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each other; half the size of the suns and moons of the manuşyaloka; their numbers increasing according to the successive increase in the circumference of the worlds ; with retinues of brilliant planets, constellations, and stars; innumerable, a beautiful bell-shape ; always bounded by the Svayambhūramaņa-ocean, they remain in rows 100,000 yojanas apart.
The Middle World (552–749). In the Middle World there are countless continents and oceans, with auspicious names Jambūdvipa, Lavaņa, etc.; the divisions of each being twice as large as those of the preceding one ; each one surrounding the preceding one like a sheath. The last of these is the great ocean named Svayambhūramaņa.
Description of Meru (554-565). In the interior of Jambūdvipa Meru, golden, round like a sthāla, 28 is buried 1,000 yojanas in the ground at its base, is 99,000 yojanas high, and 10,000 yojanas in diameter at the surface of the earth. At the top it is 1,000 yojanas in diameter. It is in three parts, and its body is divided by the three worlds. Now, the first part of Sumeru, composed of pure earth, stone, diamond, and gravel is 1,000 yojanas high. The second is 63,000 yojanas high, its ground composed of gold, crystal, anka, and silver. The third part is 36,000 yojanas and is composed of slabs of gold. Its gleaming peak is made of cat's eye. Its height is 40 yojanas, its diameter at the base is 12 yojanas, 8 at the middle and 4 at the top.
At the base of Meru is a grove Bhadraśāla resembling
428 554. Sthāla is non-committal, but Meru is considered the shape of a truncated cone.
42° 557. These three divisions are not those made by the three worlds. The first one corresponds to the part in the lower world, but the other two do not correspond to the division of the middle and upper worlds.
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