जै · The Jain Encyclopedia
Section · 39 storeys

The Three Worlds

त्रिलोक

Seven earths below, twenty-six tiers above, and a figure fourteen rajju tall that the two traditions draw round and square.

The vertical universe, storey by storey. The seven earths of hell with their eighty-four lakh cells in forty-nine storeys, Ratnaprabhā in its three layers where two hold gods and only the lowest holds hell, and the three envelopes — dense water, dense wind, thin wind — on which every earth rests. The twelve kalpas with their vimāna counts, the nine Graiveyaka at the neck, the five Anuttara in plan, and Siddhaśilā twelve yojana above them. The whole figure stands up in the round as three bowls, round as the Śvetāmbara texts describe it; the Digambara loka is square in section, and that difference is why one tradition gives its volume as 239 cubic rajju and the other as 343. Follows the Śvetāmbara reckoning throughout.

All of it is also walkable as an interactive atlas of nested maps.

The heavens, tier by tier 24

The seven earths 15

समयं गोयम! मा पमायए

Do not be heedless, Gautama, for even a single samaya.

Uttarādhyayana Sūtra 10