CHART ONE
This map shows the Bhū-maṇḍala planetary system as viewed from above. Bhū-maṇḍala is like a lotus, and its seven islands ( dvīpas ) resemble its whorl. In the middle of the central island, Jambūdvīpa, stands Mount Sumeru, a mountain of solid gold. Jambūdvīpa is surrounded by an ocean of salt water, which is surrounded by the next island, Plakṣadvīpa. Each island is thus surrounded by an ocean and then another island.
The outermost island, Puṣkaradvīpa, is divided in two by a great mountain named Mānasottara. The sun orbits on top of this mountain and thus encircles Mount Sumeru. On Mānasottara Mountain, in the four directions, are the residential quarters of four prominent demigods.
Beyond the outermost ocean and a land made of gold stands Lokāloka Mountain, which is extremely high and which blocks the sunlight so that Aloka-varṣa, the land beyond it, is dark and uninhabited.
This map is not drawn to scale. In reality, the innermost island, Jambūdvīpa, is 800,000 miles wide. Each ocean is as broad as the island it surrounds, and each succeeding island is twice as broad as the one before it. The total diameter of the universe is four billion miles. Thus if the entire map were drawn to the same scale as Jambūdvīpa, the distance from the center of the map to its outermost edge would have to be almost half a mile.