The eight terraces
Eight steps cut round the mountain with the staff-jewel, each a yojana above the last, so that no human could climb it. They are the mountain's name.
After the hall was built and the iron guardsmen set at its doors, Bharata cut the mountain itself: eight terraces round it, "impossible for men to cross and a yojana apart". Aṣṭāpada means eight steps, and Hemacandra says the name dates from that day.
A yojana is the atlas's unit throughout, and eight of them stacked is the only height the text allows to be inferred for the mountain. The map prints it as arithmetic, not as a figure: the terraces' widths, and how far the crystal rises above the eighth, are not recorded, and the terraces are drawn at widths chosen for legibility.
The same word names an eight-legged beast in the ladder of strength — a different aṣṭāpada, and the only other place the atlas uses the name.
Measurements and counts
| Terraces | 8 |
|---|---|
| Spacing | 1 yojana |
| Cut with | the staff-jewel, the daṇḍa-ratna |
| Purpose | that no man could climb |
| Widths | not recorded |