Ancient Jaina Hymns

Author(s): Charlotte Krause
Publisher: SCIndia Oriental Institute Ujain

Page 14

ANCIENT JAINA HYMNS
Human beings inhabit only the central "Two-and-ahalf-worlds", viz., "Jambu-dvipa", "Dhāṭaki-khanda", and the inner portion of "Puskaravara-dvīpa", demarcated by an insurmountable ring-shaped mountain-range, the "Mānuṣottara-parvata", which divides this island into two concentric parts. The Tirthamälä-caityavandana published below, mentions this mountain-range containing places of pilgrimage (st. 3).
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"Jambu-dvīpa”, the central island of the "Manusyaloka", is traversed, from east to west, by six insurmountable mountain-ranges, which divide it into seven continents, viz., the two segments of "Bharata" and "Airavata" in the south and north respectively, and, between the latter two, following one another from south to north, the five zones of "Haimavata", "Harikṣetra", "Mahāvideha", "Ramyaka-kṣetra", and "Hairanyavata". The central one of these seven continents, Mahāvideha, is the largest. It is diagonally traversed by four insurmountable mountain-ranges, radiating, as it were, from Mt. Meru, the hub of Jambu-dvipa. "Mahavideha" is thus sub-divided into four parts, viz., “Devakuru" and "Uttarakuru" south and north of the Meru, and "Pūrvavideha" and "Aparavideha" in the east and west respectively. Devakuru and Uttarakuru are often grouped together as "the two Kurus", while Pūrvavideha and Aparavideha are referred to as "the two Videhas", or as "Mahāvideha" in the narrower sense. Each of the two "Videhas" is again subdivided into two portions by a huge river named "Sita". Each of those portions has eight provinces, which are known as "Vijayas", and in fact are independent worlds of their own, the boundaries of which are untransgressible for the human beings and animals inhabiting them. The whole of Mahāvideha has thus 32 Vijayas. Such a
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