The Earth: Its Kingdoms, Trees, and Seas

Within Jambudvīpa there are sixteen great kingdoms, eighty-four thousand cities, and eight kings, four of them Sons of Heaven. In the east is the kingdom of Jin, whose people are numerous and flourishing; in the south is the kingdom of India, whose land abounds in famous elephants; in the west is the kingdom of Da Qin, whose land is rich in gold and jade; in the north is the kingdom of the Yuezhi, whose land is famed for its fine horses. Among the eighty-four thousand cities there are six thousand four hundred kinds of people, ten thousand kinds of speech, and five hundred and sixty thousand myriad hamlets; six thousand four hundred kinds of fish, four thousand five hundred kinds of birds, two thousand four hundred kinds of beasts, ten thousand kinds of trees, eight thousand kinds of grasses, seven hundred and forty kinds of medicinal herbs, forty-three kinds of fragrances, one hundred and twenty-one kinds of treasures, and seven true treasures. Within the seas there are two thousand five hundred kingdoms; one hundred and eighty live on the five grains, and two thousand three hundred and twenty live on fish and turtles. There are five kings, each ruling five hundred cities: the first, Siri, whose kingdom serves the Buddha alone; the second, Kāla, whose land produces the seven treasures; the third, Bula, whose land produces forty-three kinds of incense and white beryl; the fourth, Jaya, whose land produces long pepper; the fifth, Nabha, whose land produces white pearls and beryl of seven colors. The peoples of these five kingdoms are mostly dark, short, and small, six hundred and fifty thousand li apart from one another; beyond this lies only sea, with no inhabitants, all the way to the Cakravāḍa mountains, one million four hundred thousand li distant. Within this expanse lies Aṅgulimāla's place of killing, east of Śrāvastī — the one place, too, where the Buddha carried out his transformative teaching there.

Kuśinagara lies a thousand li southeast of Kapilavastu. Rājagṛha lies two thousand two hundred li southeast of Kapilavastu. The place of the Buddha's attainment of the path lies two hundred li southeast of Rājagṛha. Vaiśālī lies one thousand eight hundred li east of Kapilavastu, and Āmrapālī's country three li south of Vaiśālī, west of the road. Kauśāmbī lies one thousand two hundred li southwest of Kapilavastu; Campā, one thousand two hundred eighty li east; the land of Nan, three thousand two hundred li east. Śrāvastī lies five hundred li west of Kapilavastu. Vārāṇasī lies nine hundred sixty li west of Kapilavastu, and the place where the Buddha turned the wheel of the Dharma lies twenty li north of Vārāṇasī, at a tree named Fragrant Purity — the very place he subdued Māra. A further Vārāṇasī-country lies one thousand four hundred li south of Śrāvastī, the Ganges flowing southeast between them. Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa has five hundred peaks; the Buddha recited sūtras on the middle peak, and Rājagṛha lies beneath it (Source: Sūtra of the Buddha's Twelve Journeys).

Question: Since Śrāvastī, Kapilavastu, and Vārāṇasī all likewise have kings and royal residences, why is this city alone named "the King's Houses"? Answer: Some say that the king of Magadha once had a son with one head, two faces, and four arms; taking this as an ill omen, the king tore the child's body apart and abandoned it in the wilderness. A rākṣasī named Līlā joined the pieces back together and suckled and raised the child. Grown to great strength, he later conquered every kingdom, took eighteen thousand kings captive, and placed them within these five mountains, ruling all of Jambudvīpa by his might — and so these mountains came to be called Rājagṛha. Others say instead that the city where the king of Magadha had previously dwelt burned down and was rebuilt seven times over, exhausting the people with labor; the king asked his wise men what to do, and one advised him to move. Seeing that these five mountains encircled a space like a city wall, he built his palace within them and dwelt there — and so it was named Rājagṛha.

