Page Text
________________
GENERAL OUTLOOK
-The Jain point of vicw of geography is governed by two conditions,
ological and scientific The first category belongs to the fantastic cography of Jambudvipa which is divided into seven zones bounded by
mountain-ranges from which flow the fourteen great rivers. But it annot be said even this section is cntirely devoid of geographical knowNdge as in between the fiction wc catch glimpses of certain gcographical Siowledge which could be checked up For instance, in the plethora of the rivers which the Jain mythological geography speaks of as flowing from the mountains Himavan, Mahīhimavan, Nisadha, etc., there are some Which could be correctly identificd, one such river being Sitā described as flowing from the mountain Nila, and according to the fanciful notion Þf the Jains is supposed to flow to the castern occan The fact, however, to that this Sītā or Si-to as it is known by the Chinese is apparently the Hame, though apparently Sitā nevei meets any sca but disappears in the sands of Kashgar While speaking of the primitive notion of the geographical factors, such as the constitution of earth, mountains, oceans, the great islands, rivers, etc , the Jains were not the only sinners, cven the Purăņas and the Buddhist sources, moie than often indulge in ludicious Apeculations such as those of ihe Jains
It seems that all these sources derived their information from some very remote origins which hasc not yet heen trared It scems that these fantastic geographical explanations were the ducct outcome of man's claim to explain all and sundry though unfortunately his knowledge had not as yet developed to such an extent as to make his statements and explanations accurate from the scientific point of view + The absurd measurcmcnts of the sea, niountains and uivers in the Jain canons readily support our vicw Apparently there was a wish of the early geographers to give the measurcmcnts at lcast of the rivers which they saw very often but as yet theic was no mcans to determine their extent nor had the people yet penetrated to the sources of the majority of them. The result was that sancısul stories were told foi explanation's take and their extent was stictched beyond all cxpectations to thousands and thousands of yojanas . These primitive gcographers actancd certain truc obscivations in their geographical descriptions so far as thcy confined themselves to the visible objects but as soon the question of thc unknown came, their imagination indulged in fanciful flights
But this primitive scography did not last for a very long time and hough it becamc scistic and thus became a cort of conventional gcogi aphy if the Jains for all times, thcic aie cvidence from the Jain canon itself hat the geographical conception developed with umc
This grou th of gcogi aplucal knowledge may be attuluteal to various actors, namely, the growth of trade, including both internal and exterral which afforded an opportunity to the traders and Jain merchants and
| SR No. | 011077 |
| Book Title | Life in Ancient India as Depicted in Jain Canons |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Jagdishchandra Jain |
| Publisher | New Book Company |
| Publication Year | 1947 |
| Total Pages | 429 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 16 MB |