Jambudwip Part 03

SR No.: 005569
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Vardhaman Jain Pedhi
Publisher: Vardhaman Jain Pedhi
Total Pages: 250
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Book_Gujarati
File Size: 6 MB

Page 215

curved north and south.2 The Egyp- earth has the shape of a bowl and tians believed that the earth was rectan- also the heaven does so, the two gular like their country.3
great bowls being facte to face with The cosmic view points most each other 6 Jainas had also a different popular among Japanese intellectuals cosmological school and believed that at the beginning of the Tokugawa regi- the earth was made up of a series me were the Confucian Ten' en-Chihu of flat concentric rings of land masses -ron i.e. the theory that the heaven is surrounded by concentric ocean rings. round and the earth is square. This The eentral island of the earth theory was still upheld by the Japanese was called Jambudvipa or Jambu people even upto the middle of the island and the mount Meru was seventeenth century A.D.4 According placed at its centre.7 The notion to Chinese Cosmology, the earth is of flat earth was closely related with square and the heaven is like a hen's their peculiar theory of 2 suns, 2 egg and the earth in it is like the moons and 2 sets of constelations which yolk.5 Similar notions were prevalent were assumed to move in circles, among Vedic people also. According parallel to the earth's surface round to Rigveda (X. 89) the earth was mount Meru. Jambudvipa is divided regarded as circular like a wheel and into 4 quarters and 4 directions and according to Rigveda (III. 55) the as the Sun should make the day in 2. Asimov, Isaac. “The Universe, succession to the regions south, west revised edition (1971) P. 5 Walker
north and east of Meru the Sun's and company, 720 Fifth Avenue,
diurnal orbit is also divided into 4 New York, N.Y. 10019.
quarters, the same sun making day 3. Vaucouleurs. Gerard De. «Disco. over Bharatavarsa in the southern
very of the Universe" 2nd ed. P. quarter cannot reappear on the follo18 The Macmillan Company, New wing morning as it still has three York. .
5. Jaggi, O.P., "Dawn of Indian 4. Hirose, Hideo, “The European Science Vol. 2 (1969) P. 47Atma
Influence on Japanese Astronomy” Ram and Sons, Delhi-6. Reprint from "Acceptance of
6. Ibid P. 43. Western Cultures in Japan from the sixteenth to the Mid.-Ninetee. 7. Rose, D.M. Sen, S.N., and Sub. nth Century". The Centre for rayappa, B.V. “A concise History East Asian Cultural Studies Tokya of Science In India" (1971) P. 80 (1964) Pp. 61-80.
INSA, New Delhi,