Shri Narayana was telling Narada how the earth came to have its shape, and he began with a king. Priyavrata was the eldest son of Svayambhuva Manu, the first of the Manus, a son who waited on his father and held to truth and to dharma. He married Barhishmati, the lovely daughter of the Prajapati Vishvakarma, a woman his equal in nature and in deed, and by her he had ten sons, virtuous and pure of soul, and after them a daughter, Urjasvati, the youngest of the house. The ten carried names of Agni: Agnidhra, Idhmajihva, Yajnabahu, Mahavira, Rukmashukra, Ghritaprishtha, Savana, Medhatithi, Vitihotra and Kavi. Three of them, Kavi, Savana and Mahavira, turned from the world early. Masters of the knowledge of the self, celibate, wanting nothing, they lived out their days gladly in the ashrama called Paramahamsa, the last station on a renouncer’s road. By another wife Priyavrata had three more sons, Uttama, Tamasa and Raivata, mighty men, and each of them would in his turn be lord of a Manvantara, one of the long ages into which the life of a world is cut.
Priyavrata ruled this earth for eleven arbuda years, and in all that time neither his strength nor his senses were ever checked. Once he saw that while the sun shone on one half of the earth, darkness had settled on the other half, and the sight troubled him. He thought, “While I rule, how can darkness arise anywhere on the earth? I shall drive it off by the power of my yoga.” So resolved, the son of Svayambhuva mounted a chariot bright as the sun and, lighting the world as he went, drove seven times around the earth, keeping it on his right the way a pilgrim circles a shrine. Wherever the rims of his wheels pressed into the ground, those ruts became the seven oceans, for the good of the world, and the lands left between them, parted from one another, became the seven dvipas, with the oceans the sinking wheels had cut lying around them as moats lie around a fort. From then on there were seven islands on the earth: Jambudvipa, Plakshadvipa, Shalmalidvipa, Kushadvipa, Krauncadvipa, Shakadvipa and Pushkaradvipa, each twice the size of the one before, and beyond each in turn lay its own ocean: Ksharoda of salt water, Ikshurasoda of sugarcane juice, Suroda of wine, Ghritoda of ghee, Kshiroda of milk, Dadhimandoda of curd-whey and Shuddhoda of pure water. The king gave the islands to his sons. Agnidhra took Jambudvipa, the first, girdled by the salt sea; Idhmajihva took Plakshadvipa, the second, washed by sugarcane juice; Yajnabahu became king of Shalmalidvipa in its ocean of wine; Hiranyareta had lovely Kushadvipa within its ring of ghee; mighty Ghritaprishtha held the fifth, Krauncadvipa, in the sea of milk; Medhatithi ruled Shakadvipa, loveliest of them all, in the ocean of curd; and with his father’s leave Vitihotra became king of Pushkaradvipa in the ocean of pure water. His daughter Urjasvati he gave to Shukracharya, the guru of the daityas, and from her was born Devayani, the daughter for whom Shukra is remembered. Having divided the seven islands among his sons, Priyavrata, a man who could tell the lasting from the passing, took to the path of yoga. Then Narayana said, “Narada, hear now the extent of the whole earth-sphere, island by island and varsha by varsha, as the gods arranged it. I shall tell it briefly and stretch it out nowhere.”
Golden Sumeru at the Heart of the Lotus
Of those seven, Jambudvipa was made first. It lies within the salt sea, 100,000 yojanas across and round like the pericarp of a lotus, the seed-cup at the flower’s heart. Within it lie nine varshas, each 9,000 yojanas in extent, and eight long mountains divide them cleanly from one another on every side. Two of the nine stretch to the south and the north and curve like a drawn bow; four others are broad lands; and the one named Ilavrita, square on every side, is also called the middle varsha, because at its navel stands Sumeru, the golden king of mountains. Sumeru rises 100,000 yojanas and is itself the pericarp of the earth-lotus. Its summit spreads 32,000 yojanas across; its base rests 16,000 yojanas upon the earth and goes down as many again beneath it.
