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280 : Scientific Contents in Prākrta Canons
truth or accuracy of the fact. It is worth consideration which of these values may be taken as applicable in all cases. Lord Mahāvira must have given one value for each unit. How and when this variety of values of Angula started is a problem for further research. One of the reasons for this might be the personal or literary communication gap between scholars of different or same periods. This gap has vanished in this century and it is the best time for uniformity in units and their values. Area and Volume Units
When areas or volumes are to be expressed, the 2-d or 3-d units are used. The 2-d and 3-0 Angula units are known as Pratarāngula ( Pra) and Ghanängula ( GA ) respectively. Their values are equal to the square and cube of the Angula unit. They are shown in table 4. Larger Units of Length
The UA-based Yojana Y, is the unit of length of practical and average value. It seems quite small for larger distances. Jaina ācāryas have, therefore, coined some larger length units like time. These are known as Pramāna units. The PA-based yojana, PY is a l-d unit in this direction. It has a value of 500 or 1000 times larger than UY or it is equivalent to 4000 or 8000 miles ( 1 UY = 8 miles ). Other different values based on various values of UY are given in Table 3 varying between 6640-15090 km. These are measurable units.
With reference to the dimensions of the universe, there is one more unit named as Rajju, R. Canonically, it seems difficult to evaluate the current value for it as its calculations involve innumerable number. Despite this, Jaina 19 and Jaina20 have calculated the value of R unit to be between 1018 -1024 kms. Jagasreni is still a larger unit which is equal to 7 R. These larger units are just akin to the current units of light year which has a value of app. 1012 kms. This suggests that the larger units of the Jainas are sufficiently larger. These are also included in Table 4.
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