Yojana

Edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE)

Ashoka, in his Major Rock Edict No.13, gives a distance of 600 yojanas between the Maurya empire, and "where the Yona king named Antiyoga (is ruling)", identified as King Antiochus II Theos, whose capital was Babylon. A range of estimates, for the length of a yojana, based on the ~2,000 km from Baghdad to Kandahar, on the eastern border of the empire, to the ~4,000 km to the Capital at Patna, have been offered by historians.

....And this (conquest) has been won repeatedly by Devanampriya both [here] and among all (his) borderers, even as far as at (the distance of) six hundred yojanas where the Yona king named Antiyoga (is ruling), and beyond this Antiyoga, (where) four kings (are ruling), (viz, the king) named Tulamaya, (the king) named Antekina, (the king) named Maka, (and the king) named Alikyashudala, (and) likewise towards the south, (where) the Cholas and Pandyas (are ruling), as far as Tamraparni. |13th Major Rock Edict. Translation by E. Hultzsch (1857–1927).

The [[Mahabharata]] (500 BCE – 300 CE)

Offers:

The Moon is handed down by memory to be eleven thousand yojanas in diameter. Its peripheral circle happens to be thirty three thousand yojanas when calculated.

...

The Sun is eight thousand yojanas and another two thousand yojanas in diameter. From that its peripheral circle comes to be equal to thirty thousand yojanas.

...

Given the Moon's diameter is now known to be approximately 3,475 km and mean radius of 21,833 km, while the Sun's diameter is approximately 1,391,400 km, the stated values offer conflicting lengths for a yojana, in the verse, between - 0.316 km and 139.14 km.

Yojana in geodesy

Hindu units of length

Units

In Hindu scriptures, Paramāṇu is the fundamental particle and smallest unit of length.

Variations in length

The length of the yojana varied over time and locale, its length has been estimated as:

• 8 mi - 14th-century mathematician Paramesvara.
• 8 mi - A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada throughout his translations of the Bhagavata Purana.
• 6.7 mi to 8.2 mi - From The Ancient Geography of India, 1871, Alexander Cunningham, estimated by comparison with Chinese units of length.
• 5 mi - 1997, Thompson, from dividing the earths diameter by the yojana circumferences offered In the Surya Siddhanta and Aryabhatiya (late 4th-century to 5th-century CE)

References

Notes

Sources

References

1. MISTI. (2021). "រង្វាស់រង្វាល់ខ្មែរបុរាណនិងសម័យ". Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology & Innovation (MISTI).
2. "yojana {{!}} Dictionary of Buddhism {{!}} Nichiren Buddhism Library".
3. Thapar, Romila. (1997). "Aśoka and the decline of the Mauryas". Oxford University Press.
4. Gupta, C. C. Das. (1951). "A NOTE ON AN EXPRESSION IN ROCK EDICT XIII OF AŚOKA". Proceedings of the Indian History Congress.
5. [https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n181/mode/2up Inscriptions of Asoka p.43]
6. [https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n181/mode/2up Inscriptions of Asoka p.43]. Published in India in 1925. Domain.
7. Jadhav, Dipak. (2018-01-01). "On The Value Implied in the Data Referred To in the Mahābhārata for π". Vidyottama Sanatana: International Journal of Hindu Science and Religious Studies.
8. Thompson, Richard L.. (2007). "The Cosmology of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Mysteries of the Sacred Universe". Motilal Banarsidass.
9. www.wisdomlib.org. (2014-08-03). "Paramanu, Paramāṇu, Parama-anu: 30 definitions".
10. Jha, Ganganatha. (2016-12-11). "Manusmriti Verse 8.132".
11. Bühler, George. "The Laws of Manu".
12. "लिक्षा".
13. "यूका".
14. Kalita, Kushal. (2021-07-01). "The Matsya Purana (critical study)".
15. "Issues in Indian metrology, from Harappa to Bhāskarāchārya". Gaṇita Bhāratī.
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17. Shrivastava, Shailaj Kumar. (2017). "MEASUREMENT UNITS OF LENGTH, MASS AND TIME IN INDIA THROUGH THE AGES". Self Published.
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19. Shamasastry, Rudrapatna. (2020-01-09). "Kautilya Arthashastra Measurement of Space and Time [Chapter 20]".
20. [http://vedabase.com/sb/10/57/18 Srimad Bhagavatam 10.57.18 (translation)] "one yojana measures about eight miles"
21. [[Alexander Cunningham]], [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.180122/page/n611 Measures of Distance. Yojana, Li, Krosa.] in ''The Ancient Geography of India: I. I. The Buddhist Period, Including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang'', Trübner and Company, 1871, pp. 571–574
22. Richard Thompson. (February 2020). "Planetary Diameters in the Surya-Siddhanta". [[Journal of Scientific Exploration]].
23. "Aryabhata I".