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INTRODUCTION
As the hymns published in this volume address themselves to Tirthankaras, and contain allusions 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 disk-shaped “Jambu-dvīņa”. The ocean immediately surrounding the latter is "Lavanoda", the "Salt-sea". Next comes the ring-island of "Dhāṭaki-khaṇḍa”, which the "Kaloda" or "Black Sea" surrounds. Then follows the island-world of “Puşkaravara-dvipa", and the further countless ring-oceans and ring-worlds, up to "Svayambhūramaṇa-samudra", the outermost and therefore largest of the oceans, which is alluded to in the Munisuvrata-stavana published below (st. 21) as "caramajaladhi", and in the Simandhara-stavana (st. 2) as "carama-siyara". The latter is immediately adjacent to the "Aloka", and thus forms the end of the world in the horizontal dimensions.
(1) Tatty. 111, 7 ., Țk, p. 248 m.
