Book Title: Doctrine of Jainas
Author(s): Walther Shubring, Wolfgang Beurlen
Publisher: Motilal Banarasidas

Previous | Next

Page 253
________________ COSMOGRAPHY 237 and the west of the Mandara. The celestial bodies produce time (T. 4, 15) in a way that its periods—and Viy. 210a gives full particulars of them up to the largest time units-enter simultaneously in the south and in the north, while in the east and in the west they do so I samaya later (anantara-purakkhadamse samayams). Now the duplication of the two princes also involves the duplication of the afore mentioned retinue, and, hence, acc. to Sūrap. 268b we have 56 naksatras, 176 planets, 133, 950 fixed stars over the Jambuddīva. Since, however, each single star completely equals its counterpart in shape and activity (Sūrap. 1970) and since nobody on earth sees a star twice at the same time, the matter is practically of no importance. As was pointed out in $ 21, it may be a assumed that here we have an analogy to doubled dimensions of the continents and ring seas, though outside the Jambuddiva this analogy soon comes to an end. It is true, the Lavana sea still has 4 moons, 4 suns and the corresponding other double numbers, but over Dhāyaikhanda there stand 12, over Kāloya 42, and over Pukkharavara 72, and the remaining stars are multiplied correspondingly (Sūrap. 268 ff). The course of a celestial body circling over sea of course lacks a centre point which on the continents is given by the Mandaras. Over Pukkharoya up to the Kundalavarobhāsa sea there are x stars each of the different kinds, and from Ruyaga on ¿ stars each (Sūrap. 282), but, as was said before, they are fixed and do not wander (cāra-tthrīyā, no gai-raiyā; Sūrap. 278b; Jiv. 345f, more plainly Sūrap 278a), for beyond the Manussa- or Samayakhetta there is (or either for that very reason) no longer any division of time ( § 122). $129. The Upper World (uddha-loga). The upper world begins at an altitude immeasurably high over the stars. There, again separated from each other by intermediate spaces of 2009., its different sections lie one above the other by storics. These interspaces are partly formed by the hulls enveloping the Raya 1. The word "hall”, as alrcady noted by Abhay is not quitc correct. Since all 4 directions are inquestion we are concerned with quadrants 2. For a survey scc KIRFEL, Kosmogr. p 337 ff.

Loading...

Page Navigation
1 ... 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309