7. He, who, being the receptacle of the (numerous) rivers of learning, is characterised by the adamantine bank of propriety and holds the gems (of Jainism) within, and (so) is appropriately famous as the great ocean of moral excellence:
8. May (his rule)—the rule of that sovereign lord who has destroyed in philosophical controversy the position of single conclusions and propounds the logic of the syādvāda[१]—(may the rule) of that Nŗpatuńga prosper!
An Appreciation of the Science of Calculation.
9. In all those transactions which relate to worldly, Vedic or (other) similarly religious affairs, calculation is of use.
10. In the science of love, in the science of wealth, in music and in the drama, in the art of cooking, and similarly in medicine and in things like the knowledge of architecture:
11. In prosody, in poetics and poetry, in logic and grammar and such other things, and in relation to all that constitutes the peculiar value of (all) the (various) arts: the science of computation is held in high esteem.
12. In relation to the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies, in connection with eclipses and the conjunction of planets, and in connection with the tripraśna[२] and the course of the moon—indeed in all these (connections) it is utilised.
13-14. The number, the diameter and the perimeter of islands, oceans and mountains; the extensive dimensions of the rows of habitations and halls belonging to the inhabitants of the
- ↑ The syādvāda is a process of reasoning adopted by the Jainas in relation to the question of the reality or otherwise of the totality of the perceptible objects found in the phenomenal universe. The word is translatable as the may-be-argument: and this may-be-argument declares that the phenomenal universe (1) may be real, (2) may not be real, (3) may and may not be real, (4) may be indescribable, (5) may be real and indescribable, (6) may be unreal and indescribable, and (7) may be real and unreal and indescribable. The position presented by this argument is not, therefore, one of a single conclusion.
- ↑ The tripraśna is the name of a chapter in Sanskrit astronomical works and the fact that it deals with three questions is responsible for that name. The questions dealt with are Dik (direction), Dīśa ( position) and Kāla (time) as appertaining to the planets and other heavenly bodies.
