The Doctrine of the Jainas, Described after the Old Sources c6.103.2

c6.103.2

In the infinite non-world (§ 103) this applies to the tangential straight lines that touches a border plane² of the world. A line leading from the non-world and meeting with the world border has no beginning, a line leading from the latter into the non-world is without an end, and a line leading all around the world in one way or other has neither beginning nor end (Viy. 866a with comm.). As to geometrical forms (samṭhāna)³—to add them in this connexion—Viy. 860a refers to orbicular (paṭṭa), triangular, rectangular, elongated ones (āyaya), and to the ring (parimaṇḍala)⁴, and in them the atoms are arranged either two-or three-dimensionally (in payara or ghaṇa), in the elongated form also one-dimensionally (in seḍhi). In referring to them the minimum and maximum numbers of the atoms and space units are being discussed, and this leads us up to the calculative reflections. In them a certain family likeness seems to become apparent, and where it goes together with a special liking for applying it we are probably confronted with an original idea of Mahāvīra’s. The frequency of their occurrence alone is not decisive, or else it would be he, too, who had come to find the root of 10 and to apply it in the sense of the figure of π⁵. But this certainly asked for a wider knowledge of mathematics than Mahāvīra had, if we are allowed to judge by the favourite ideas he presumably cherished.