Others tell it thus: in ancient times, this country had a king named Vasu, who, wearied of the world, went forth from home and trained as a seer. A householder brahmin and several seers who had gone forth debated whether the rites of heaven-sacrifice should include killing animals and eating meat; the householder held that they should, the seers that they should not, and neither could persuade the other. The seers proposed calling on the great king-turned-seer as witness. The householder brahmin went first to Vasu and asked him to support his side the next day. When the seers then asked their question, Vasu answered: "One should kill animals and eat meat — for a creature that dies within the rite of heaven-sacrifice thereby attains rebirth in heaven." The seers cried, "You are gravely mistaken — this is monstrous falsehood," and spat at him, saying, "Let this sinner be destroyed." At once Vasu began to sink into the earth up to his ankles — the very first opening of the gate to grave transgression. The seers said, "Speak the truth, or you will sink further" — but Vasu, reflecting that he was a man of high standing who should not speak two different ways, and that the four Vedas themselves praise the rite of heaven-sacrifice, declared with single-minded resolve, "Killing animals and eating meat in the rite of heaven-sacrifice is no offense" — and at once threw his whole body down into the earth. From that time on, whenever a sheep is killed in the rite of heaven-sacrifice, at the moment the knife descends, it is still said, "Vasu kills you."

Vasu's son, named Vast Chariot, succeeded him as king. He too was wearied of worldly ways but unable to go forth from home, and reflected: "My father went forth and yet was born sinking into the earth — if I govern the realm, I too will commit grave offenses. What then should I do?" A voice from the sky told him: "If, in your travels, you come upon a place difficult to encounter, rare and wonderful, build your dwelling there." Not long after, the king went hunting and, chasing a deer swift as the wind, outran all his officials and attendants, until he saw these five mountains, encircling a steep, secure space, its ground adorned with heavenly flowers and heavenly music sounding within it — a place the like of which he had never seen. "I should make my dwelling here," he thought, and abandoned his former city to dwell among these mountains. From that time onward, each king in succession has resided there — and so it is named Rājagṛha, the City of the King's Houses (Source: Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 3).

There was a wealthy elder named Kalanda, who regretted having given his own garden to the Nirgrantha ascetics, since it meant he could not offer it to the Buddha and the sangha, and he lay awake unable to rest. A great spirit-general named Bànshī, receiving the Buddha's own spiritual command, summoned the yakṣas to drive out the Nirgranthas, saying, "You go about naked and shameless — you should not remain here." They beat the Nirgranthas and dragged away their belongings; the terrified Nirgranthas fled, crying, "What manner of evil men would treat us so?" The spirit-general answered: "The elder Kalanda intends to offer this Bamboo Grove as a monastery for the Buddha — it is the great spirit-general Bànshī who sent us to drive you out." The next day the Nirgranthas came to reproach the elder, who, secretly delighted that his wish was now fulfilled, said to them: "These spirits are violent and full of rage — I fear they will do you harm; better that you leave and seek shelter elsewhere." Resentful, they departed that very day. The elder then built the monastery — quarters, sitting mats, and every adornment complete — and went to invite the Buddha and the sangha, who accepted the offering and dwelt there, teaching and delivering beings, and there was no one who did not rejoice in it (Source: Zhong Ben Qi Sūtra, upper fascicle).

