cakravāla (Sanskrit; Pāli, cakkavāḷa). Term found in late canonical (e.g. the Buddhavaṃsa and Apadāna) and post-canonical Indian Buddhist cosmology denoting a ‘world system’ or inhabited universe. It was thought that the cosmos contained a vast number of these identically structured systems.

A Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 2003, 2004 (which is available in electronic version from answer.com)