258 GANITASĀRASANGRAHA. CHAPTER VILL. CALCULATIONS REGARDING EXCAVATIONS. 1. I bow in religious devotion with my head (bent downwards) to Jina Vardhamana, whose foot-stool is honoured by the crowns worn by all the chief gods, who is omniscient, ever-enduring, unthinkable, and infinite in form, and is (further) like the young (rising) sun in relation to the lotus-lakes representing the good and worthy people that are his devotees. 2. I shall now give out the (three) varieties of karmantika, aundraphala, and suksmaphala (in relation to excavations), which varieties are all derived from those various kinds of geometrical figures, mentioned before, as results obtained by multiplying them by (quantities measuring) depth. This seventh subject of treat- ment is the subject of excavations. A stanza regarding the conventional assumption (implied in this chapter) :- 3. The quantity of earth required to fill an excavation mea- suring one cubic hasta is 3,200 palas. From that (same cubie volume of excavation) 3,600 palas (of earth) may be taken out. The rule for arriving at the cubical contents of excavations :- 4. Area multiplied by depth gives rise to the approximate measure of the cubical contents in a regular excavation. The sums of (all the various) top dimensions with the corresponding bottom dimensions are halved; and then (these halved quantities of the same denomination are all added, and their sum is) divided by the number of the said (halved quantities). Such is the process of arriving at the average equivalent value. 2. The term Aundra in Aundraphala is rather strange Sanskrit and is perhaps related to the Hindi word ag neaning 'deep 3. The idea in this stanza evidently is that one cubic hasta of compressed earth weighs 3,600 palas, while 3,200 palas of earth are sufficient to fill loosely the space of 1 cubic hasta. 4. The latter half of this stanza evidently gives the process by which we may arrive at the dimensions of a regular excavation fairly equivalent to any given irregular excavation.
