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COSMOLOGY: OLD AND NEW
(lokākāśa) and have thus a similar number of pradeśas. Souls are found in different bodies of different dimensions in their mundane state but each one of these has the capacity of expanding and filling the whole universe. 187 Thus the number of pradeśas in each soul is equal to the number of those in the universe, i.e., countless or innumerable.
It should not be thought at this stage that the mention of a number of prades as in the universe as countless introduces an uncertainty with regard to the size of the universe. Although dharma and adharma are 'continuous' media, it is only for explaining certain physical and psychical phenomena that this idea of parts is introduced. The Jaina thinkers have given a definite figure for the volume of the universe; 239 cubic rajjus 188 according to Svetāmbaras, and 343 cubic rajjus, according to Digambaras.
It would not be out of place here to give an idea of the 'countless' as enunciated by Jaina writers. Suppose there is an interminable series of oceans and continents surrounding each other on the flat earth in the form of concentric rings with a minimum diameter of 100,000 yojanas (one yojana=4,000 miles '89, which goes on doubling itself in the case of each succeeding continent and sea. Let there be four pits A, B, C, D each
187. 'FETT PerfoYIFT 014901 startet The TTCTT 11"
(Tattvārtha-sára, 3.14) (Tr.-By contraction and expansion of its predeśas a soul is capable of occupying the countless prades as of the universe, just like the flame of a lamp whose light can fill either a small room or a big hall.)
188. Rajju (=chain, a linear astrophysical measure), is, according to Colebrook, the distance which a Deva (god) flies in six months at the rate of 2,057, 152 yojanas in one ksaņa (instant of time = second).
(Quoted by Von Glassenapp in 'Der Jainismus. ) Compare this unit with the modern unit of astronomical distances, viz., the lightyear which has been defined as the distance which a beam of light travels in one year at the rate of 186,000 miles per second. Is not the similarity very striking?
189. In the famous Hindu work Asjadhyāvi by the great grammarian påņiņi we come accross the following scale of distances.
12 Angula = 1 Vitasta (span - 9)
8 Vitasti = 1 Dhanu (= 6). 4000 Dhanu = 1 yojana (24000 or 4.5 miles approx.) In Lalitavistara, a Buddhistic work of about 1st century, we find this scale repeated.
In an article entitled 'Regveda and the Velocity of Light' by Prof. R. Krishnamurthy, (M.A. Astrological Magazine, January 1949) a very learned
