Yojana#Variations in length
{{Short description|Measure of distance}}
{{About|the measurement unit|the government program|List of central government schemes in India}}
{{Infobox unit
| symbol =
| standard = Arthashastra
| quantity = length
| units1 = SI units
| inunits1 = {{val|12.8|ul=km}} ; {{val|16|ul=km}} (in ancient Cambodia)
| inunits2 = {{val|2.7|ul=mile}}
| units3 =
| inunits3 =
}}
A yojana (Devanagari: योजन; Khmer language: យោជន៍;{{Cite book |last=MISTI |url=https://misti.gov.kh/public/file/202107151626325399.pdf |title=រង្វាស់រង្វាល់ខ្មែរបុរាណនិងសម័យ |publisher=Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology & Innovation (MISTI) |year=2021 |edition=1st |pages=15}} {{langx|th|โยชน์}}; {{langx|my|ယူဇနာ}}) is a measure of distance that was used in ancient India, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar. Various textual sources from ancient India define Yojana as ranging from 3.5 to 15 km.{{Cite book |last=Thapar |first=Romila |url=http://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/indianart/pdf/asoka_thapar.pdf |title=Aśoka and the decline of the Mauryas |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1997 |edition=Revised |pages=250–266}}{{Cite journal |last=Gupta |first=C. C. Das |date=1951 |title=A NOTE ON AN EXPRESSION IN ROCK EDICT XIII OF AŚOKA |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/44303939 |journal=Proceedings of the Indian History Congress |volume=14 |pages=68–71 |jstor=44303939 |issn=2249-1937}}
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.[https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n181/mode/2up Inscriptions of Asoka p.43]
{{blockquote |
....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).[https://archive.org/stream/InscriptionsOfAsoka.NewEditionByE.Hultzsch/HultzschCorpusAsokaSearchable#page/n181/mode/2up Inscriptions of Asoka p.43]. Published in India in 1925. Domain.
}}
Yojana in geodesy
| class="wikitable"
|+Earth's diameter and/or circumference in yojanas as mentioned by classical Hindu astronomers{{Efn|Some cells are left empty because those astronomers did not explicitly give a value. The values not mentioned in the table can be approximated using the value of π prevalent during their period.|group=note}} ! !Diameter !Circumference |
| Aryabhata (476–550 CE)
|1,050 yojana | |
| Surya Siddhānta
| | |
| Varahamihira (6th century CE)
| |3,200 yojana |
| Bhāskara I (c. 600 – c. 680 CE)
|1,050 or 1600 yojana | |
| Brahmagupta (c. 598 – c. 668 CE)
|1,581 yojana |5,000 yojana |
| Bhāskara II (1114–1185 CE)
|1,581 yojana |4,967 yojana |
| Nilakantha Somayaji (1444 – 1545 CE)
| |3,300 yojana |
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:
- {{convert|8|mi|km|abbr=on|disp=flip}} - 14th-century mathematician Paramesvara.
- {{convert|8|mi|km|abbr=on|disp=flip}} - A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada[http://vedabase.com/sb/10/57/18 Srimad Bhagavatam 10.57.18 (translation)] "one yojana measures about eight miles" throughout his translations of the Bhagavata Purana.
- {{convert|6.7|mi|km|abbr=on|disp=flip}} to {{convert|8.2|mi|km|abbr=on|disp=flip}} - From The Ancient Geography of India, 1871, Alexander Cunningham, estimated by comparison with Chinese units of length.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
- {{convert|5|mi|km|abbr=on|disp=flip}} - 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){{citation|title=Planetary Diameters in the Surya-Siddhanta|author=Richard Thompson|journal=Journal of Scientific Exploration|volume=11|issue=2|pages=193–200 [196]|year=1997}}{{unreliable source?|date=February 2020}}{{MacTutor Biography|id=Aryabhata_I|title=Aryabhata I}}
See also
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
- Hindu cosmology
- History of measurement systems in India
- Hindu units of time
- Palya
- Rajju
- List of numbers in Hindu scriptures
{{col div end}}
References
= Notes =
{{NoteFoot}}
= Sources =
{{reflist|2}}
{{notelist}}
Further reading
- {{cite book|title=East-India Register and Directory|publisher=W.H. Allen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=x_8nAAAAYAAJ&q=India+furlong+yard&pg=PA370|language=en|year=1819}}
- The Artha Shaastra of Kautilya, Penguin Books
- [http://www.valmikiramayan.net/bala/sarga5/bala_5_prose.htm Valmiki Ramayana]
- [http://barunroy.com/history/dictionary-of-historical-and-related-terms/ Dictionary of Historical and Related Terms]
Category:Customary units in India