Sūrya · the two suns
Jambūdvīpa has two suns, on opposite sides of Meru, each serving the same land on alternate days — day is simply the sun being in sight, and night is the sun gone round the mountain.
Each sun circles Meru once in 60 muhūrtas — two full days — so with two of them, opposite each other, every place still gets its sunrise daily: the sun you saw yesterday is not the one you see today. There is no setting into any horizon; the sun simply travels on around Meru until distance closes it from view, and that closing is what night is.
The sun walks the 184 lanes of its field, shifting one lane each day, out across the shore of Lavaṇa and back in a year. On the innermost lane the day is 18 muhūrtas; on the outermost it is 12; each lane outward costs the day 2/61 of a muhūrta — the lengthening and shortening of days with no tilt and no sphere anywhere.
The sun's vimāna is borne by 16,000 gods in four beast-forms. What is drawn in this atlas as a golden disc is, in the texts, a flying palace of self-luminous crystal with an Indra inside.
Measurements and counts
| Over Jambūdvīpa | 2 |
|---|---|
| Height | 800 yojana |
| One circuit | 60 muhūrtas · 2 days |
| Lanes | 184 |
| Longest day | 18 muhūrtas |
| Shortest day | 12 muhūrtas |
| Bearers | 16,000 |
| In the human world | 132 |