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6: Śramaṇa, Vol 62, No. 1 January-March 2011
gods bring every new born Jina to bathe and celebrate him.
The Major Area Videha does not go through the six spokes as in Bharata and Airavata. In fact time stands still, qualitatively speaking, in the sense that it remains in the unhappy-happy spoke always. Time still exists, people are born and die, but the quality of life remains in a stable mix of happiness and unhappiness. All the remaining Major Areas remain in spokes of pleasures and are therefore known as enjoyment lands (bhoga-bhūmis). This is also the case in the central part of Videha, but the rest of Videha remains in the fourth spoke in a declining series (avasarpiņi). Since it always remains in the fourth spoke it is a land where moral choices or "actions" are possible (karma-bhūmi). This is also true for Bharata and Airavata when they are in the third and fourth spoke as well.
This means that although salvation in Bharata is put on an 81,500 year long hold, salvation is always possible in Videha and there are always living Jinas there who preach the true doctrine of Jainism. So far we have only discussed the first island Jambudvipa, but there are still one-and-a-half islands on which humans are born. Each of them also has Bharata, Airavata and Videha areas, but unlike Jambudvipa which only has one each of these Major Areas, these two next islands have two of each. Hence there are in total five Bharatas, five Airavatas and five Videhas in which humans live. While the Videhas always have living Jinas on them, the Bharatas and Airavatas will each have twenty-four Jinas during one series of six spokes. At a Jaina Digambara pilgrimage site close to Moradabad known as Ahikṣetra-the place where Pārsvanatha is said to have had his epic encounter with Kamatha. The five Bharatas and Airavatas are in fact displayed in the form of five huge lotus-shaped sculptures showing the twenty-four Jinas of the past, present and future series of the six spokes in all ten areas.
Although humans can only inhabit the first two-and-a-half islands, Jaina texts mention the first thirteen islands. The reason why these thirteen are mentioned is that this is where we find the 458 Natural Jina Temples (akṛtrima jinacaityālaya). These are temples that have
