lives one hundred years of such days, and it marks the duration of a
world which comes into being at its commencement and is annihilated at
its end. It consists of 4320 times a million years and is divided into
fourteen smaller periods called manvantaras each presided over by a
superhuman being called Manu[726]. A manvantara contains about
seventy-one mahayugas and each mahayuga is what men call the four ages
of the world[727]. Geography and astronomy show similar precision. The
Earth is the lowest of seven spheres or worlds, and beneath it are a
series of hells[728]. The three upper spheres last for a hundred Kalpas
but are still material, though less gross than those below. The whole
system of worlds is encompassed above and below by the shell of the egg
of Brahma. Round this again are envelopes of water, fire, air, ether,
mind and finally the infinite Pradhana or cause of all existing things.
The earth consists of seven land-masses, divided and surrounded by seven
seas. In the centre of the central land-mass rises Mount Meru, nearly a
million miles high and bearing on its peaks the cities of Brahma and
other gods.

The cosmography of the Buddhists is even more luxuriant, for it regards
the universe as consisting of innumerable spheres (cakkavalas), each of
which might seem to a narrower imagination a universe in itself, since
it has its own earth, heavenly bodies, paradises and hells. A sphere is
divided into three regions, the lowest of which is the region of desire.
This consists of eleven divisions which, beginning from the lowest, are
the hells, and the worlds of animals, Pretas (hungry ghosts), Asuras
(Titans)[729] and men. This last, which we inhabit, consists of a vast
circular plain largely covered with water. In the centre of it is Mount
Meru, and it is surrounded by a wall. Above it rise six devalokas, or
heavens of the inferior gods. Above the realms of desire there follow
sixteen worlds in which there is form but no desire. All are states of
bliss one higher than the other and all are attained by the exercise of
meditation. Above these again come four formless worlds, in which there
is neither desire nor form. They correspond to the four stages of Arupa
trances and in them the gross and evil elements of existence are reduced
to a minimum, but still they are not permanent and cannot be regarded as
final salvation. We naturally think of this series of worlds as so many
storeys rising one above the other and