> it looks like the result of a measurement or a calculation rather than a "magic" number
That is because in Sanskrit, numbers are represented in form of "value" "qualifier" "qualifier", "value" "qualifier".. and so on.
For example
"sahasra" means 1000 (can be thousand anything), "sata" means 100, "dasa" means 10, & "varsha" means year (this year, that year, a year, next year, etc)
To quote the famous Ramayana, to represent 11,000 years, it was written in the book as
"dasa varsha shahasrani, dasa varsha sata nicha"
meaning 10 x 1000 years + 10 x 100 years = 11000 years.
One number placed after the other, without any conjunction implied addition.
Elsewhere in the same epic, Rama goes to live in the jungle for
"nava pancha cha varshani"
meaning 9 + 5 years = 14 years, "nava" is 9 and "pancha" is 5
Note : "cha", "nicha" etc are similar to filler words in english
I am no way supporting glorification of past but inventing arguments to discredit the past is equally distasteful to me.
> This looks very much as if the units may have been converted to obtain the desired result. Indeed the different conversion factors but similar result in your second link increase the likelihood that there may cognitive bias involved
> For example, your distance conversions lead to 1 yojan being 29.2608 kilometres. Compare this with Wikipedia's 12–15 km and your second link's 9.09 miles (about 14.5 km)
> Similarly on time, your calculation gives 202,500 nimishas (twinklings of the eye) in a day-night while Wikipedia quotes Manusmṛti to give 486,000 and your second link gives 409,050
> Both references reach the same result by different conversion factors, which implies they're both biased and unreliable.