Sudatta said to the Buddha: "The people of Śrāvastī mostly follow false teachings — may the Tathāgata, in his great compassion, visit that city." The Buddha said, "There is no monastery there — how could I go?" Sudatta said, "Your disciple will build one." The World-Honored One consented in silence, and sent Śāriputra to instruct him. Together they surveyed the whole area but found nowhere satisfactory except Prince Jeta's garden, level, lush, and conveniently distant. Sudatta told the prince of his wish; the prince, laughing, said he only jested, but at Sudatta's repeated pressing finally said, "If you can cover the ground entirely with gold, leaving no gap, I will give it to you." Sudatta agreed to whatever price was set, but when the prince claimed he had only been joking, Sudatta insisted a prince should not go back on his word, and they took the matter to court. A deva of the Śuddhāvāsa heaven, transformed into a man, arbitrated that a prince's word, once given, should not be revoked — and so the garden was awarded to Sudatta. He had men bring gold on elephants and spread it over the ground; it very nearly covered the whole eighty qing, with only a small patch left uncovered (the Saṃyukta Āgama says five hundred paces). When Prince Jeta asked whether he now resented the price, Sudatta said no — and the prince, reflecting that the Buddha must be a person of extraordinary virtue for a man to treat such wealth so lightly, told him: "The ground shall be yours; the trees and groves shall be mine — I myself will offer them to the Buddha" (the sūtra adds: "I myself will build the gate-tower, that the Tathāgata may always walk in and out through it"). And so the building began.

When the six heretic teachers heard of this, they demanded of the king that their own followers first contest their arts against the Buddha's śramaṇa, and that the monastery be built only if the śramaṇa won. The king summoned Sudatta and told him so, and Sudatta returned home in soiled clothes, grieving. The next day Śāriputra, robed and bowl in hand, came to Sudatta's house and asked why he was unhappy. Sudatta explained that the six teachers had trained for so long that none could match their arts, and he did not know whether Śāriputra could contend with them. Śāriputra said, "Even if the followers of these six teachers filled the whole of Jambudvīpa as thick as a bamboo grove, they could not move a single hair on my foot — let them contend in whatever they please." Sudatta, overjoyed, bathed and dressed anew, told the king he consented freely, and the king informed the six teachers that the contest was granted.

The six teachers proclaimed that in seven days the contest would take place outside the city. Śrāvastī held eighteen hundred million people, summoned by drum according to the country's own law — a bronze drum gathering eight hundred million, a silver drum fourteen hundred million, and a golden drum bringing everyone without exception. When the seventh day came and the golden drum was struck at the open ground, everyone gathered — the six teachers' followers alone numbered three hundred million. High seats were set up for the king and the six teachers, and Sudatta set one up for Śāriputra. Śāriputra, seated beneath a tree in meditative absorption, reflected: "This assembly has long practiced false views, proud and self-exalting — by what virtue shall I subdue them?" and vowed: "If, through countless kalpas, I have truly been filial to my parents and honored śramaṇas and brāhmaṇas, then the moment I enter this assembly, may the whole gathering bow to me." Seeing the assembly gathered but Śāriputra still absent, the six teachers told the king that Gautama's disciple, knowing he had no skill, was too afraid to come. The king told Sudatta the time had come for the Buddha's disciple to appear.

Sudatta went to Śāriputra and told him the assembly had gathered. Śāriputra rose from his absorption, adjusted his robes, and walked slowly and with dignity, like a lion-king, toward the assembly — and at once the whole crowd and the six teachers rose to their feet, as grass bends before the wind, bowing without even realizing it. Śāriputra ascended the seat Sudatta had prepared. Among the six teachers' followers was a disciple named Raudrākṣa, skilled in illusion, who conjured before the assembly a tree that grew of itself, tall and lush, its shade covering the whole gathering. The crowd credited this to Raudrākṣa — until Śāriputra, by his own power, raised a whirlwind that uprooted the tree and shattered it to dust, and the crowd declared him the victor. Raudrākṣa then conjured a jeweled pool full of flowers; Śāriputra transformed himself into a great six-tusked white elephant, drank up its water, and the pool vanished. Raudrākṣa conjured a jeweled mountain; Śāriputra transformed himself into a vajra-wielding warrior and shattered it to nothing with a single gesture.

