________________
3
(earthly) world, of the interspace (between the worlds), of the world of light, and of the world of the gods; (as also the dimensions of those belonging) to the dwellers in hell: and (other) miscellaneous measurements of all sorts-all these are made out by means of computation.
CHAPTER 1-TERMINOLOGY.
15. The configuration of living beings therein, the length of their lives, their eight attributes and other similar things, their progress and other such things, their staying together and such other things-all these are dependent upon computation (for their due measurement and comprehension).
16. What is the good of saying much in vain? Whatever there is in all the three worlds, which are possessed of moving and non-moving beings-all that indeed cannot exist as apart from
measurement.
17-19. With the help of the accomplished holy sages, who are worthy to be worshipped by the lords of the world, and of their disciples and disciples' disciples, who constitute the well-known jointed series of preceptors, I glean from the great ocean of the knowledge of numbers a little of its essence, in the manner in which gems are (picked up) from the sea, gold is from the stony rock and the pearl from the oyster shell; and give out, according to the power of my intelligence, the Sarasangraha, a small work on arithmetic, which is (however) not small in value.
20-23. Accordingly, from this ocean of Sarasangraha, which is filled with the water of terminology and has the (eight) arithmetical operations for its bank; which (again) is full of the bold rolling fish represented by the operations relating to fractions, and is characterised by the great orocodile represented by the chapter of miscellaneous examples; which (again) is possessed of the waves represented by the chapter on the rule-of-three, and is variegated in splendour through the lustre of the gems represented by the excellent language relating to the chapter on mixed problems; and which (again) possesses the extensive bottom represented by the chapter on area-problems, and has the sands represented by the chapter on the cubic contents of excavations; and wherein (finally) shines forth the advancing tide represented by the chapter on
