Tattvartha Sutra

Author(s): Umaswati, Umaswami, Manu Doshi
Publisher: Shrutratnakar Ahmedabad

Page 65

MADHYALOK JAIN CONCEPT OF GEOGRAPHY
yäh
Parasparodiritaduhkhäh
3.4:
3.5: Sanklishtäsurodiritduhkhäshcha Präk Chaturth
51
3.6: Teshwekatrisaptadashasaptadashadwävinshatitrayastrinshatsägaropamäh Satvänäm Parä Sthitih
(The infernal beings live there. They are always infested with increasingly unwholesome Leshyä (aura), poor metabolism, ugly bodies, horrible experience and appalling shapes. They inflict pain on one another. Those in the first three levels are tortured by the evil-minded Bhavanpati beings. The maximum life span of infernal beings is one Sägaropam in the first level, three in the second, seven in the third, ten in the fourth, seventeen in the fifth, twenty-two in the sixth and thirty-three Sägaropams in the seventh level.)
These five sutras describe the conditions prevailing in infernal abodes. They are very unwholesome, morbid and painful. The ghastly and sordid conditions prevailing in those areas go on increasing from the first to the seventh level. Those living there are termed as Närakä (infernal beings). They inflict pain on one another. Moreover, demonic beings known as Bhavanapati (mansion-dwellers) come to the first three levels and inflict terrible pain to those inhabiting there. The infernal beings have very long life ranging from one to thirty-three Sägaropams (ocean measured time) and they undergo intense and continuous pain for the entire lifespan. In order to avert the misery and pain, they try to end their lives; but their protean bodies cannot be destroyed before the scheduled end of their lifetime.
Jainism conceives of time and space, which cannot be