Raudrākṣa conjured a ten-headed dragon that rained treasure and shook the earth with thunder; Śāriputra became a garuḍa-king and tore it apart. Raudrākṣa conjured a huge, powerful bull, bellowing and charging; Śāriputra became a lion and devoured it. Raudrākṣa transformed himself into a monstrous yakṣa, fire burning on its head and streaming from its eyes and mouth; Śāriputra transformed into King Vaiśravaṇa, and as the terrified yakṣa fled through fire that had sprung up on every side, it found only the space beside Śāriputra cool and free of flame — it prostrated itself, begged for its life, and the moment shame arose in its heart the fire went out of itself. The crowd proclaimed Śāriputra's victory complete. He then rose into the sky, displayed the four dignified postures, performed eighteen transformations, and returned to his seat; the assembly, seeing his power, rejoiced, and as he expounded the Dharma, each attained the fruits of the path according to his own merit. Three hundred million of the six teachers' own followers went forth to study under Śāriputra.

The elder Sudatta and Śāriputra went to lay out the monastery grounds, each holding one end of the measuring cord, when Śāriputra suddenly smiled. Asked why, he said, "You have only just begun, and already a palace stands ready for you in the six heavens of desire" — and lent Sudatta his own divine eye to see it. Asked which of the six heavens was most joyful, Śāriputra answered that the fourth, where desires are few and a bodhisattva in his final rebirth is always present teaching the Dharma without cease. Sudatta declared, "Then I shall be born in that fourth heaven" — and instantly every other palace vanished, leaving only that one. He took up the cord again, and this time Śāriputra's face grew sorrowful. Asked why, he said: "Do you see these ants in the ground? Under the past Buddha Vipaśyin, you likewise built a monastery for him on this very ground, and these same ants were already living here then — and so it was again under the Buddha Kāśyapa. For ninety-one kalpas they have kept this one form of body."

The monastery was built as a dwelling for the Buddha, its plaster made fragrant with fine sandalwood, with twelve hundred separate rooms and a hundred and twenty summoning-bells. Sudatta asked the king to send an envoy inviting the Buddha, who came from Rājagṛha surrounded by the fourfold assembly, radiating light that shook heaven and earth, liberating beyond number all he passed along the way. As he neared Śrāvastī the whole populace gathered with offerings to welcome him; on arrival his great light illuminated the entire three-thousandfold world, and at the pressure of his toe upon the ground the earth shook, instruments sounded of themselves, and the blind saw, the deaf heard, the mute spoke, and the crippled were made whole. All eighteen hundred million people, witnessing these signs, came rejoicing to the Buddha, who, prescribing the Dharma as a remedy suited to each one's affliction, brought every one of them to the fruits of the path (Source: Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, fascicle 10; the Saṃyukta Āgama, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra, the Zhong Ben Qi Sūtra, and various vinaya texts largely agree).

Mount Kunlun is the very center of Jambudvīpa. The mountain is entirely of precious stone, and around it lie five hundred caves, each of yellow gold, where five hundred arhats constantly dwell. The great pool of Anavatapta encircles the mountain from without, and within it lies level ground with a river running through its midst. On the riverbank stand four golden beast-heads, from whose mouths water flows, circling once before pouring into the four seas; the water from the elephant's mouth is the Yellow River. The pool measures twenty-five yojanas square and twenty-one li deep, and within it stands a golden platform bearing a golden lotus with stems of the seven treasures. The Tathāgata, together with five hundred arhats, expounds the precepts there on the fifteenth day of every month (Source: Sūtra of the Origin of Actions, upper fascicle).

The great earth has ten great mountain-kings: Himavat, the Snow Mountain; Gandhamādana, the Fragrant Mountain; Khadiraka; Ṛṣigiri, the Mountain of Seers; Yugandhara; Aśvakarṇa, the Horse-Ear Mountain; Nimindhara; Cakravāḍa; Sudarśana; and Sumeru, greatest of the ten (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 22).

