Hasta (Measure)
Hasta, “the hand; the cubit”
Grammar: masculine noun, “the hand”; as a measure, the length of the forearm and hand, the cubit.
Meaning: the cubit, the measure of length by which temples, mūrtis, liṅgas, maṇḍapas, altars and land are measured. A house is measured by the hasta of its own master.
In the scriptures: the Agni Purāṇa measures in hastas the things of the temple and the rite.
The temple and the city. Before building, a pit one hasta wide and four aṅgulas deep is dug in the middle of the site, smeared, and the pūjā begun with meditation on four-armed Śrī Mahāvishṇu (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 40). If the temple is built of stone, stones are laid in the foundation instead of bricks, each stone one hasta long (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 41). If the mūrti of the devatā is five hastas tall, its pīṭhikā (pedestal) is one hasta (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 42). The streets of a city are wide, and its gate is six hastas wide, so that elephants and others may enter and leave with ease (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 106).
The liṅga. In a liṅga-stone of one hasta, the depth and width of the lines of its marks are, of nine parts, eight. From a Śiva-liṅga of one and a half or two hastas up to a liṅga of nine hastas, the lines increase by one eighth step by step, so that in a liṅga of nine hastas they are eight yavas deep and wide (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 96).
Maṇḍapas and the house. Bhagavān Śiva tells Skanda the maṇḍapas for yajñas: a maṇḍapa thirty hastas long and twenty-eight wide is the abode of Śiva; reducing each by eleven, a maṇḍapa nineteen hastas long and seventeen wide is called Śiva; a maṇḍapa twenty-two hastas long is called Sāvitra. The length and width of a house are measured by the hasta of the master of the house; that measure multiplied by three and divided by eight gives, by its remainder, the āyas from Dhvaja to Kāka (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 105).
Altars, posts and gifts. For the homa in the pratishṭhā of Vāsudeva, a square vedi of sand is made, one and a half hastas in extent (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 60). At the consecration of a water-body the yūpa (post) is ten hastas for a well, fifteen for a step-well, twenty for a lotus pond and twenty-five for a tank (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 64). For the gift of the guḍa-dhenu, a black antelope skin four hastas in size is laid on darbha, its neck to the east, and a smaller one for the calf (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 210). Land measured by rods of ten up to thirty hastas is a nivartana; ten nivartanas make a gocarma, and one who gives that much land destroys all his pāpas (Agni Purāṇa, Chapter 211).
Related terms: Aṅgula · Kara · Yava · Daṇḍa · Nivartana · Māna
Other meanings
Hasta has more than one meaning in the Purāṇas and Itihāsas. Besides the meaning above, it names those listed here, each with where it is told.
- Hastā, the nakshatra: The same word, as Hastā (also written Hasta), is one of the twenty-seven nakshatras, named often in the muhūrta rules of the Agni Purāṇa. It has its own Śabdakośa page, Hastā (Nakshatra). Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 121, 126, 128, 130, 136, 154, 165, 195, 282, 294
Sources
- Agni Purāṇa, Chapters 40–42, 60, 64, 96, 105–106, 121, 126, 128, 130, 136, 154, 165, 195, 210–211, 282, 294