CHAPTER XXXIII.                          333

360 X 8,640,000,000). A hundred years of the same
kind, reckoned in our years, are represented by the
same number increased by two ciphers, so that you get
in the whole ten ciphers, viz. 311,040,000,000,000.
This space of time is a day of Purusha; therefore his
nychthemeron is double of it, viz. 622,080,000,000,000
of our years.

According to the Bulisa-Siddhdnta, the life of Brah- Payardha-

°                                                       '  ,                                     kalpa.

man is a day of Purusha. However, it has also been
mentioned that a day of Purusha is a pardrdhakalpa.
Other Hindus say that pardrdhakalpa is the day of kha,
i.e. the point, by which they mean the first cause, on
which all existence depends. The kalpa occupies the
eighteenth place in the scale of the degrees of the num¬
bers (see p. 175). It is cdlled pardrdha, which means
the half of heaven. Now, the double of this would
be the whole of heaven and the whole nychthemeron.
Therefore kha is represented by the number 864, fol¬
lowed by twenty-four ciphers, this number representing
our years (cf p. 331).

These terms must, on the whole, be rather considered
as a philosophical means of conveying an abstract
notion of time than as mathematical values composed
of the various kinds of numbers, for they are derived
from the processes of combination and dissolution, of
procreation and destruction.