Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s2: Indian Measures of Space

On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c8.s2

Language
English

Indian Measures of Space

v1.c8.s2.1

Our author now proceeds to give the names of measures of space and time which were in use among the people of India or were taught in their standard books of learning and religion.

v1.c8.s2.2

He begins at the top of the gradation with the Yojana which, he says, had always represented a day's journey for a royal army. The old Chinese equivalent for it, he says, was 40 *li*, the people of India counted it as thirty *li*, while the Buddhist books treated it as equal to only sixteen *li*.

v1.c8.s2.3

We are not told, however, that in India the Yojana varied in different places and at different times.

v1.c8.s2.4

Then the Yojana, he states, was divided into eight Kroṣa, the Kroṣa into 500 Bows, the Bow into four Cubits, and the Cubit into twenty-four Fingers. Forgetting, apparently, to mention the division of the Finger into three Joints Yuan-chuang proceeds to state the division of the Finger into seven Wheat (properly Barley)-grains. Thence the subdivision by sevens is carried on through the Louse, the Nit, Crevice-dust, Ox-hair [Dust], Sheep-wool [Dust], Hare-hair [Dust], Copper [Dust], Water [Dust], and Fine Dust to Extremely Fine Dust. This last is the ultimate monad of matter and is indivisible.

v1.c8.s2.5

This enumeration of Indian measures of space was apparently written down from memory, and it does not quite agree with any of the other accounts we have. In the Abhidharmamahāvibhāsha-lun,¹ compiled by the 500 Arhats and translated by Yuan-chuang, we find a similar enumeration, leaving it undecided, however, whether "seven copper-dusts" made one "Water-dust", or seven of the latter made one of the former. In this, and in the other books in which we find the measures of space given, the word for dust is added to each of the terms Ox-hair, Sheep-wool, Hare's-hair, Copper, and Water, and I have accordingly inserted it in the version here given of Yuan-chuang's account. Instead of *t'ung*, copper, the D text has *chin*, gold, perhaps used in the sense of metal, and this is the reading of Yuan-chuang's "Abhidharma-tsang-hsien-tsung-lun". Then the "Abhidharma-kośa-lun", which also has *chin* instead of *t'ung*, makes seven "metal-dusts" equivalent to one "water-dust" thus reversing Yuan-chuang's arrangement.¹ The word dust here should perhaps be replaced by atom or particle.

v1.c8.s2.6

¹ Abhidharma-ta-vibhāsha-lun, *cls* 136 (Bun. No. 1263).

v1.c8.s2.7

¹ Abhidharma-tsang-hsien-tsung-lun, *ch.* 17 (No. 1266); Abhidharma-kośa-lun, *ch.* 12 (No. 1267).

v1.c8.s2.8

Another enumeration of Indian measures of space is given in the Lalitavistara and its translations Tibetan and Chinese, and another in the Avadāna XXXIII of the Divyāvadāna of Messrs Cowell and Neil.² The latter is represented in the Chinese collection of Buddhist books by four treatises. In none of all these works is there anything corresponding to the words "copper" and "water" of our author's list. Moreover each of them makes the Window-Dust or Sunbeam-mote—the "Crevice-Dust" of our author—to be one seventh of a Hare (or Moon)-Dust and equal to seven particles of Fine Dust. Julien took the "copper water" of our text to be one term and translated it by "l'eau de cuivre (Tamrāpa?)", but this is undoubtedly wrong.³ In this gradation of measures the "Extremely Fine Dust" is a monad of thought, a logical necessity, and has no separate existence in matter. The lowest actual unit of matter is the *aṇu* of the Divyāvadāna, which is the "Fine Dust" of our author. This too, however, though visible to the deva-sight, is invisible to the human sight and impalpable to the other human senses. But it is a material substance, the most minute of all material sizes and quantities, and the ultimate atom into which dust or metal or water can be analysed. It takes seven of these, according to some, to equal one Atom (truṭi or tuṭi), and seven of these to make one Sunbeam-mote. If we omit the two words "Copper" and "Water" from our text, and remove the term "Crevice-Dust" to its place, we have an enumeration of measures which agrees substantially with that of the Divyāvadāna up to the Krośa. Some of the Chinese texts represent the Krośa, translated by shêng (聲) a sound, to be 2000 Bows, and in some the Barley-grain is subdivided, not as by Yuan-chuang, but into seven Mustard-seeds.

v1.c8.s2.9

² Lalitavistara *ch.* 12: Foucaux's Rgya-cher-rol-pa, p. 142 and note; Fang-kuang-ta-chuang-yen-ching, *ch.* 4 (No. 159); Divyāv. p. 644; Matanga-sūtra, *ch.* 2 (No. 645).

v1.c8.s2.10

³ See also the Tsa-abhidharma-hsien-lun, *ch.* 2 (No. 1288); Alberuni, *ch.* XXXIV and XXXVII; Abhidharma-shun-chêng-li-lun, *ch.* 32. In this treatise we have all the measures of space given by Yuan-chuang but the "Metal-dust" is one-seventh of the "Water-dust". It gives also the division of the Finger into three Finger-joints.

Linked texts (3)