The Buddha, at Śrāvastī, told the monks there are eight causes by which the earth shakes greatly. This earth, sixty-eight thousand yojanas deep, is upheld by water resting on empty space; when the wind in that space stirs, the water stirs with it, and the earth shakes — the first cause. A monk of mastered supernormal power, regarding the earth as freely as his own palm, can make it shake — the second. Devas of great power can likewise shake it — the third. When a bodhisattva in Tuṣita is about to descend and take rebirth, the earth shakes — the fourth. When a bodhisattva knows himself newly conceived in his mother's womb, it shakes — the fifth. When he knows the ten months are complete and he is about to be born, it shakes — the sixth. When he goes forth, sits at the seat of enlightenment, subdues Māra, and attains perfect awakening, it shakes — the seventh. And when the Tathāgata enters the realm of nirvāṇa without remainder, it shakes an eighth and final time (Source: Ekottarika Āgama, fascicle 24).

In the past there was a Buddha named King of the Lion's Roar and Drum-Sound, whose land was named the Thousand Lights. There, trees made of the seven treasures uttered the sounds of emptiness, signlessness, non-action, non-arising, non-existence, and the absence of any graspable characteristic — the very sound of these dharmas (Source: Sūtra on the Non-Practice of All Dharmas).

There is a divine medicine tree, Mātaṅgī-zhuyan, which holds every poison under heaven in check. A great serpent one hundred and twenty zhang long once went hunting, and met a black-headed insect five zhang long on the road; just as the insect was about to strike, the serpent, catching the medicine tree's scent, turned to flee, but brushed the tree and was cut clean in two — its head-half escaping, its tail-half rotting at once. Every poisonous creature that caught the smell of that rot had its own venom entirely destroyed (Source: Sūtra of Wholesome Faith, latter fascicle).

Atop the Snow Mountain stands the Medicine-King Tree, "Neither Born from a Root Nor Not Born from One," six million eight hundred thousand yojanas across, reaching down to the very stratum of vajra. When its roots sprout, every tree in Jambudvīpa sprouts roots in sympathy; when it puts forth stem, leaf, flower, or fruit, every tree does likewise. Its own root gives rise to a stem, and its stem in turn to a root — hence its name — and it grows everywhere without exception, save within the deep pits of hell and the sphere of water (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 30).

Long ago a king named Wulie ruled a country with a tree named Sopadyāna, five hundred sixty li in girth, its roots spreading eight hundred forty li, its height four thousand li, its branches reaching two thousand li on every side. It bore five kinds of fruit along five sides of its approach: the first for the king and his court's musicians and dancers, the second for ministers and officials, the third for the common people, the fourth for śramaṇas and religious practitioners, and the fifth for birds, insects, and beasts — each fruit the size of a two-dou vessel, sweet as honey, unguarded yet dividing among every group without any one encroaching on another's share. In that age people lived eighty-four thousand years, suffering only nine afflictions — cold, heat, hunger, thirst, the need to relieve oneself, sexual desire, overeating, and old age — and women did not marry until five hundred (Source: Sūtra of Ānanda's Recollections).

Among humankind there is an incense, Great Elephant-Store, born from dragons fighting. A single pellet burned gives off great light beneath a fine cloud, its scent like ambrosia, and for seven days and nights a rain of fragrant water falls; whatever it touches — body, clothing, palace, or tower — turns the color of gold. Any being who smells it knows seven days and nights of joy, is freed of illness and misfortune, and turns wholly toward great compassion for all beings; knowing this, the Buddha expounds the Dharma for them and brings immeasurable beings to non-retrogression (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 42).

Gośīrṣa sandalwood grows on Mount Vimalā, "Free of Defilement." Whoever anoints the body with it cannot be burned by fire (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 42).

South of Sumeru stands a great tree, four thousand li tall, where garuḍas constantly perch without ever disturbing it — yet a single small bird, resembling a quail, makes the tree shake and tremble each time it lands. Asked how so great a body as the garuḍa's leaves it unmoved while so small a bird makes it tremble, the tree-spirit answers: small as it is, this bird once ate a piece of vajra from the ocean floor, and vajra shatters whatever it falls upon — it is this that fills the spirit with such terror (Source: Sūtra of Similes in Ten Fascicles, fascicle 7).

