Modern ionosopheric diagram of the spheres of a world-system.
Cakkavāḷa is a "world-system" because like a wheel (Pali, cakka) it rotates in orderly (albeit "off center," dukkha) spheres. In astronomical terms, it is a solar system. There are countless such systems in the universe (if "universe" is taken in its largest sense of all things). Each world-system has a "human world" and correspondingly lower and higher worlds. Their details may be different, but the existential marks or characteristics (ti-lakkhana) are universal: things there are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and ultimately impersonal.
Each Cakkavāla is twelve hundred three thousand four hundred and fifty (123,450) yojanas in extent and consists of [an] "earth," two hundred and four thousand nahutas of [obscure and debatable quantity of ancient Indian measurement, suffice to say a vast number multiplied by] yojanas ["the distance a yoked ox is able to travel," i.e., seven miles] in volume, surrounded by a region of water four hundred and eight thousand nahutas of yojanas in volume. This rests on air [i.e., is suspended in space], the thickness of which is nine hundred and sixty thousand nahutas of yojanas. In the center of the Cakkavāla is Mount Sineru, one hundred and sixty-eight yojanas in height, half of which is immersed in a great ocean.
Around Sineru are seven mountain ranges, and these mountains are inhabited by the Great Rulers (demigod mahārājas) and their subjects in the first celestial sphere which still intersects with the terrestrial world. Every Cakkavāla has four directions with Four Great Sky Kings (Cattāro Mahārājā) overseeing each quadrant (AA.i.439).
Just as there are heavenly (sky) spheres with spacecraft (vimana), there are terrestrial layers in addition to a great peak as shown.
Each Cakkavāla is twelve hundred three thousand four hundred and fifty (123,450) yojanas in extent and consists of [an] "earth," two hundred and four thousand nahutas of [obscure and debatable quantity of ancient Indian measurement, suffice to say a vast number multiplied by] yojanas ["the distance a yoked ox is able to travel," i.e., seven miles] in volume, surrounded by a region of water four hundred and eight thousand nahutas of yojanas in volume. This rests on air [i.e., is suspended in space], the thickness of which is nine hundred and sixty thousand nahutas of yojanas. In the center of the Cakkavāla is Mount Sineru, one hundred and sixty-eight yojanas in height, half of which is immersed in a great ocean.
Around Sineru are seven mountain ranges, and these mountains are inhabited by the Great Rulers (demigod mahārājas) and their subjects in the first celestial sphere which still intersects with the terrestrial world. Every Cakkavāla has four directions with Four Great Sky Kings (Cattāro Mahārājā) overseeing each quadrant (AA.i.439).
Attempts to distill these details into a map of arcane symbols results in a mandala (arcanology.com)
Within the Cakkavāla is the Himavā mountain, one hundred leagues high, with eighty-four thousand peaks [84,000 should be understood as a stock number meaning "a great deal"]. Surrounding the whole Cakkavāla is the Cakkavālasilā. Belonging to each Cakkavāla is a moon, forty-nine leagues in diameter, a sun of fifty leagues, a Second Heaven (Tāvatimsa-bhavana), the Asura-bhavana (asuras are a kind of "drunken angel" angry about being cast out of Second Heaven), the Avīci-mahā-niraya, and the four great continents (mahādīpas: Jambudīpa, Aparagoyāna, Pubbavideha, and Uttarakuru). And each great continent is surrounded by five-hundred minor land masses (dīpas, "islands").
Between world-systems there exists the Lokantarika-niraya, a desolate "hell" of exile to interstitial space (SA.ii.442f.; DhsA.297f).
Between world-systems there exists the Lokantarika-niraya, a desolate "hell" of exile to interstitial space (SA.ii.442f.; DhsA.297f).
A sun can illuminate only one Cakkavāla [suggesting that the term in fact refers to a "solar system"], whereas the rays of light from a buddha's body can illuminate all of the Cakkavālas in the universe (AA.i.440).
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Ancient depiction from a contemporary non-Buddhist source, a Jain mandala, with a curious mushroom (Amanita muscaria, the mystic's Amrita "ambrosia" or "soma") at the top that opens the third eye to quickly and directly perceive what are normally regarded as merely mythological realms.
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References: Malalasekera, G. P. (1899-1973): Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names. Nachdruck der Ausgabe 1938. Pali Text Society, 1974.
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