Description of the Vidyadhara World

Next morning Shrenika rides an elephant to the Samavasarana, circles the Lord three times and asks Gautama Ganadhara to remove his doubts about Rama’s story, which people tell in other ways.

Gautama answers that Ravana was not a Rakshasa but a human, no eater of flesh but a lord of the Vidyadharas (humans possessing magical sciences) born in King Vinami’s line, and that Sugriva and the others were great Vidyadhara kings, not monkeys; but as a temple needs a foundation, he will first describe space and time.

The three worlds stand within endless empty space, girdled by three wind-belts; in the middle world of countless continents and oceans lies Jambudvipa, one lakh yojanas across and ringed by the Salt Ocean, with Mount Sumeru at its centre, 99,000 yojanas high with 1,000 more below ground, 10,000 wide at the base and 1,000 at the top, its 40-yojana crest just a hair’s breadth below the vimana of the first heaven.

Jambudvipa holds the Devakuru and Uttarakuru lands of enjoyment, seven regions divided by six Kulachala ranges, the Jambu and Shalmali trees, fourteen great rivers headed by the Ganga, and 34 Vijayardha mountains, each with 110 Vidyadhara cities and two caves, with natural, uncreated Jina temples on its mountains and trees. Around it lie four islands with Jina temples: the Rakshasa island to the south, the Gandharva island north of Airavata, the Varuna island east of eastern Videha and the Kinnara island west of western Videha.

Time turns like a water-wheel: each kalpa has a descending half (avasarpini) and an ascending half (utsarpini), each of six ages running from ‘very happy’ to ‘very miserable’ and back; the change happens only in Bharata and Airavata, while Videha always has the fourth age, the heavens and the highest bhogabhumi the first, and the hells the sixth.

In the first age people are three kos tall and live three palyas (an immense span of time), born and dying as couples who then go to heaven; ten kinds of wish-fulfilling trees, neither plants nor made by gods but formed of earth, supply everything, rivers flow with milk and ghee, lions do not kill, and the glow of the Jyotiranga trees hides the sun and moon.

Asked why souls are born there, Gautama says that simple-hearted people who give food to munis are born in the bhogabhumi, as seed in good soil multiplies, while those who give with craving go to the lower lands as misshapen humans or animals; he lists the four gifts (food, medicine, knowledge and fearlessness) and the kinds of giving, to worthy recipients, to equals, out of compassion, and the total gift of renouncing everything.

When an eighth of a palya of the third age remained, the fourteen Kulakaras (patriarchs) arose: Pratishruti, Sanmati, Kshemankara, Kshemandhara, Simankara, Simandhara, Vimalavahana, Chakshushman, Yashasvi, Abhichandra, Chandrabha, Marudeva, Prasenajit and Nabhiraja. When the trees’ glow dimmed and people feared the newly visible sun and moon, the Kulakaras explained that the age of enjoyment was over and the karmabhumi (age of work) had begun.

In Nabhiraja’s time all the wish-fulfilling trees vanished and twin births ceased; six months before the Lord’s descent, 56 kumaris (celestial maidens) led by Shri, Hri, Dhriti, Kirti, Buddhi and Lakshmi began serving Queen Marudevi, and Kubera rained jewels for fifteen months, so the gods hailed the Lord as Hiranyagarbha.

In the last watch of a night Marudevi saw sixteen dreams: a white elephant, a bull, a lion, Lakshmi bathed by elephants, two garlands, the sun, the moon, a pair of fish, golden pitchers, a lotus lake, the ocean, a jewelled throne, a celestial vimana, Dharanendra’s palace, a heap of jewels and a smokeless fire; Nabhiraja told her she would bear the Lord of the three worlds.

After nine months and seven days Rishabhadeva was born in Ayodhya, a city built by Kubera; Shachi brought the infant out, leaving an illusory child with the mother, Indra made a thousand eyes to behold him, the Ishana Indra held the umbrella and Sanatkumara and Mahendra waved chowries, and on the Pandukashila of Mount Sumeru the gods bathed him with 1,008 great pitchers of Milk Ocean water, after which Indra danced the tandava in Ayodhya.

His parents named him Rishabha; Indra placed nectar in his thumb and appointed young gods as his playmates. When the wish-trees were gone and sugarcane juice no longer stilled hunger, the people went to Nabhiraja, who led them to Rishabha; knowing the ways of Videha by avadhi jnana (clairvoyance), he had Indra build towns and villages and founded the Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra varnas, and the people joyfully hailed him as Kritayuga.

Rishabha had two queens: Nanda bore Bharata and ninety-nine more sons and a daughter, Brahmi, and Sunanda bore Bahubali and a daughter, Sundari; he spent 20 lakh purvas as a prince and 63 lakh purvas as king, 83 lakh purvas in all as a householder.

When the apsara Nilanjana died while dancing in his court, Rishabha turned from the world; the Laukantika gods praised his resolve, the gods carried him in the palanquin Sudarshana to the Tilaka garden, and there he took leave of his family, plucked out his hair, which Indra laid in the Milk Ocean, and became a muni, standing in kayotsarga (motionless meditation) for six months.

Four thousand kings, Kachchha and Mahakachchha among them, had become monks out of devotion alone, but hunger and thirst broke them; ignoring a warning voice from the sky they ate fruit, plunged into cool water and put on bark or cloth, yet dared not go home for fear of King Bharata, while the proud Marichi, Bharata’s son and Rishabha’s grandson, put on red robes and began preaching the path of the parivrajaka (wandering ascetic).

Nami and Vinami, sons of Kachchha and Mahakachchha, fell at the Lord’s feet begging for a kingdom such as the others had received; Dharanendra’s throne trembled, and he came and gave them the Vijayardha mountain, 25 yojanas high and 50 wide, whose two terraces (shrenis) hold 50 Vidyadhara cities in the south, chief among them Rathanupura, and 60 in the north, chief among them Alakavati, with nine peaks, the first of them the Siddhakuta bearing an uncreated temple.

The Vidyadhara cities shine like heaven, with golden walls, deep moats, gardens, step-wells with jewelled stairs, cows like the wish-granting Kamadhenu and endless festivals; their women rival goddesses, and the men, brave as lions and masters of great vidyas (magical sciences), fly in vimanas with their queens wherever they wish across the two and a half continents of the human world.