In a government garden at Śrāvastī grew a beautiful poison tree; those who rested beneath it suffered splitting headaches, aching backs, and some even died there. The keeper cut it down again and again with a long axe, but within ten days it always grew back exactly as before, and — because it was so beautiful — no one heeded the warning, and his own relatives, drawn by its shade, lost their lives there in turn, until the keeper stood alone in grief. A wise man finally told him he must destroy the root, not merely the branches; fearing this would mean his own death, he instead went forth to study the path. The Buddha then said:

"Cut down a tree without destroying its root, and though cut, it will grow again;
cut down craving without destroying its root, and again and again suffering will grow anew."

His heart awakened, and, reproaching himself, he at once attained the first fruit of the path (Source: Sūtra on Cutting Down the Poison Tree).

Four great rivers flow from the pool of Anavatapta into the ocean: Gaṅgā, issuing from a golden elephant's mouth, circling the pool once before flowing to the eastern sea; Sindhu, from a silver ox's mouth, to the southern sea; Vakṣu, from a beryl horse's mouth, to the western sea; and Sītā, from a crystal lion's mouth, to the northern sea. Each has four further named tributaries, and in fact five hundred lesser ones apiece — two thousand rivers in all, every one finally reaching the great ocean (Source: [Mahā]vibhāṣā[-śāstra], fascicle 2).

The river flowing west is the Ganges; south, the Yamunā; two flow east, the Śrāvatī and the Aciravatī; and north flows the Mahī. All pour into the sea, which, since heaven and earth began, has never increased or decreased despite the rain and rivers constantly pouring in, each river losing its own name and merging into the single water of the ocean (Source: Sūtra on the Eight Virtues of the Ocean).

The Buddha, traveling in the country of Anupama, sat as always on the fifteenth day to recite the precepts, but remained silent. When Ānanda noted the assembly was seated, the Buddha said there was one among the monks of crooked mind and errant conduct, and that pure and impure could not mix, so he would not speak. Maudgalyāyana, perceiving who it was, seized the man's arm, dragged him out, and told him he had no place among a assembly so pure. The Buddha then told the monks to consider how the great ocean holds eight virtues: its vastness and unfathomable depth, ever deeper the further one enters without obstruction — the first; its tide, never missing its appointed time — the second; that it holds every treasure yet will not tolerate a rotting corpse within it — the third; that it holds every rare gem, and nothing sought within it goes unfound — the fourth; that the world's great rivers, on entering it, all lose their former names and become the one sea — the fifth; that ceaseless rain and river-flow never increase or decrease its waters — the sixth; that it holds fish of towering size, the largest twenty-eight thousand li long — the seventh; and that its water is uniformly salt from edge to center — the eighth (Source: Sūtra on the Eight Virtues of the Ocean).

The bright-moon maṇi jewel is most often found within a dragon's brain, and a sufficiently meritorious being obtains it spontaneously — just as hell spontaneously produces its own instruments of punishment. Also called the wish-fulfilling jewel, it constantly produces treasure, clothing, and food according to whatever is wished, and whoever holds it cannot be harmed by poison or fire. Some say it is a fragment of Śakra's own vajra weapon, shattered during his battle with the asuras and fallen into Jambudvīpa; others say it is the relics of buddhas from ages past, transformed for the world's benefit once their teaching had entirely passed away (Source: Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra, fascicle 59).

Within the great ocean lie four jewels from which every treasure is born; without them, all treasure would gradually vanish. Even the lesser dragon spirits cannot see them, for the dragon-king Sāgara keeps them hidden in a deep treasury named, in its four aspects, the Mass of Accumulated Treasures, the Inexhaustible Treasury, the Far-Blazing, and the Mass of All Adornments (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 30).

