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No. II.]
Do Ancient Jain Books Shed any Linght:
43
beings to the south or the lower place and they place the rest of the world to its north, and then the 4th Chapter of the book deals with Vaimanic gods who are shown to be moving in the air without support of the earth.
The first Sutra of the third Chapter runs as follows.
रत्नशर्करा बालुकापंकधूमतमो महातमःप्रभा
quà aangaaısınıafas:acarisa: 1|2||
Ratna Sharkara Valuka panka dhuma tamo Mahātamahprabha Bhoomayo Ghanambuwātākāsha Pratisthah Saptadhodhah 1.
Meaning:-Seven regions of the earth lie one below the other and their names are Ratnaprabha, Sharkarāprabha, Vālukāprabhā, Pankaprabha, Dhumaprabha, Tamoprabha and Mahātamahprabhā. These are surrounded by deep water air and sky.
Now what must have been the location of these regions is to be ascertained. Ratna () in Sanskrit means both a jewel and shining sand and hence Ratnaprabha would mean a region mainly consisting sand, sandy shore of a sea. Along with this the commentary under Sutra 10 of the 4th Chapter of the book must be read which is as under :
रत्नप्रभायाः पंकबहुल भागे असुर कुमाराणां भवनानि खरपृथिवीभागे उपर्यधव एकैकयोजनसहस्रं वर्जयित्वा शेष नवानां कुमाराणामावासाः Ratnaprabhayah Pankabahulbhage Asoorkumarānām Bhawanani Khara Prithivibhage Uparyadhascha ekaika Yojan sahasram Varjayitwa Shesha navānām kumārānāmāvāsāh.
Meaning:-The residences of Asurakumaras are to be found in the part which is watered by (literally which mainly consists of) the mud of Ratnaprabha. The remaining nine kumāras reside on dry earth in low and high lands leaving one thousand Yojanas each.
The tenth Sutra of the fourth Chapter deals with ten kinds of tribes. (Kumāra means a tribe). The first two of which are Asurakumar and Nagakumar and these two are necessary for this article. The Asura tribe mentioned in the Sutra can be identified by the Assyrian people who had a flourishing civilization in olden days in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Above them that is to the north of that territory comes the territory inhabited
