1880.] 



G. Thibaut — On the Suryaprajnapti. 



121 



Three more opinions concerning the distance o£ the two suns from 

 each other on the longest day are quoted. According to the first, one whole 

 dvipa with the addition of the surrounding ocean intervenes between the 

 two ; according to the second two dvipas and two oceans ; according to 

 the third three dvipas and three oceans. The distance in yojanas is not 

 given. Two more opinions concerning the extent to which the sun enters 

 into the Jambudvipa are stated ; according to some the sun enters on the 

 longest day into half the Jambudvipa and on the shortest day into half the 

 salt ocean ; the distances in yojanas are not mentioned. And according to 

 others the sun enters neither into the Jambudvipa nor into the salt ocean, 

 but moves in the interval fapantarala) of the two ; how we have to imagine 

 this interval does not appear. 



The eighth chapter of the first book contains a long exposition 

 of the dimensions of the circles described by the sun. Four different 

 dimensions are stated. Instead of simply giving the length of the 

 diameter, the length and breadth (ayama and vishkambha) are given ; 

 these two are of course equal in a circle. Then the circumference 

 of the circle is given, according to the ratio v^lO : 1, and finally the 

 " vahalya," the thickness of the circle, i. e., the diameter of the space 

 filled by the mass of the sun or more simply the diameter of the sun himself. 

 This amounts according to the Suryaprajnapti to f-f- of a yojana. The 

 diameter and the circumference of the circles are of course continually 

 changing, the circle described on the longest day having the smallest 

 dimensions and that described on the shortest day having the greatest. 

 The dimensions of the small circle and the amount of the daily increase 

 have been mentioned above ; it is therefore not necessary to follow the 

 Commentator into the very tedious calculation of the dimension of each 

 daily circle. The opinions of three other teachers on the dimensions of 

 the circles, according to which the diameter amounts to 1,133 yojanas etc., 

 have already been mentioned ; the thickness of the circle, i. e., the diameter 

 of the sun is held by them to amount to one yojana. 



We turn now to the statements regarding the velocity with which the 

 sun moves in his different circles, and among these at first to those made 

 by the Suryaprajnapti itself. The calculation is a very simple one. Each 

 daily circle being described by two suns, each of which travels through half 

 of it in thirty muhurtas, the whole circle is described by one sun in sixty 

 muhurtas, and consequently we have, in order to find the velocity of the 

 sun, to divide the peripliery of the daily circle by sixty ; the quotient is 

 the number of yojanas travelled through by the sun in one muhurta. Thus 

 the sun, when travelling in the smallest innermost circle, the circumference 



stated in numbers which are the threofold of the numbers expressing the diameters ; 

 '^'^flra ^^^Tf'^ 'CT^J^^l^'W ^»T: 1 f^5^^«f fi^^ ^ ^??f^W^ flU^H etc. 



