213:3 An account of these Lokas is met with only in a few of the Puráńas, and is not much more detailed in them than in our text. The Váyu is most circumstantial. According to that authority, Mahar, which is so called from a mystical term Maha, is the abode of the Gańadevas, the Yámas and others, who are the regents or rulers of the Kalpa, the Kalpádhikáris they are so designated also in the Kúrma. The Káśí Khańd́a refers the name to Mahas, 'light,' the sphere being invested with radiance. Its inhabitants are also called lords of the Kalpa: but the commentator explains this to denote Bhrigu and the other patriarchs, whose lives endure for a day of Brahmá. The different accounts agree in stating, that when the three lower spheres are consumed by fire, Mahar-loka is deserted by its tenants, who repair to the next sphere, or Jana-loka. Jana-loka, according to the Váyu, is the residence of the Rishis and demigods during the night of Brahmá, and is termed Jana because the patriarchs are the progenitors of mankind. The Káśí Khańd́a agrees with the Vishńu in peopling it with Sanandana and the other ascetic sons of Brahmá, and with Yogis like themselves. These are placed by the Váyu in the Tapo-loka, and they and the other sages, and the demigods, after repeated appearances in the world, become at last Vairájas in the Brahmá or Satya loka. After many divine ages of residence there with Brahmá, they are, along with him, absorbed, at the end of his existence into the indiscrete. The commentator on the Káśí Khańd́a explains Vairája to mean 'relating to, or derived from, Brahmá or Viráj.' The Vairájas are there, as in the Vishńu Puráńa, placed in the Tapo-loka, and are explained to be ascetics, mendicants, anchorets, and penitents, who have completed a course of rigorous austerities. It maybe doubted, however, if the Pauráńiks have very precise notions regarding these spheres and their inhabitants, The Puráńas of a decidedly sectarial character add other and higher worlds to the series. Thus the Kúrma identifies Brahmá-loka with Vishńu-loka, and has a Rudra-loka above it. The Śiva places Vishńu-loka above Brahmá-loka, and Rudra-loka above that. In p. 214 the Káśí Khańd́a as we have, instead of those two, Vaikuntha and Kailása, as the lofty worlds of Vishńu and Śiva; whilst the Brahma Vaivartta has above all a Go-loka, a world or heaven of cows and Krishńa. These are all evidently additions to the original system of seven worlds, in which we have probably some relation to the seven climates of the ancients, the seven stages or degrees of the earth of the Arabs, and the seven heavens of the Mohammedans, if not to the seven Amshaspends of the Parsis. Seven, suggested originally perhaps by the seven planets, seems to have been a favourite number with various nations of antiquity. Amongst the Hindus it was applied to a variety of sacred or mythological objects, which are enumerated in a verse in the Hanumán Nátaka. Ráma is described there as piercing seven palm-trees with an arrow, on which other groups of seven take fright, as the seven steeds of the sun, the seven spheres, Munis, seas, continents, and mothers of the gods.