Cosmography and Geography in Early Indian Literature c6.s4.57

c6.s4.57

Besides the above 7 concentric island-continents, each surrounded by a sea, which the Jains adapted principally from the Purāṇas and probably also from the Buddhist sources (cf. the reference to Pūrva-Videha), the Jain writers offer details regarding many other similar island-continents. It seems that originally the Jain authors also thought of only seven island-continents,⁹⁵ the number being gradually increased by later writers who gave the numbers and names of the islands differently. Of the seven islands, the names of Jambu and Puṣkara are well known from the Puranic lists while Dhātaki-khaṇḍa is represented in the Purāṇas as a division of the Puṣkara-dvīpa. The names of the last four out of the seven are coined from those of the Puranic lists of the oceans, though Vāruṇivara reminds us also of the name Vāruṇa applied in the Purāṇas to one of the 9 divisions of the Bhārata-varṣa.