Bharat Kṣetra

Bharat is 526 6⁄19 yojana from north to south, a sliver pressed between the salt ocean and the Himavān range. On a true-scale map you can barely see it.

The mountain Vaitāḍhya runs across the middle from sea to sea, and the rivers Gaṅgā and Sindhu run down through it, cutting the region into six parts. Five of the six are Mleccha khaṇḍas. The sixth — the middle one in the south, on the shore — is the Ārya Khaṇḍa, and it is the only part where the culture, the language and the religion change with the ages.

Bharat is one of only two regions in Jambūdvīpa where time itself turns. The Kāla Cakra runs its ascending and descending halves here, and everything — lifespan, height, harvests, whether a Tīrthaṅkara can be born at all — rises and falls with it.

Right now Bharat is in the fifth spoke of a descending half-cycle. That is why there is no living Tīrthaṅkara here, and why people look toward Mahāvideha Kṣetra, where there always is one.

It is named for Bharata, the first cakravartī of this cycle and the eldest son of Ṛṣabhanātha.