Bhavanavāsī and Vyantara
Two classes of god who live inside the upper layers of the first hell-earth, not in the heavens at all.
The Bhavanavāsī, the mansion-dwellers, occupy 7,72,00,000 palaces in the jewelled and muddy layers of Ratnaprabhā. They come in ten kinds, all called kumāra, youths: Asura, Nāga, Vidyut, Suparṇa, Agni, Vāta, Stanita, Udadhi, Dvīpa and Dik.
The Vyantara, the intermediate ones, live scattered anywhere in the lower and middle worlds rather than in a fixed tier. Śvetāmbara texts count sixteen kinds: the eight Vyantara proper (Piśāca, Bhūta, Yakṣa, Rākṣasa, Kinnara, Kiṃpuruṣa, Mahoraga and Gandharva) and eight Vāṇavyantara alongside them (Aṇapaṇṇī, Paṇapaṇṇī, Isivāī, Bhūyavāī, Kaṇḍiya, Mahākaṇḍiya, Kohaṇḍa and Payaga). These are the beings of ordinary Indian folklore, placed on the cosmological map.
Those sixteen kinds are why the Śvetāmbara census of Indras comes to sixty-four. Each class of Bhavanavāsī and each class of Vyantara has two Indras, giving 20 and 32; the Jyotiṣka contribute 2, and the twelve kalpas of Ūrdhva Loka contribute only 10, because the top four share in pairs. See The Śvetāmbara reckoning.
Both are gods, both are unliberated, and both rank below every tier of Ūrdhva Loka. Height in this cosmos tracks detachment, and these two classes are the least detached gods there are.
The third low class, the Jyotiṣka, are the suns, moons and stars circling above the flat earth.
માપ અને સંખ્યાઓ
| Bhavanavāsī kinds | 10 |
|---|---|
| Bhavanavāsī palaces | 7,72,00,000 |
| Vyantara kinds | 16 · 8 Vyantara, 8 Vāṇavyantara |
| Their Indras | 20 and 32 |
| Where | upper layers of Ratnaprabhā |
| Longest life | a little over 1 sāgaropama |
| Liberated? | no |