Vedic and 108

Importance of 108 

Vedic astronomers loved the number 108. The reason that number 108 is so popular is because they stated that it occurs regularly in our universe. The Vedic scientists said that the distance of the Sun from the earth is 108x the Sun’s own size.  They also proclaimed that the distance of the Moon from the earth is 108x its own size.  The number of discs from sunrise to sunset is 339 (if you take the arc of the traverse of the sun as it goes from the east to the west across the sky and you put along there a disc of the sun, if you calculate the exact number of discs from sunrise to sunset it is 339.

The Rig Veda has 1017 suktas (339x3).

The Rig Veda has 216 groups (108x2).

We do not know exactly why these numbers are exact or placed in such a way, however because they use these numbers we know to this day that even though it has been thousands of years we have every Sukta and every group in our possession and that none have been lost. Since there was no written or typed document to pass down through the generations, the Ancient Vedic people passed it down by recitation through the populations and to this day various people recite various Sukta groups and Vedic knowledge to pass on through the generations in Sanskrit. Had it been through paper, parchment, wood, stone, surely some of it would have been lost. We know now that the exact number of Sukta's and groups was put down as a multiple of 339 or 108 so that we would know that in perpetuity we had the exact number that the Vedic scholars had passed down. 

They knew that the lunar day is exactly 24 hours and 50 minutes. Subhash Kak wrote a fascinating article about the Vedic people knowing the exact speed of light.   He said that the speed of light was knows by the Vedic people and was described by the Rig Veda to be 2202 yojanas in half a nimesa. Now the Rig Veda is a scholarly treatise that was conceived of thousands of years before the Common Era  To think that knew the exact speed of light to be 186,000 miles/second is astonishing to say the least. However, Subhash Kak makes a very interesting analysis of what a yojana is and what a nimesa is. For details I will refer the reader to Subhash Kak's article However, he describes that a nimesa is 16/75 seconds and yojanas again is a measure of distance. At that time a bow and arrow was a commonly used weapon and one bow or one dahnu equaled 6 feet. 

The Arthashastra is a treatise in the Vedas that talks about weapons and their exact dimensions. In the Arhtashastra a measure of 8000 dahnu is 9 miles. Using various brilliantly  deciphered examples in his article Subhash Kak  determined that the ancient Vedic scholars knew the speed of light to be exactly 186,000 miles/second.