________________ 234 TATTVARTHA SUTRA remaining two could be Chinab and Ravi. The actual flow of Ganga right from its root to the mouth is not in agreement with what the texts specify. That of Sindhu more or less corresponds to what is stated in the texts, except that the texts specify its southward flow in perpendicular direction, while it actually slants westward. It is hard to relate the concept of Mt. Vaitadhya to any existing mountain range. The way it is described, it resembles Vindhya, which virtually stretches from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal and divides the subcontinent into Northern and Southern India. But there is a snag. Jain geography shows Ayodhya to the south of Vaitadhya, while it actually lies fairly north of Vindhya. Since the sizes in the above description are given in Yojans, let us examine that concept. The length of a Yojan is considered to be ranging from 8 to 9.9 miles. Even if we adopt the minimum range of 8 miles, the diameter of Jamboodweep and the altitude of Mountain Meru work out to 800,000 miles. Those sizes are apparently fantastic and we need to explore the possibilities for arriving at more reasonable ones. One possibility is that a Yojan could actually be a smaller unit. That seems plausible in view of several factors. Let us first take the size of Meru. As per given details, the distance of Meru from the extreme south of Bharat Kshetra is 45000 Yojans, which would be equal to 3,60,000 miles. Since moon is about 240,000 miles from the earth, the distance of Meru from Bharat works out to about one and a half times the distance of moon from the earth. Meru being of gold and silver, it must have a shining surface, which can brightly reflect the sunlight. The moon does not have such shining surface and still we can see it by the sunlight reflected from it. How can then Meru with its height of 800,000 Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
