eighteen

[J L Brockington]

Dear Professor Bussanich,

So far as I remember, only tangentially.  Here is all that I wrote in  
my articles:

Instances of nine squared, eighty-one, are not particularly frequent  
and I have already given those that I have noticed.  However,  
eighty-four seems to have been favoured in the heterodox movements.   
According to Maskarin Gosāla, each individual transmigrates for  
84,00,000 mahākalpas.  In Jainism, the lifespan of the first and  
eleventh tīrthaṃkaras was eighty-four lakhs and that of the eighteenth  
Jina Aranātha was 8400 years, while the interval between Neminātha and  
Pārśvanātha is said to have been 84,000 years.  For Buddhism, there is  
the fact that in the Mahāsudarsana Sutta the palace of king Sudarsana  
had 84,000 pillars and chambers, his territory had 84,000 cities and  
palaces, and he had 84,000 wives, chariots and so on; also,  
traditionally Aśoka erected 84,000 stūpas.[63]
63.  For 84 as 21 x 4 see Gonda, The Vedic Morning Litany  
(Prātaranuvāka), p. 117 n. 4.

Yours

John Brockington


Professor J. L. Brockington
Secretary General, International Association of Sanskrit Studies
Asian Studies
7-8 Buccleuch Place
Edinburgh EH8 9LW


----- Message from john.bussanich at gmail.com ---------
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 05:30:17 -0600
From: John Bussanich <john.bussanich at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] eighteen
To: J L Brockington <J.L.Brockington at ed.ac.uk>


> Do any of these discuss the 84 lakhs of human incarnations  often cited as
> necessary before the attainment of mokṣa?
>
> Thanks
>
> Prof. John Bussanich
> Philosophy Department  MSC03 2140
> University of New Mexico
> Albuquerque, NM 87131
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 2:14 AM, J L Brockington
> <J.L.Brockington at ed.ac.uk>wrote:
>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> There is also some treatment of 18 in several articles on numbers as a
>> whole, e.g. Siegfried Lienhard, "Lucky Numbers in Ancient Indian
>> Literature", Langue, style et structure dans le monde indien: Centenaire de
>> Louis Renou, ed. Nalini Balbir et Georges-Jean Pinault, Champion, Paris,
>> 1996, pp. 523-36, and S.S.N. Murthy, "Number Symbolism in the Vedas",
>> Electronic Journalof Vedic Studies 12.3, 2005, pp. 87-99, also my own
>> "Meaningful Numbers?", Research Bulletin, Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research
>> Institute 4 & 5, 2006, pp. 21-64.
>>
>> John Brockington
>>
>>
>> Professor J. L. Brockington
>> Secretary General, International Association of Sanskrit Studies
>> Asian Studies
>> 7-8 Buccleuch Place
>> Edinburgh EH8 9LW
>>
>>
>> ----- Message from pwyzlic at UNI-BONN.DE ---------
>> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 23:30:21 +0200
>> From: Peter Wyzlic <pwyzlic at UNI-BONN.DE>
>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] eighteen
>>
>> To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
>>
>>
>>  Am 18.10.2010 um 22:57 schrieb Herman Tull:
>>>
>>>  I apologize if this question is a terribly ignorant one, but I was
>>>>  wondering if there is any scholarly literature or any discussion of  the
>>>> significance of the Indic "18" (dominant in the    
>>>> Mahabharata--books, days of
>>>> war, etc., etc., and then reiterated in  the Puranas in the so-called
>>>> "major" and "minor" books denotation).   This has long seemed to me to be
>>>> some sort of convenient fiction  used to tie up loose ends (not unlike the
>>>> twelve disciples of Jesus  recalling the twelve tribes of   
>>>> Israel).  However,
>>>> as I sat in an  introductory Buddhism lecture today, and was   
>>>> reminded about
>>>> the  famed 18 schools of the Mahasanghika(s), I started to think, there
>>>>  might be a bit more (or, perhaps no more at all).  Thanks.
>>>>
>>>
>>> There is an older article by Otto Stein:
>>> Stein, Otto: The numeral 18, in: Poona Orientalist 1 (1936), p. 1-37  and
>>> a short sequel, Stein, Otto: Additional notes on the numeral 18,  in: Poona
>>> Orientalist 2 (1937), p. 164-165 (both repr. in Otto  Stein: Kleine
>>> Schriften / ed. by Friedrich Wilhelm. - Stuttgart :  Steiner, 1985, pp. 515
>>> seqq.).
>>>
>>> Hope it helps
>>> Peter Wyzlic
>>>
>>> --
>>> Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften
>>> Bibliothek
>>> Universität Bonn
>>> Regina-Pacis-Weg 7
>>> 53113 Bonn
>>>
>>
>> ----- End message from pwyzlic at UNI-BONN.DE -----

----- End message from john.bussanich at gmail.com -----



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