Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/160

tances, a yojana is equal to eight "shouts" (Chinese ku-lu-she, Sanskrit krosa); a ku-lu-she, or krosa, is the limit of distance that the lowing of a cow can be heard; in the division of the krosa, one krosa makes five hundred bow-lengths (Sanskrit dhanu); one bow-length is divided into four cubits (Sanskrit hasta); a cubit is divided into twenty-four fingers (Sanskrit anguli); a finger is divided into seven barley-corns (Sanskrit yava); and so on to a louse, a nit (likshā), a dust grain, a cow's hair, a sheep's hair, a hare's down, copper water, and so on for seven divisions, till we come to a fine dust; a grain of fine dust is divided sevenfold till we come to an excessively fine dust (anu); this cannot be divided farther without arriving at nothingness, and so it is called the atom (literally, "infinitely small," Sanskrit paramānu).

Although the revolution of the Yin and Yang (Negative and Positive Principles) and the successive mansions of the sun and moon are called by names different from ours, yet the seasons are the same; the names of the months are derived from the position of the lunar asterisms.

The shortest space of time is called an instant (Chinese ts'a-na, Sanskrit kshana); 120 kshanas make a ta-ts'a-na (Sanskrit tatkshana); sixty of these make a la-fo (Sanskrit lava); thirty of these make a mau-hi-li-to (muhūrta)', five of these make a "watch" (Sanskrit kāla, literally, "time"); six of these make a day and night (ahōratra), but popular custom divides the days and nights into "watches" (kālas).