Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 34

ASHIM KUMAR ROY
A NOTE ON JAINA MATHEMATICS AND ITS STUDY IN JAIPUR
Though mathematics as such has no religion or sect, Jain mathematics, one might say does exist Jain cosmography deals with time and space, that is, eras and sizes of the various words, in numbers of high magnitude, and very often these numbers bear some mathematical relationship to each other In other words, the numbers of years in each era or the distances between the continents or worlds of Jain cosmography might go up in arithmetic, gemoetric or some other progression, and it might be necessary to calculate how much bigger one era or one continent was from the other or what was the total number of years in all the eras added together. The shape of the Jaina universe was also quite complicated It was 111 the shape of three conical frustrums placed one on top of the other, and one might like to calculate the volume of this universe A sort of specialised arithmetic and mensuration, therefore, was studied by the Jain cosmographists from quite early times Thus Jain mathematical writings generally occur as parts of treatises on religion and mythology
This cosinography is more or less common to both Digambara and the Svetambara sects but so far as is known the study of cosmography in mathematical terms was confined to the Digambara secis 1
• Indian Administrative Service, Bikaner 1 According to Shri Agar Chand Nahata. the famous Jain scholar of Bikaner, Sielambaris also wrote books on mathematical cosmography, but since modern authors who write in English or Hindi, did not notice them, these books have not come into promuncnce Shri Nahata mentioned to me in this connection a book called 'lola Prakasha'