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146 Studies in Umāsvāti written in terse Sanskrit is extremely difficult to comprehend, even with the help of his own bhāsya and naturally numerous commentaries have been continuously written on it up to this day. Students of Jainism today have to thus take up the Sabhāsya T.S., as a rule, along with some modern commentaries on it at the very beginning of their Jainological studies.
PINTUITII
Figure 1
Loka portion alone from The Jainendra Siddhānta Kośa, vol. 3, p. 455
It is in these modern commentaries on the T.S. that we find an exposition of the Jaina loka built in the form of World-Man or Cosmic Man, standing with his legs apart and resting his hand on his waist. The same exposition is, however, not found in the earlier ones. Umāsvāti describes the shape of loka in his bhāsya on sūtra III. 6 in the following way. The lower world stands in ākāśa like an upturned earthen bowl, the middle world is in the