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CHAPTER I
GEOGRAPHY
he country which is now known to us as India was known, to all intents and purposes, to the Buddhists as Jamhudvipa and to the Jains and the Brahmins as Bhāratavarşa (Bharahavāsa). in the Purāņas, Jambudvira is counted as one . if the seven dvīpas or mythical continents into vhich the Earth, as then known or imagined, vas divided. Bhäratavarşa was just one of the nine Vargas or countries constituting the nine main divisions of Jambudvipa. So far as the varsa divisions of Jambudvīpa are concerned, the Jaina description of Jambudvīpa in the Jambudīva-pannatti and other works based upon it, is materially the same as found in the Purāņas. Thus with the Jainas and Brahmin writers Jambudvipa as a continent was thought of as of much wider extension than Jambudvipn as known to the Buddhists. In all earlier and antor Buddhist texts and commentaries Tambudvipa figures as one of the four mahā
vipas or great 'continents with Mt. Sineru Sumeru) in the centre of them. The
natta wpraks of
Matsya Purūna, 11, 85. The Jarbudtr s An Vargas.
