The Book of Akbar 62.5

62.5

Be it known that the arithmeticians of India call 100,000 a lak; ten laks a prayut, ten prayuts a kror, one hundred krors an arb, ten arbs a kharba, ten kharbs a nikharb, ten nikharbs a mahdsaruj or padm, ten padms a sankha, and ten sankhas a samudr or korákor. Be it known also that their opinion is that in a former period, in a particular place, a son and a daughter were born at each birth, a notion also prevalent amongst ourselves. This sect thinks also that the hair of the infants of the district of Delhi is 4096 times coarser than the hair of those beings whom they call juglí (yugala). And they say that if the hair of a seven days old jugli infant, which is excessively fine, be subdivided to the uttermost and an abyss (lit., a well) ten miles in depth, breadth and length, be filled with such particles and after a lapse of a hundred years, one segment be taken out, the time in which, at this rate, the abyss will be emptied is a palupam (? palya). And when ten samudr,—an explanation of which term has already been given,—of palupam have elapsed, the period is a ságar. The durations of the aforesaid cycles transcend, in their opinion, the power of calculation or description.