Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c6.s2.1

c6.s2.1

We have referred above to the conflicting Puranic conceptions about the earth consisting of four or seven island continents. Of the two ideas, the four-continent theory seems to be earlier. In the first place, the number four associating the continents with the four directions (viz. east, west, south and north) is natural, while seven, as we know, was a conventional number favoured by the people.¹⁴ Secondly, as we shall see below, the Buddhists conceived of the great mountain at the centre of the four-continent earth as having seven concentric circles of rock around it, and these appear to have later developed into the Puranic theory of seven concentric island continents. Thirdly, the early Pali works of the Buddhists alluding to the four-continent earth appear to be earlier than the sections on geography and cosmography in the Purāṇas which were mostly finalised about the 4th century A.D.¹⁵ The earliest mention of the seven-continent theory is, however, found in Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya which was originally composed in the second century B. C., though the work as we have it now appears to contain later additions.¹⁶