Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

Page 393

368
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. VI
depth is filled with crores of Valagras (tufts of hairs) of children of the age of one, two, three upto seven days of Devakuru and Uttarakuru to the brim in such a way that fire cannot burn those Valagras, air cannot carry them off and they cannot get destroyed and soon attain the putrid state.
The time which is required to make that Palya emptied, dustless, dirtless, cleaned by removing these l'alāgras (tufts of hairs) one by one at every hundredth year (i. e. after the intervening space of 100 years) is called one Palyopama and ten Kotikotis (crore x crore) of Palyopama make one Sagaropama.
By the unit of Sagaropama one Susamasuşamakala is formed by the total time of four Kotikatis of Sagaropama, one Suṣamā by that of three Kotikoṭis of Sagaropama; one Suṣama-Dusama by that of two Kotikotis of Sagaropamas, and one Duşama-Susama by that of one Kotikoți less by forty two thousand years.
Duşama is equal to the time of twenty-one thousand years, and Dusama-Dusama has the same quantity of time.
Ten Kotikotis of Sāgaropamakālas make one Avasarpiņī-kāla and also one Utsarpini-kala and twenty Kotikoṭis of Sāgaropamakālas form one Kalacakra (wheel of time) of Avasarpini and Utsarpini.1
The longest period of time is conceived and denominated as Pudgala-Parivarttana or Pudgala-paravarta."
The BhS contains a mathematical analysis of the continuity of the past, present and future times and draws a line of demarcation between them.
Thus it is explained that the future time is one Samaya more than the past time and the past time is one Samaya less than the future time.
The Sarvaddha (i.e. present time) is a little more than the past time, while the past one is one Stoka less than the present time (Sarvaddha).
1 BhS, 6, 7, 247.
27b, 12, 4, 446.