Key of Knowledge

SR No.: 006702
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: ZZZ Unknown
Publication Year: 1919
Total Pages: 1204
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 738

THE SIDDHANTA
717
excellent state of perfection. They have no visible form, they consist of life throughout, and they are developed into knowledge and faith, they have crossed the boundary of the Samsara and reached the excellent state of perfection."
It is to be observed that the form of the Lokakasha, as described in the diagram, is necessarily given on the high and unimpeachable authority of the all-knowing Siddha Bhagwâns themselves. Those who have no faith in Their Word need not accept it as correct; but it is essentially a matter of geography which depends more on testimony than logic. For the theologian, the matter is not only not open to dispute, but concluded by authority, since almost all religions describe the Microcosm (the body of man) to be a copy of the Macrocosm (the universe).
The central region, called the madhyaloka, is not to be taken as confined to our world alone. It includes a large number of vast continents' and 'seas,' such as the Jambu-Dvipa, the Lavana Samudra, and the like, lying one after another in an unbroken succession. Modern Orientalists have found it difficult to identify these continents' and ' seas,' and failing to understand the text, have jumped to the conclusion that the Jainas were hopelessly ignorant of geography. The fact, however, seems to be that the text refers to the principal divisions of the universe, and not to our little globe alone, though the latter is also included in the central division called the Jambu-Dvipa.
Below the mndhyaloka are the hells, seven in num. ber which are situated above the nigoda, one on the top of another; and above it sixteen heavens on eight storeys where pain and misery are the least known. Above