The Boundary Mountains and the Feet of Sumeru
To the north of Ilavrita, as its boundary, stand three mountains, Nila, Shveta and Shringavan, and they mark the bounds of three varshas in turn: Ramyaka, then Hiranmaya, then Kuru. These three run eastward until the salt sea stops them at either end; each is 2,000 yojanas wide, each one farther north is a tenth shorter than the one before it, and the lands they enclose are full of rivers and lakes. To the south of Ilavrita three mountains of great beauty run east in the same way, Nishadha, Hemakuta and Himalaya, each 10,000 yojanas high, and these set the bounds of Harivarsha, Kimpurusha and Bharata. To the west stands Malyavan and to the east the glorious Gandhamadana; both stretch from Nila in the north to Nishadha in the south, 2,000 yojanas wide, and they fix the limits of Ketumala and Bhadrashva. Four more mountains, Mandara, Merumandara, Suparshva and Kumuda, are called the feet of Sumeru: 10,000 yojanas high, they hold the great mountain up on its four sides. On each of them stands a single tree like the banner of a king of mountains: a mango on Mandara, a jamun on Merumandara, a kadamba on Suparshva and a banyan on Kumuda, every one of them 1,100 yojanas tall, its branches reaching out as far again, its trunk a hundred yojanas around. On those same mountains lie four lakes, of milk, of honey, of sugarcane juice and of sweet water, and the gods who bathe in them and sip from them come away holding the great powers of yoga. And there are four gardens of the gods, made for the delight of women: Nandana, Chaitraratha, Vaibhraja and Sarvabhadra. There the great gods, whose glory the gandharvas and the other lesser deities are forever singing, live with lovely women and wander as they please, at their ease, answerable to no one.
Four Trees, Four Streams, Four Goddesses
Now the streams that run from those four trees. The mango on the lap of Mandara, 1,100 yojanas high, bears fruit full of nectar, each as large as a mountain peak, very sweet and very soft. The fruits fall from that height and burst, and from their sweet red juice the river Arunoda came to be, a river of lovely water that the great gods worship, and the daityas with them. It comes down from Mandara and flows through the east of Ilavrita, and when the attendant women of Bhavani bathe in it, and the wives of the yakshas and gandharvas, the water takes the scent of their divine bodies, and the wind that carries that scent perfumes the land for ten yojanas in every direction. On that same mountain dwells Bhagavati Aruna, destroyer of sin. People bring her gifts and offerings of every kind, and she, who fulfills every wish, quells sin and takes away fear, gives well-being and health by a single glance of her grace. The earth knows her by eight names, Adya, Maya, Atula, Ananta, Pushti, Ishvaramalini, Dushtanashakari and Kantidayini, and by the power of her worship the gold called Jambunada arose. From the jamun on Merumandara fall fruits as large as an elephant’s body and without a stone in them; they too burst from the fall, and from their juice the river Jambu came to be, dropping from Merumandara to the earth and flowing through the south of Ilavrita. The Bhagavati who is pleased by the taste of the jambu fruit is famed as Jambvadini, kind to every being, and there the gods, the nagas, the rishis and the rakshasas honor her together. She purifies the sinner who remembers her and destroys his diseases; to praise her is to watch obstacles fall away; the gods themselves bow to her; and a man should repeat her names every day, Kokilakshi, Kamakala, Karuna, Kamapujita and the rest. The earth along the banks of the Jambu river, steeped in that juice and then touched by sun and wind, becomes gold. From it the fine ornaments of the vidyadhara women and the women of heaven are made, and that gold, Jambunada, is called god-made; out of it the gods, who never refuse their women a wish, beat crowns and girdles and armlets. On Mount Suparshva stands a great kadamba. From its hollows five streams fall on the peak of Suparshva and come down to the ground, five streams of honey that flow through the west of Ilavrita, and the wind, carrying the scent from the mouths of the gods who drink there, perfumes the land for a hundred yojanas around. There dwells Mahadevi Dhareshvari, who does her devotees’ work for them, and she is worshiped by nine names, Devapujya, Mahotsaha and Kalarupa among them, down to Kamakotipravartini. And on Mount Kumuda stands the banyan named Shatabala. The juices that fall from its branches became many streams, and as they pour from Kumuda’s peak they give every being what it asks for: milk, curd, honey, ghee, jaggery, grain, clothes, beds, seats and ornaments, and they flood the whole land of northern Ilavrita. On their banks dwells Bhagavati Minakshi, worshiped without pause by gods and danavas alike. Her names run from Nilambara and Raudramukhi through Mattamatangagamini, she who walks like an elephant in rut, to Shikhivahanagarbhabhu; she gives the dwellers in heaven the fruits and the boons they desire, and, standing always near the Parabrahman, she gives honor to those who repeat her names and meditate on her. For the creatures who drink the water of those streams no wrinkle ever forms and no hair turns white; fatigue, the foul smell of sweat, old age, disease, fear, death, delusion, the disorders of cold and heat and wind, and the gloom that settles on a face never arise; they are happy all their lives, and that happiness goes on growing without a break.
