Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/160

 126 A CHINESE ACCOUNT BY HIUAN TSANG tances, a yojana is equal to eight " shouts " (Chinese ku-lu-she, Sanskrit krosa) ; a ku-lu-she, or krosa, is the limit of distance that the lowing of a cow can be heard; in the division of the krosa, one krosa makes five hun- dred bow-lengths (Sanskrit dhanu); one bow-length is divided into four cubits (Sanskrit hasta); a cubit is divided into twenty-four fingers (Sanskrit anguli)-, a finger is divided into seven barley-corns (Sanskrit yava); and so on to a louse, a nit (likshd), a dust grain, a cow's hair, a sheep's hair, a hare's down, copper water, and so on for seven divisions, till we come to a fine dust; a grain of fine dust is divided sevenfold till we come to an excessively fine dust (anu); this cannot be divided farther without arriving at nothing- ness, and so it is called the atom (literally, " infinitely small," Sanskrit paramdnu). Although the revolution of the Tin and Tang (Neg- ative and Positive Principles) and the successive man- sions of the sun and moon are called by names different from ours, yet the seasons are the same; the names of the months are derived from the position of the lunar asterisms. The shortest space of time is called an instant (Chi- nese ts'a-na, Sanskrit kshana); 120 kshanas make a ta-ts'a-na (Sanskrit tatkshana) ; sixty of these make a la-fo (Sanskrit lava) ; thirty of these make a mau-hi-li-to (muhurta)', five of these make a " watch " (Sanskrit kola, literally, " time "); six of these make a day and night (dhdratra), but popular custom divides the days and nights into " watches " (kolas).