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Foreword
Geography or 'Bhoogol', as it is called in Indian languages, is the most contentious and controversial issue between Jain philosophy and modern observations based on ground mapping and space borne
techniques. The same is true for astronomy and cosmology. Geography, astronomy and cosmology were all treated together in the olden days, may be because they were considered to be interrelated and their contents were limited.
The idea behind coining the word 'Bhoogol' itself shows that 'bhoo' (Earth) is 'gol', (round), like a ball. I therefore fail to understand all the controversy about the earth being disc shaped and flat and that is the basis on which the whole edifice of geography and astronomy according to the Jain scriptures has been developed. When the fundamentals are wrong, one has to go on inventing new and erroneous reasons for explaining the observations. And this has, unfortunately developed and labeled as Jain geography. Frankly, there is nothing like Jain, Christian or Hindu geography and modern geography. All geographies should be the same and consistent with observations. Therefore, the word Jain Geography is a misnomer and at the least, it should be called Jain model of Earth's geography. May be we should just treat it as the state of knowledge at the time of its documentation and this is
