Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 158

The Sophisticated Stage 137
each of its 184 circuits, with the measure of the shadow at various seasons, the connection of the moon with the stellar bodies, with the waxing and waning of the moon, with the velocity of different kinds of heavenly bodies, and so on. In the Jambuddiva.pannatti, we have an astronomical section, the contents of which to some extent corresponds with the Süra-pannatti. Besides, this work deals with the visibility, presence and temperature of the sun, circles of the stars and their mutual distances, calculations of year, months and dates, etc.
The Süra-pannatti is divided into 20 pāhuda-s. It begins with the mandalas, i.e. narrower and wider circles formed by the two suns around Mount Meru according to the seasons. Then it goes on to deal with the horizontal way of either sun through the quarters of the compass, their transition from one circle over to the next, the distance covered by one sun in a moment, the range illuminated by the suns and the moons, the figures formed by their light, the atoms of the Mar:dara which are impervious to the light of the sun, the time in which the power of the sun's rays remains constant, the course of sun in relation to day, night and other earthly time measures, process of the earth's temperature effected by the sun, and the length of the shadow depending on the height and the light of the sun. All these have been the subject matter from the first to the ninth pähuda. In the tenth and in most of the following pāhudas the moon and the stars dominate. This portion was probably the original Carda-pannatti which contains the list of 28 stars, the duration of their conjunction with the moon, the moments and portions of day and night when the conjunction starts, the relationship of the stars with the months, the new-moon the full-moon days, the numbers and shapes of individual stars, the stars as guides of the months and as the measures of the shadow casted on them by the sun, the position of the stars in course of the moon, the orbit of the moon, the division of time, the conception of yuga, the kinds of the years, the waxing and waning of the moon, the circles formed by the movement of the moon, the bright and dark halves of the month, the velocity of the moon, sun, stars and planets, the altitude of the stars, the innermost, outermost, topmost and lowest stars relative to Jambudvīpa, the velocity of the stars, their power, their mutual distance, their duration and relative number, the fixed stars beyond the human world and so on,1
It should be remembered in this connection that although the
libid, pp. 100-103.