Varṣa
Twelve months. The last unit small enough to have a human meaning, and the base of everything above.
From here the ladder stops adding by sevens and thirties and starts multiplying by 84 lakh at every step. The next rung, the pūrvāṅga, is 84,00,000 years, and the one after that, the pūrva, is 84,00,000 pūrvāṅga.
Everything a human being can picture ends at this line. Recorded history is a few thousand years, our species a few hundred thousand, the earth four and a half billion, the universe under fourteen billion. All of that sits below the first rung of what follows.
Measurements and counts
| Size | 12 months |
|---|---|
| Next unit | pūrvāṅga — 84,00,000 years |
| Step from here | × 84,00,000 |
| Age of the universe | ≈ 1.38 × 10¹⁰ years |
| Recorded history | ≈ 5,000 years |
Connected
Māsa
Two pakṣa of fifteen days each.
Jain reckoning is lunisolar, and the eight-day festival of Paryuṣaṇ and the fortnightly Pakkhī pratikramaṇa both sit on this cycle. Twelve months make one year.
| Size | 2 pakṣa · 30 days |
|---|---|
| Per year | 12 |
| Pakṣa | 15 days |