of the muscle of the breast (Pectoralis major) is like that of a lump of a clay made into ball and flung down, and that of the
1. Tandula Veyaliya. 2, p. 6; 16, p. 36.; Kalyāṇakāraka, 3.2, p. 30.
"Pañca pesisayaiṁ purisassa,.....etc." 2. "Pañca pesisayaiṁ purisassa tisūņāim
itthiyae visuņāim pamdagassa /” (16), Tandula Veyaliya 16, p. 35. 3. VM, XI 53 (navapesi-satappabhedena mamsena litto ti ) 4. Ibid. (yatha mahamattikālittāya bhitt yā na bhitti, jānāti). 5. Susruta III, 5.6, “Panca pesisatāni /". 6. VM. VIII. 97, 98, vide sac tra Ayurveda, p. 68. March, 1972.
“Mamsam ti nava marsapesisatāni...197)" V.M. ; Disato dvisu jäta lokasato sadhikāni tiņi atthisatäni anulimpitva hitam paricchedato hetthā atthisanghāte patitthitatalena, upari tacena...etc." (98) VM.
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