One passage, on the clock
The two journeys the atlas counts in samayas, on one clock: a wandering soul's passage of up to four, and the omniscient's expansion of exactly eight. The first has bends and takes nothing in on them; the second has none and takes nothing in at its middle.
The upper rail is a passage with three bends, the longest there is: four samayas, in the first of which the soul is already on its way, in three of which it is anāhāraka, and at the end of which it is in a new body and eating. Under it the eight: out and back with no bend at all, and without intake in the third, fourth and fifth. The freed soul's one samaya is the tick at the left that both begin from.
Read together they say one thing about samayas: they are not abstractions. A samaya is where a soul can be without a body to feed it, and the texts count exactly how many such samayas each journey has.
Measurements and counts
| The passage | 1 to 4 samayas · bends 0 to 3 |
|---|---|
| The expansion | 8 samayas · no bend |
| Without intake, passage | the bends - 1 to 3 |
| Without intake, expansion | samayas 3, 4, 5 |
| The freed soul | 1 samaya, no bend, and no return |