Yojana Quotes

All living beings within the "realm of desire" (kāma-dhātu). Human beings and animals live together on the surface of the Mount Sumeru realm. Spirits and demonic gods live 500 yojanas under the earth, and the inhabitants of the hells, even deeper. Gods of various types live in the upper places, in the realm of form (rūpa-dhātu) and beyond that, in the realm of formlessness (ārūpya-dhātu). The realm of desire, form, and formlessness are known collectiveness as the "three realms" (tri-dhātu), in other words, the three kinds of worlds in which living beings exist. Tri-dhātu is a synonym for the universe as a whole, or for all existence.

The Abhidharmakośa describes the universe as follows. A cycle of wind (vāyumaṇḍala) floats in space (ākāśa). This wind circle is disk-shaped [ten to the the fifty-ninth power] yojanas in circumference and 1,600,000 yojanas in depth. (There are various explanations concerning the length of a yojana; one says it is about seven kilometres.) Resting on the wind circle is a disk of water (jalamaṇḍala); it has a diameter of 1,203,450 yojanas and a depth of 800,000 yojanas. Above the water circle is a disk-shaped layer of golden earth (kāñcanamaṇḍala) of the same diameter and 320,000 yojanas in depth. Its upper surface supports mountains, seas, and islands. To visualize the composition more easily, imagine a basin (the water circle) placed on top of a washtub (the wind circle), with a birthday cake (the golden earth circle with mountains) surmounting it.

Yojanas

Measures of Length To give a brief account of matters. In point of measurements, there is first of all the yojana (yu-shen-na); this from the time of the holy kings of old has been regarded as a day’s march for an army. The old accents say it is equal to 40 li; according to the common reckoning in India it is 30 li, but in the sacred books (of Buddha) the yojana is only 16 li. In the subdivision of distances, a yojana is equal to eight krosas (keu-lu-she); a krosa is the distance that the lowing of a cow can be heard; a krosa is divided into 500 bows (dhanus); a bow is divided into four cubits (hastas); a cubit is divided into 24 fingers (angulis); a finger is divided into seven barleycorns (javas); and so on to a louse (yuka), a nit (liksha), a dust grain, a cow’s hair, a sheep’s hair, a hare’s down, copper-water,315 and so on for seven divisions, till we come to a small grain of dust; this is divided sevenfold till we come to an excessively small grain of dust (anu); this cannot be divided further without arriving at nothingness, and so it is called the infinitely small (paramanu).