Bīrūnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad, Alberuni's India (v. 1)

(London :  Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.,  1910.)

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CHAPTER XV.                             167

thumb and the small finger at their widest possible
stretching, is called vitasti and also kishku.

The distance between the ends of the fourth or ring-
finger and the thumb, both being stretched out, is called
gokarna.

The distance between the ends of the index-finger
and of the thumb is called karabha, and is reckoned as
equal to two-thirds of a span.

The distance between the tops of the middle finger
and of the thumb is called tdla. T'he Hindus maintain
that the height of a man is eight times his tdla, whether
he be tall or small; as people say with regard to the
foot, that it is one-seventh of the height of a man.

Regarding the construction of idols, the book Samhitd
says :—

"T'he breadth of the palm has been determined as 6,
the length as 7 ; the length of the middle finger as 5,
that of the fourth finger as the same ; that of the index-
finger as the same minus ^ (i.e. 4^); that of the small
finger as the same minus ^j (i.e. 3-^); that of the thumb
as equal to two-thirds of the length of the middle finger
(i.e. 3-^-), so that the two last fingers are of equal length."

By the measurements and numbers of this passage, Page
the author means idol-fingers.

After the measure of the krosa has been fixed and The relation

.        ,              ,                     ,            between

found to be equal to our mile, the reader must learn yojana,mi\Q,
that they have a measure of distances, called yojana, "" ■'"'''"'' '
which is equal to 8 miles or to 32,000 yards. Perhaps
somebody might believe that i kroh is ^ ^ farsakh,
and maintain that the farsakhs of the Hindus are
16,000 yards long. But such is not the case. On
the contrary, I kroh = -^- yojana. In the terms of
this measure, Alfazari has determined the circumfer¬
ence of the earth in his astronomical handbook. He
calls it jun, in the plural 'ajwdn.

The elements of the calculations of the Hindus on Rf/atwn
the circumference of the circle rest on the assumption
 

go 8c
 

between
  Page 167