A yojana (

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

: योजन;

Khmer language Khmer ( ; , Romanization of Khmer#UNGEGN, UNGEGN: ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken natively by the Khmer people. This language is an official language and national language of Cambodia. The language is also widely spoken by Khmer people i ...

: យោជន៍; ; ) is a measure of

distance Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects, points, people, or ideas are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria (e.g. "two co ...

that was used in ancient

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Cambodia Cambodia, officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. It is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east, and has a coastline ...

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

and

Myanmar Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has ...

. Various textual sources from ancient India define Yojana as ranging from 3.5 to 15 km.

Edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE)

Ashoka Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka ( ; , ; – 232 BCE), and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was List of Mauryan emperors, Emperor of Magadha from until #Death, his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynast ...

, in his Major Rock Edict No.13, gives a distance of 600 yojanas between the Maurya empire, and "where the

Yona The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit, were used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. "Yona" and "Yavana" are transliterations of the Greek word for "Ionians" (), who were probably the first Gr ...

king named Antiyoga (is ruling)", identified as King

Antiochus II Theos Antiochus II Theos (, , meaning "Antiochus the God"; 286 – July 246 BC) was a Greek king of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire who reigned from 261 to 246 BC. He succeeded his father Antiochus I Soter in the winter of 262–61 BC. He was th ...

, whose capital was

Babylon Babylon ( ) was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Hillah, Iraq, about south of modern-day Baghdad. Babylon functioned as the main cultural and political centre of the Akkadian-s ...

. A range of estimates, for the length of a yojana, based on the ~2,000 km from Baghdad to

Kandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...

, on the eastern border of the empire, to the ~4,000 km to the Capital at

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

, have been offered by historians.

Yojana in geodesy

Hindu units of length

Units

In Hindu scriptures, Paramāṇu is the fundamental particle and smallest unit of length.

Variations in length

The length of the yojana varied over time and locale, its length has been estimated as: * - 14th-century

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

Paramesvara Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri ( 1380–1460) was a major Indian mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama. He was also an astrologer. Parameshvara was a proponent of ob ...

. * - A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada throughout his translations of the

Bhagavata Purana The ''Bhagavata Purana'' (; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam)'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' () or simply ''Bhagavata (Bhāgavata)'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen major Puranas (''Mahapuranas'') and one ...

. * to - From ''The Ancient Geography of India'', 1871,

Alexander Cunningham Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham (23 January 1814 – 28 November 1893) was a British Army engineer with the Bengal Sappers who later took an interest in the history and archaeology of India. In 1861, he was appointed to the newly crea ...

, estimated by comparison with Chinese units of length. * - 1997, Thompson, from dividing the earths diameter by the yojana circumferences offered In the ''

Surya Siddhanta The ''Surya Siddhanta'' (; ) is a Sanskrit treatise in Indian astronomy dated to 4th to 5th century,Menso Folkerts, Craig G. Fraser, Jeremy John Gray, John L. Berggren, Wilbur R. Knorr (2017)Mathematics Encyclopaedia Britannica, Quote: "(...) i ...

'' and ''

Aryabhatiya ''Aryabhatiya'' (IAST: ') or ''Aryabhatiyam'' ('), a Indian astronomy, Sanskrit astronomical treatise, is the ''Masterpiece, magnum opus'' and only known surviving work of the 5th century Indian mathematics, Indian mathematician Aryabhata. Philos ...

'' (late 4th-century to 5th-century CE)

Edicts of Ashoka (3rd century BCE)

Yojana in geodesy

Hindu units of length

Units

Variations in length

See also

References

Notes

Sources

Further reading