Within the great ocean lie four great jewels of blazing light — Sun-Store, Freedom-from-Drought, Fire-Pearl, and Ultimate Remainderless — without which the four continents, the Cakravāḍa mountains, and even the sphere of neither-perception-nor-non-perception would all be submerged. Sun-Store turns the sea's water to curd; Freedom-from-Drought turns that curd to ghee; Fire-Pearl ignites the ghee; and Ultimate Remainderless burns it away entirely, leaving nothing at all (Source: Avataṃsaka Sūtra, fascicle 40).

In Jambudvīpa, Maitreya was asked how much milk a child drinks from birth to age three: one hundred eighty measures, not counting what it consumed in the womb. In Pūrvavideha to the east, a child drinks one thousand eight hundred measures over the same span; in Aparagodānīya to the west, eight hundred eighty. In Uttarakuru to the north, a newborn is simply set at a crossroads, where passersby offer a finger to suck, and within seven days it reaches full maturity — that land has no milk at all, and beings in the intermediate state there subsist on the wind alone. Jambudvīpa's people live a hundred years; Pūrvavideha's, two hundred fifty; Aparagodānīya's, five hundred; Uttarakuru's, a thousand; and intermediate-state beings, seven days. Jambudvīpa's faces are broad above and narrow below; Pūrvavideha's, perfectly round; Aparagodānīya's, narrow above and broad below; Uttarakuru's, perfectly square; and the faces of intermediate-state beings resemble those of Paranirmitavaśavartin Heaven (Source: Sūtra on the Not-Yet-Arisen Beings of the Three Realms).

The northern continent of Uttarakuru measures four hundred thousand li in every direction. It has mountains of every kind, and along its riverbanks grow trees and flowers of every kind; boats of the four treasures float on its waters. A bathing pool named Nandā, its water cool and soft, its bottom sand of gold, is ringed with steps of the four treasures — golden steps with silver railings, silver with gold, beryl with crystal, crystal with beryl. Its lotuses, if broken, weep a sap sweet as honey, their light and fragrance both carrying forty li. Four named rivers flow from its four sides, each lined with flowering trees of the four treasures, and gardens surround it on every side — fragrant trees, robe-trees and jewel-trees yielding clothing and ornaments, and music-trees producing every kind of music, some as tall as seven li, others six, five, four, three, or two.

Throughout this land the trees bend and interlace above the roads, and the people dwell there, men and women each in their own place. Pure, unhusked rice grows of itself without sowing, yielding every flavor. Intimacy begins with nothing more than a glance; the man walks ahead, the woman follows, and they part again after two, three, or up to seven days, with no lasting bond formed. A woman who conceives gives birth after only seven or eight days, and the child, set down at a crossroads, is offered a finger by whoever passes to drink milk from; within seven days, by the power of its own merit, it grows to the full stature of a person of twenty or twenty-five in Jambudvīpa. Water named Anuttara surrounds the land on every side, and in the small hours clouds rise and rain down water of eight flavors as food itself; the ground raises no dust, plants are ever fragrant, and a warm wind sweeps fallen blossoms up to people's knees as they wander the gardens at will, bound to no one. When hungry, people cook the pure rice over a flame-jewel's own light, and once cooked it is shared by all who come from every direction, and is never exhausted.

There is a tree named Xiangdou, its branches interlacing above like a canopy, where the people dwell, men and women apart; their teeth and hair are a lustrous blue-green, eight inches long, their faces all alike, their height all equal, and they live a thousand years. At death they are born among the desire-realm gods, and when that heavenly life ends, they are born into a great and noble household in Jambudvīpa. To relieve themselves, the earth simply opens and closes again beneath them; at death, they are dressed and adorned without weeping and set at a crossroads, where a bird named Yuzhe carries them beyond the borders of this northern land (Source: Lokaprajñapti Sūtra, fascicle 1).