The Tīrthas

Every other map in this atlas is scripture's geometry: Jambūdvīpa's bands in their ratio, the loka in rajju. This one is a coastline, because the kalyāṇaka-bhūmis are not in Mahāvideha; they are in Bharata, in the one part of it that history reaches. Hemacandra names a city of birth and a place of nirvāṇa for each of the twenty-four, and those names are in the descent chapter already. Here they are put on the ground.

The ground is the pilgrimage tradition's. Some identifications are settled by archaeology - Śrāvastī at Sahet-Mahet, Kauśāmbī at Kosam, Rājagṛha at Rajgir. Some are the tradition's alone - Candrapurī at Chandravati, Ratnapurī at Ronahi. And some are argued: three towns claim Kṣatriyakuṇḍa, where Mahāvīra was born. Each entry says which grade it is. Aṣṭāpada has no grade at all: the texts give it no place, and the atlas draws it off the edge of the map rather than at Kailāsa.

Twenty of the twenty-four attained nirvāṇa on one hill, Sammeta Śikhara. The other four each have a place of their own: Aṣṭāpada, Campā, Girnār, Pāvāpurī. Beneath the scriptural sites, four later tīrthas are marked in a different colour - Śatruñjaya, Ranakpur, Dilwara, Shravanabelagola - because they are where the tradition built, not where the texts place an event, and the map should not let the two be confused.