Where is Jambudipa?

I realize that there is a general move to pull out of this thread, but if I may address the study on gravitational irregularities on the planet, and specifically Sri Lanka having a particularly low relative gravity.

The OP, IMO (and only IMO), seems to imply that this gravitational anomaly indicates that Jambudvīpa is not only a historical and real location, but that it is Sri Lanka (how the difference in landmass will be explained away has yet to be seen), however, this just establishes quite the opposite, given that it seems that the claim is predicated on Sri Lanka somehow being Jambudvīpa with the dimensions given in traditional Buddhist accounts (which greatly overestimate the size of the planet).

The fact that Sri Lanka has these features means that it is even less likely (if it were ever likely at all) that a great deal of mass is hidden under Sri Lanka or is influencing its gravity in any way. If such were the case we would see a concentration, not a low point.

Furthermore anyone can freely look online and find out why gravity is irregularly distrubuted: earth is not a perfect sphere, high places have “less” gravity (distant from the earth), as well as lastly the density of the rock beneath the crust effects relative gravity. Not “hidden” cosmic mountains or megacontinents.

I agree. However it is best to avoid these discussions if they are felt to be difficult. I do this in similar situations. A button to block these threads from one’s personal view of D&D would be ideal.

With metta

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This thread makes me think of getting into a debate with a disheveled, wild-eyed street preacher who’s going off about the Illuminati and chemtrails and the like. Really think it’s a good idea to take him seriously? Edit: And if you do communicate with that preacher, you give him the facts and move on. You don’t give his ideas serious attention because that only validates them in his mind.

Thread should have been done with the 3rd post and no more attention paid to it.

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From MN 12:

I would plunge into some awe-inspiring grove and dwell there—a grove so awe-inspiring that it would make most of a man’s hairs stand up if he were not freed from lust. When those cold wintry nights came during the ‘eight-days period of snowfall, ’ I would dwell by night in the open and by day in the grove. In the last month of the hot season I would dwell by day in the open and by night in the grove. And there came to me spontaneously this stanza never heard before:

Chilled by night and scorched by day,
Alone in awe-inspiring groves,
Naked, no fire to sit beside,
The sage yet pursues his quest.

…and thinking that mountain ranges recede in height due to attrition is not ‘common sense’. The Himalayan range, for example, is still growing in altitude:

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himalayas:

Today, the Indian plate continues to be driven horizontally at the Tibetan Plateau, which forces the plateau to continue to move upwards. The Indian plate is still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years it will travel about 1,500 km into Asia. About 20 mm per year of the India-Asia convergence is absorbed by thrusting along the Himalaya southern front. This leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year, making them geologically active.

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Yes, but it is said to be pleasant on the day of enlightenment.

That is just one point that does not make sense. There are few other reasons that make India the unlikely place to be the Lord Buddha’s birth palce. Although it fits Sri Lanka quite harmoniously.

It’s growing because of the tectonic plate that pushes one plate against the other. Unlike the Himalayas Sri Lanka is not on a fault line.

Sri Pada would have been a snow-capped mountain given the height it reached.

Why is it difficult?

It just occurred to me that if one wants to be a hardcore literalist then once can say that, well, India used to be an island. Not sure what to do with the 5,000 km high peaks, but even the most stubborn literalists can allow for some poetic license in the suttas.

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Yes, but, I believe the claim being made, extraordinary as it is, is that Sri Lanka, explicitly not India (?), was/is Jambudvīpa.

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Yes, sure, but I am not even considering that claim :slight_smile:

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Well pointed indeed. There are numerous mountain ranges within the once-an-island sub-continent which back 50-70 million years ago would have been as high as the Himalayas. Also, the whole of the ancient island was probably within the tropical weather bands… Hehehe

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Oh no, Himalayas are dwarves in comparison to the mountains described in the Suttas. They are supposed to be literally, 5,000 km, i.e 5,000,000 m high. A coupld of hundred times higher than Mt. Everest will ever be.

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Maybe back then they measured it using the center of the earth as reference!? :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Is Sumeru-derived cosmology even able to accommodate a heliocentric solar-system? Or a spherical world at that?

I ask out of curiosity.

Here’s one attempt at it, link.

I’m not myself terribly persuaded by it, but it at least has the merit of being more faithful to both the texts and known geographical facts than some of the nonsense peddled in this thread.

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Distance to the earth’s core is 6371km. K2 is 2 km tall. Earth’s atmosphere is 480km. Mt. Suneru likely to be mythological that the Buddha referenced as a teaching aid as his followers were familiar with it. If I say Oh my God or God is in heaven, it doesn’t mean I intend it literally.

Thanks for doing the maths

A reference from the Bible. The information here in detail -> here

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Well, I can assure you India was not an island when the Buddha lived.

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This poster thinks that the secret of Jambudvipa being Sri Lanka was forgotten by India for hundreds of years but somehow known to Reverend Malan in 1889. :sweat_smile:

I can find documents from the 1700s calling America by the name of Columbia.

I guess Michael Jackson was born in Colombia.

They’re hiding it from you! George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, they’re all Colombian!

We’re breaking this conspiracy wide open.