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Introduction
As the hymns published in this volume address themselves to Tīrthankaras, and contain allusion to not generally known ideas connected with the latter and with their background, a few of the main features which Jaina Hagiography teaches about them, are memorized below.
It must be remembered that according to Jaina Cosmography, the world of human beings', situated between the worlds of the gods on top, and the hells below, forms the centre of a pattern of ring-shaped islands, alternating with oceans, of steadily increasing circumference, which are concentrically arranged around the diskshaped 'Jambūdvipa'. The ocean immediately surrounding the latter is 'Lavanoda', the 'Salt-sea'. Next comes the ring-island of 'Dhātaki-Khanda', which the ‘Kāloda' or 'Black Sea' surrounds. Then follows the island-world of 'Puskarawara-dvīpa', and the further countless ring-oceans and ring-worlds, upto 'Svayambhūramaņa-samudra', the outermost and therefore largest of the oceans, which is alluded to in the Muni-suvrata-stavana published below (st. 21 ) as 'carama-jaladhi', and in the Sīmandhara-stavana ( st. 2) as 'carama-sāyara'. The latter is immediately adjacent to the ‘Aloka', and thus forms the end of the world in the horizontal dimensions.
Human beings inhabit only the central 'Two-and-a-halfworlds', viz., 'Jambū-dvīpa', 'Dhātaki-khanda', and the inner portion of 'Puşkaravara-dvīpa', demarcated by an insurmountable ring-shaped mountain-range, the ‘Mānuşottara-parvata', which divides this island into two concentric parts. The Tirthamālācaityavandana published below, mentions this mountain-range as containing places of pilgrimage ( st. 3).
'Jambū-dvīpa', the central island of the 'Manusya-loka', is
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