Life in Ancient India as Depicted in the Jain Canons, with Commentaries: An Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey c18.1

c18.1

The Jain point of view of geography is governed by two conditions, mythological and scientific. The first category belongs to the fantastic geography of Jambudvipa which is divided into seven zones bounded by the mountain-ranges from which flow the fourteen great rivers. But it cannot be said even this section is entirely devoid of geographical knowledge as in between the fiction we catch glimpses of certain geographical knowledge which could be checked up. For instance, in the plethora of the rivers which the Jain mythological geography speaks of as flowing from the mountains Himavan, Mahāhimavan, Nisadha, etc., there are some which could be correctly identified, one such river being Sītā described as flowing from the mountain Nila, and according to the fanciful notion of the Jains is supposed to flow to the eastern ocean. The fact, however, is that this Sītā or Si-to as it is known by the Chinese is apparently the same, though apparently Sītā never meets any sea but disappears in the sands of Kashgar. While speaking of the primitive notion of the geographical factors, such as the constitution of earth, mountains, oceans, the great islands, rivers, etc., the Jains were not the only sinners, even the Purāṇas and the Buddhist sources, more than often indulge in ludicrous speculations such as those of the Jains.