A Yojana is a Vedic measure of distance used in ancient India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The exact measurement is disputed amongst scholars with distances being given between 6 to 15 kilometers (4 to 9 mile

Mile

A mile is a unit of length, most commonly 5,280 feet . The mile of 5,280 feet is sometimes called the statute mile or land mile to distinguish it from the nautical mile...

s).

In modern Nepali

Nepali language

Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

 and Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

 yojana (Hindi : योजना ) also means "plan" or blueprint and has an interesting connection with the Cartesian notion of distance.

Variations on length

The length of the Yojana varied depending on the different standards adopted by different Indian
astronomers. It was taken to be the distance covered by an ox cart in one day. In the Surya Siddhanta

Surya Siddhanta

The Surya Siddhanta is one of the earliest siddhanta in archeo-astronomy of the Hindus by an unknown author. It describes the archeo-astronomy theories, principles and methods of the ancient Hindus. This siddhanta is supposed to be the knowledge that the Sun god gave to an Asura called Maya. Asuras...

of the 5th century, for example, a Yojana was equivalent to 5 miles, and the same was true for Aryabhata

Aryabhata

Aryabhata was the first in the line of great mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy...

's Aryabhatiya

Aryabhatiya

Āryabhaṭīya or Āryabhaṭīyaṃ, a Sanskrit astronomical treatise, is the magnum opus and only extant work of the 5th century Indian mathematician, Āryabhaṭa.- Structure and style:...

(499). By the time of Paramesvara in the 14th century, the Yojana was more than 1.5 times larger than it was in Aryabhata's time, thus a Yojana was equivalent to at least 8 miles by Paramesvara's time.

Religious leader A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada was a Gaudiya Vaishnava teacher and the founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the "Hare Krishna Movement"...

 gives the equivalent length of a yojana as 8 miles (13 km) throughout his translations of the Bhagavata Purana

Bhagavata purana

The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one of the "Maha" Puranic texts of Hindu literature, with its primary focus on bhakti to the incarnations of Vishnu, particularly Krishna...

. Some traditional Indian scholars give measurements between 13 km and 16 km (8-10 miles) or thereabouts. Alexander Cunningham, in The Ancient Geography of India, takes a yojana to mean 8 miles.

Usage

If the length of a Yojana is taken to be approximately 8 to 10 miles (13-16 km), like it was in later times, then its subsidiary measurements are as follows:

• 1 angula = 16 mm to 21 mm
• 4 angulas = one dhanu graha (bow grip) = 62 mm to 83 mm;
• 8 angulas = one dhanu musti (fist with thumb raised) = 125 mm to 167 mm;
• 12 angulas = 1 vitasti (handspan
  Span (unit)
  A span is the distance measured by a human hand, from the tip of the thumb to the tip of the little finger. In ancient times, a span was considered to be half a cubit...
  
  : distance between tip of thumb and tip of last finger when palm is stretched) = 188 mm to 250 mm
• 2 vitastis = 1 aratni (cubit) = 375 mm to 500 mm
• 4 aratnis = 1 danda = 1.5 to 2.0 m
• 2 dandas = 1 dhanu = 3 to 4 m
• 5 dhanus = 1 rajju = 15 m to 20 m
• 2 rajjus = 1 paridesha = 30 m to 40 m
• 100 parideshas = 1 krosha (or gorata) = 3 km to 4 km
• 4 kroshas = 1 yojana = 13 km to 16 km
• 1,000 yojanas = 1 Mahayojan = 13 Mm to 16 Mm

See also

• Hindu cosmology
  Hindu cosmology
  In Hindu cosmology the universe is, according to Hindu mythology and Vedic cosmology, cyclically created and destroyed.-Description:The Hindu cosmology and timeline is the closest to modern scientific timelines and even more which might indicate that the Big Bang is not the beginning of everything...
  
  
• List of numbers in Hindu scriptures
• Palya
  Palya
  One palya is the length of time it takes to build a cube of lambswool 1 yojans high , if one strand was laid down every century.It has also been defined as the length of time it would take a little bird to empty a well one mile square full of fine hairs, if it carried away one hair every hundred...
  
  
• Rajju
  Rajju
  One Rajju or Rajlok is the distance covered by a deva flying for six months at the rate of 2,057,152 Yojans every Samay . It can also be equivalent to the distance traveled in 6 months by a ball of iron weighing 1,000 Bhar let fall freely from Swarga, home of Indra...
  
  
• Religious cosmology
  Religious cosmology
  A Religious cosmology is a way of explaining the origin, the history and the evolution of the universe based on the religious mythology of a specific tradition...
  
  
• Vikas yojna
  Vikas yojna
  *The word yojna is a hindi word which means plan or a mission. The word Vikas means growth and development. Vikas yojna is a page meant to provide a list of plans/schemes started by various central and state governments in India. There success ratios are not available here...
  
  

Further reading

• The Artha Shaastra of Kautilya, Penguin Books
  Penguin Books
  Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
  
  
• Valmiki Ramayana