Loka
Everything that exists sits inside a finite, uncreated space shaped like a standing figure. Outside it is empty space, forever.
Jain cosmology opens with a refusal. Nobody made the universe, nobody maintains it, nobody will wind it up. The loka simply is, and always has been. What moves inside it is the endless traffic of souls between bodies.
Its shape is fixed. Artists draw it as a person standing with feet apart and hands on the waist: broad at the base, pinched at the middle, broad again at the chest, narrow at the crown. Vertically it measures 14 rajju.
Three storeys stack inside. Adho Loka below, Madhya Loka at the waist, Ūrdhva Loka above, and at the very crown Siddhaśilā, where souls that have finished with rebirth come to rest and never move again.
A column one rajju square runs the whole height through the centre: the Trasa-nāḍī. Beings that can move under their own power are found only inside it.
Measurements and counts
| Height | 14 rajju |
|---|---|
| Width at the base | 7 rajju |
| Width at the waist | 1 rajju |
| Widest point above | 5 rajju |
| Volume | 239 cubic rajju (Śvetāmbara) |
| Made by | no one |
| Outside it | aloka — empty space |