Historical sequence
Himavanta changes shape across two millennia.
Dates do not create a single linear doctrine. They make it possible to see when a physical scroll, commentary, monument, map, mural, or manuscript becomes part of the record.
- 01
A physical Anavatapta witness
The fragmentary Gāndhārī Anavatapta-gāthā on Robert Senior Scroll 14 is the earliest securely dated physical witness in this corpus.
Anavatapta-gāthā - 02
Pāli source layers circulate
The received Samantapāsādikā and Jātaka commentary traditions preserve different kinds of Himavanta, Anotatta, Chaddanta, and narrative geography.
Samantapāsādikā - 03
Chinese Buddhist reconstruction
Translations and learned records produce distinct Kunlun, river, mountain, and animal-direction configurations.
Chinese Buddhist texts - 04
A medieval Sri Lankan water dossier
Sāratthadīpanī gathers a connected Anotatta drainage exposition with explicit dependencies.
Sāratthadīpanī - 05
Angkor builds a sacred-water monument
K. 908 names the Jayataṭāka setting and Rājyaśrī island at Neak Pean.
K. 908 - 06
A Japanese Buddhist world map
Jūkai’s Hōryūji Gotenjiku zu gives the archive a dated East Asian cartographic witness.
Japanese maps - 07
The Thai Traiphum transmission is layered
A Chiang Mai lead, 1778 witness, print transmission, and governing edition complicate the traditional 1345 attribution.
Traibhumikathā - 08
Hotan’s multi-canvas world map
The National Diet Library map demonstrates sustained Japanese remaking of Buddhist cosmography.
Japanese maps - 09
Berlin Traiphum II 650
The Thai folding manuscript becomes a major visual witness, but its full 33-metre object remains untranscribed and public imagery is not reused without permission.
Berlin Traiphum II 650 - 10
Kandyan painted water worlds
Sri Lankan murals preserve object-specific Anotatta forms and directional variation.
Kandyan murals - 11
Kyoto Tenjiku yochizu
A later Japanese map shows continuing visual life for Buddhist sacred geography.
Japanese maps - 12
A public research guide
The site publishes source-bound comparisons rather than a synthetic master map.
Cross-history synthesis