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The Enduring Significance of Jaina Cosmography
According to Jaina cosmography a cycle of six degenerating spokes (avasarpiņi) will be followed by six new spokes in which the conditions will gradually increase in quality and go through the six spokes in the reversed order (utsarpiņi): from unhappy-unhappy and all the way up to happy-happy. Shortly after the last Jina of Bharata, Mahāvīra, reached mokṣa, that is final liberation at the time his physical body expired, we entered the fifth spoke and hence the last to reach liberation in our series of six spokes (avasarpiņi) was a disciple of Mahāvīra named Jambū. This means that liberation is in fact impossible at this moment of time in our world. The fifth and sixth spokes each last 21,000 years. After these 42,000 years have passed we will start on the first spoke of the upward moving series of spokes (utsarpiņi) starting again with unhappy-unhappy, followed by unhappy. This means 42,000 new years until we finally reach a time period in which the conditions are sufficiently balanced between pleasant and unpleasant so that salvation is attainable. Since this is not just a matter of eccentric details known only by a few mendicants and scholars, but actually widely believed and known in the Jaina community, we can conclude with the rather remarkable fact that although Jainism started out as a soteriology, at present it is a religion that actually does not offer any salvation to the individual person in this world, or at best puts it on a 81.500 yearlong hold.
If one wishes to attain the Jaina salvation in India, one must wait 81,500 years, but India is a small part of the Major Area Bharata which again is but one of seven Major Areas in the first island of the two-and-a-half islands on which, humans can be born. These twoand-a-half islands are known as the abode of man (manuṣyaloka). As mentioned, the first island is Jambūdvīpa. The next one-and-ahalf islands are each twice the size of Jambūdvīpa. So far we have learned of Bharata and Airavata, the two Major Areas, which go through the six spokes, but what of the five other Major Areas? There is an enormous strip covering the central area of Jambūdvīpa in the middle of which we have Mt. Meru. This strip is the Major Area known as Videha and Mt. Meru is the mountain to which the
