________________
Avasarpiņi.
272
JAINA MYTHOLOGY
ing tortures, such as having millions of red-hot needles thrust into them, and know that their pain is unending. So many jīva are condemned to Nigoda that there is an endless procession of them passing thither like a long, long train of black ants, of which we can see neither the end nor the beginning.
To return to our diagram, the waist of the figure is our world, Tiryakloka, which is made up of two-and-a-half islands, each containing a secret district called Mahāvideha, whose inhabitants alone can attain mokşa; above comes Svarga or Urdhvaloka, where the gods of the upper world live; the breast of the figure represents Devaloka; the neck Graiveyika; and the face Anuttaravimāna, all of whose gods we have studied; while the crown of the figure is Mokṣa, where dwell those jiva who, after being born as men, have at length attained deliverance.
Faina Divisions of Time.
In common with so many oriental faiths the Jaina think of time as a wheel which rotates ceaselessly downwards and upwards-the falling of the wheel being known as Avasarpini and the rising as Utsarpini. The former is under the influence of a bad serpent, and the latter of a good one.
Avasarpiņi, the era in which we are now living, began with a period known as Suṣama Suṣama, the happiest time of all, which lasted for four crores of crores of sāgaropama,1
1 Jaina technical words for time:
Samaya, the smallest unit of time. Countless samaya pass whilst one is winking an eye, tearing a rotten piece of cloth, snapping the finger, or whilst the spear of a young man is piercing a lotus leaf.
Avalika, the next smallest division of time, is made up of innumerable divisions of samaya.
Then comes Muhurta, which is composed of 16,777,216 avalika and is equivalent to forty-eight minutes of English time.
Ahoratra consists of thirty muhurta, or a night and a day.
After Ahoratra the Jaina count like Hindus by fortnights, months, and years, till they come to Palya, composed of countless years, and Sagaropama, which consist of one hundred millions of palya multiplied by one hundred millions.
