Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/91

Rh own, which is the first—of immense tracts of space, bestudded with glorious luminaries and habitations of the Gods, rising, not unlike the rings of Saturn, one above the other, as so many concentric zones or belts of almost immeasurable extent.

“Of the seven inferior worlds which dip beneath our earth in a regular descending series, it is needless to say more than that they are destined to be the abodes of all manner of wicked and loathsome creatures.

“Our own earth, the first of the ascending series of worlds, is declared to be ‘circular or flat, like the flower of the water-lily, in which the petals project beyond each other.’ Its habitable portion consists of seven circular islands or continents, each surrounded by a different ocean. The central or metropolitan island, destined to be the abode of man, is named Jamba Dwip, around which rolls the sea of salt water; next follows the second circular island, and around it the sea of sugar-cane juice; then the third, and around it the sea of spirituous liquors; then the fourth, and around it the sea of clarified butter; then the fifth, and around it the sea of sour curds; then the sixth, and around it the sea of milk; then the seventh and last, and around it the sea of sweet water. Beyond this last ocean is an uninhabited country of pure gold, so prodigious in extent that it equals all the islands, with their accompanying oceans, in magnitude. It is begirt with a bounding wall of stupendous mountains, which inclose within their bosom realms of everlasting darkness.

“The central island, the destined habitation of the human race, is several hundred thousand miles in diameter, and the sea that surrounds it is of the same breadth. The second island is double the diameter of the first, and so is the sea that surrounds it. And each of the remaining islands and seas, in succession, is double the breadth of its immediate predecessor; so that the diameter of the whole earth amounts to several hundred thousand millions of miles—occupying a portion of space of manifold larger dimensions than that which actually intervenes between the earth and the sun! Yea, far beyond this; for, if we could form a conception of a