Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

Page 162

The Sophisticated Stage 141 rial and spiritual. The Lokākāśa is composed of two entities or essences called dharma and adharma, the substrata of motion and rest (see above), conceived as the conditions for the presence of all existing beings. It is in this Lokākāśa that our visible universe takes up only a part. According to Vinayavijaya's Lokaprakāśa, the universe looks like a human being standing with feet apart and the arms akimbo. In one such conception the said form is figured as a rotating spindle which rests on the half of another bigger spindle, or as they describe it, three cups, of which the lowest is inverted, and the uppermost meets at its circumference the middle one. In another such conception, the said form is divided into three parts, the upper, middle and lower, the lower universe having the shape of a Vetrāsana (trapezion pyramid), the middle one that of the upper part of a standing mrdanga (a kind of tabor) and the upper one that of a mrdanga. This has been explained as follows: "Three pyramids with rectangular base but with tops chopped off are put one above another, the smaller faces of the lower and middle ones and the bigger faces of the upper and middle ones touching together."'5 In the hip or according to another scheme, at the vibratory place of the spindle, the disc of the earth is placed. Below the earth are the hells and above it are the upper regions.
According to the Jain tradition, the length of the universe varies from point to point, but its height and breadth are respectively 14 and 7 rajjus. The rajju is a linear astrophysical measure which denotes the expanse which the gods traverse in six months, their speed being 2,057, 152 yojanas in one movement! The legs of the humanshaped universe are 7 rajjus, the waist 1 rajju, the upper portion 5 rajjus and the head 1 rajju, and all these measure constitute 14 rajjus, the porposed measure of the height. The entire area of the univ 343 cubic rajjus.? The world from the ground level to the hells below rests on a layer of hard water, which again rests on a layer of thick air and so on, 20,000 yojanas thick. The Svetāmbara and Digambara traditions are not, however, same is regarded to the description
XII. 3.4. 2 Kirfel, KI, p. 210. 'Colebrooke, ME, II, p. 198. *Tiloyapannatti, I, 137-38.
Sircar, CGEIL, p. 46. 'Kirfel, KI, p. 211. 'Dugar, ABS, III, pp. 226ff.