Brahma’s City on the Summit of Sumeru
Then Narayana turned to the lesser mountains of golden Sumeru. Twenty mountains stand apart from it and yet around it, Sumeru at their root, set about it on every side like the filaments around the pericarp of a flower: Kuranga, Kuraga, Kusumbha, Vikankata, Trikuta, Shishira, Patanga, Ruchaka, Nishadha, Shinivasa, Kapila, Shankha, Vaidurya, Arudhi, Hamsa, Rishabha, Naga, Kalanjara and Narada among them. Eight more great mountains stand in pairs at the four quarters. East of Sumeru are Jathara and Devakuta, 18,000 yojanas long and 2,000 yojanas wide and as many high; west of it Pavamana and Pariyatra, of the same height and the same spread; south of it Kailasa and Karavira, of the same length and width; north of it Trishringa and Makara. Ringed by these eight, golden Sumeru shines like the sun. On its summit, exactly in the middle, lies the city of lotus-born Brahma, 10,000 yojanas in extent, golden, and square on every side, as the wise describe it. Around it stand the cities of the eight lokapalas, the guardians of the directions, each of gold, each set by its direction and in its own form, and each 2,500 yojanas in extent. So there are nine cities on Sumeru, Brahma’s and those of the lokapalas, Indra, Agni and the rest in their order: Manovati, Amaravati, Tejovati, Samyamani, Krishnangana, Shraddhavati, Gandhavati, Mahodaya and Yashovati.
The Ganga’s Descent from Vishnu’s Foot
Then came the Ganga. The all-pervading Lord Vishnu, whose very form is sacrifice, once struck the upper shell of the cosmic egg with the nail of his left great toe, and through the hole that the blow left the Ganga came forth. She came down as far as the summit of heaven and stopped there, full of water that destroys the sins of every being, and the world knows her as Vishnupadi, the river from Vishnu’s foot. A thousand yugas passed, a span almost past counting, and the place on heaven’s summit where she, mistress of the rivers of the gods, had come to rest became famed through the three worlds as Vishnupada. That is where Dhruva lives, the most pure son of Uttanapada; bearing the holy pollen of the Lord’s two lotus feet on his head, that royal sage sits there to this day on his unmoving station. The seven sages live there too, who know the Ganga’s power and wish well to every being, and they walk around Dhruva in reverence, keeping him always on their right. And the siddhas, their matted hair piled on their heads, bathe in her without ceasing, for they know that this Ganga, whose form is moksha itself, gives success to those who practice tapas.
From Vishnupada the Ganga descends along the path of the gods, crowded with thousands of crores of vimanas, floods the orb of the moon and reaches Brahmaloka, and there the Devi divides into four. Under four names she flows out in the four directions, and every one of her streams finds the ocean at the end, the lord of rivers. The four names are Sita, Chakshu, Alakananda and Bhadra. Sita, destroyer of sin, comes down from Brahmaloka, falls from the peaks of the mountains called Kesara onto the peak of Gandhamadana, passes through the varsha of Bhadrashva toward the east and, worshiped by the gods, joins the salt ocean. The second, Chakshu, comes out from the peak of Malyavan, rushes into the varsha of Ketumala, turns west and at last enters the sea. The third, the holy Alakananda, comes south from Brahmaloka, crosses forest after forest and peak after peak to reach Hemakuta, best of mountains, and from there races down into Bharatavarsha and joins the southern ocean. Of her Narayana said, “For men who set out to bathe in her, the fruit of the Rajasuya, the Ashvamedha and the other great sacrifices is not hard to gain at every step.” And the fourth, Bhadra, comes from Mount Shringavan, satisfies the northern Kurus, this Ganga who purifies the three worlds, and joins the ocean at last. Many other rivers and streams run through every varsha, and most of them are born on Meru and Mandara. Of the nine varshas, Bharatavarsha alone is called the field of action, the karmakshetra, where deeds are done and bear their fruit. The other eight lie upon the earth and yet give the enjoyments of heaven; they are where the dwellers in heaven come to spend what remains of their merit. The men there are like gods, with limbs hard as the thunderbolt; they live ten thousand years with the strength of ten thousand elephants, with their wives beside them, content with abundant love, happy. The women there can conceive until a year before their lives end. And time there is always like the Treta yuga.
Source: Shrimad Devi Bhagavata Mahapurana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)