In Jain cosmology, the shape of the earth is described differently from modern scientific understanding. According to Jain scriptures, the "Madhya Loka" (the middle world, where humans live) is shaped like a vast, flat disc, not a globe. This disc-shaped region is called "Jambudvipa," and it is surrounded by concentric oceans and continents. Jain texts do not mention the earth as ever being a globe or changing shape from flat to spherical.

These descriptions are symbolic and are part of Jain philosophical and cosmological concepts, rather than scientific explanations. Therefore, according to Jainism, the earth has always been described as a flat disc, not as a globe.