________________
XXV
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. XXV blundered so egregiously. The same absurdity is embodied in the system of the Brahmans. A word of explanation is required relative to the two Jain cycles, called Avasarpini and Utsarpini, whose lengths are exactly the same. The reader is to fancy a serpent in infinite space, coiled up, so that the tail shall touch the head. The earth is now moving down this serpent from the head to the tail, therefore this is an Avasarpini (going down the serpent). When it arrives at the extremity of the tail it cannot go on, but must return, and its progress upwards is called an Utsarpini (going up the serpent). Each of these periods is divided into six aras or eras, comprehending ten crores (100,000,000) of sagaras of years. A sagara or ocean of years, my Jain informant assures me, (though Mr. Colebrooke's explanation of this knotty point is a little different), is the number of the small points of the excessively fine hair of Yugalas, which a pit of the dimensions of a cubic yojana would contain, the hairs being so closely packed together that a river of water running over them would not dislodge one of them.
In the prefixed scheme of the emblems of the
