The Number 71.428571 in Hindu Cosmology

Zimmer, in his 1962 book, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, speculates that the number 14, used to divide a kalpa into manvantaras, was chosen in an attempt to reconcile a mahayuga chronology with a tradition of flood heroes. Each manvantara was divided by 71 and an unspecified fraction to produce the mahayuga. The purpose of this research was to find this fraction and discover the reason for its use. The repeating cyclic fraction, 1/7, provides a plausible explanation for use of the number 71.428571 (71 and 3/7) in cosmology; for 22/7 as a value forπ and for concepts of time and circle division related to breaths per minute. The discovery of cyclic decimal fractions by Vedic scholars likely contributed to cyclic theories of cosmology and specifically to the concept of infinity in mathematics.