Sri Maitreya spoke. “You have given me the line of Svayambhuva. Now I wish to hear from your lotus mouth the whole sphere of the earth: every ocean, dvipa and varsha, every mountain, forest and river, and the cities of the gods, their measure, what holds them up, what they are made of, and their shape, exactly as they are.” Parashara answered, “Hear it in brief, Maitreya. Told in full it could not be finished in a hundred years. Jambu, Plaksha, Shalmala, Kusha, Krauncha, Shaka and Pushkara the seventh: these seven dvipas are ringed on every side by seven oceans, of salt water, of sugarcane juice, of wine, of ghee, of curds, of milk, and of sweet water. In the middle of them all lies Jambudvipa, and in its exact middle stands the golden mountain Sumeru, eighty-four thousand yojanas tall and sunk sixteen thousand more into the earth, thirty-two thousand yojanas wide at its summit and sixteen thousand at its foot. Picture the earth as a lotus lying open on the water: Sumeru is the seed-cup at its center, narrow at the root and broad where it opens to the sky.”
To the south of Sumeru rise the varsha mountains Himavan, Hemakuta and Nishadha, and to its north Nila, Shveta and Shringi, each dividing one varsha from the next. South of Meru lie Bharata, Kimpurusha and Harivarsha; north of it Ramyaka, Hiranmaya and Uttarakuru, which curves like a bow at the edge of the circle as Bharata does. Each varsha is nine thousand yojanas across, and in the middle of them all is Ilavrita, running nine thousand yojanas out from Meru on every side, with Bhadrashva to its east and Ketumala to its west. Around Meru four mountains stand, Mandara in the east, Gandhamadana in the south, Vipula in the west and Suparshva in the north, each ten thousand yojanas high, driven in like pegs set by Ishvara to brace a peak that is broader at the top than at the root and might otherwise fall. On them, like banners, stand four great trees, each eleven hundred yojanas tall: the kadamba, the jambu, the pipal and the banyan. The jambu gives the whole dvipa its name. Its fruit is the size of a great elephant, and when it drops it bursts across the rock and scatters everywhere, and from its juice runs the famous Jambu river, which the people there drink; the drinking leaves them without sweat, without odor, without old age and with senses that never dull. The clay of its banks, soaked in that juice and dried in a soft wind, hardens into the gold called jambunada, the gold the siddhas wear. East of Meru lies the Chaitraratha forest, south of it Gandhamadana, west Vaibhraja, north Nandana, and the gods take their pleasure forever at four lakes, Arunoda, Mahabhadra, Asitoda and Manasa. In the sky above Meru rests the great city of Brahma, fourteen thousand yojanas across, and around it in the eight directions the famous cities of the eight lokapalas, Indra and the rest. Sprung from Vishnu’s foot, Sri Ganga floods the orb of the moon on every side, falls from heaven into Brahma’s city, and there parts into four streams toward the four quarters, Sita, Alakananda, Chakshu and Bhadra; Alakananda comes south into Bharatavarsha and breaks into seven before she reaches the sea. In the valleys among the lesser peaks that ring Meru there are lovely cities and gardens and temples of Lakshmi, Vishnu, Agni and Surya, and there the gandharvas, yakshas, daityas and danavas play day and night. That whole region is called the earthly heaven, the abode of the righteous; a sinner cannot enter it in a hundred births. Sri Vishnu himself dwells in Bhadrashva as Hayagriva, in Ketumala as Varaha, in Bharata as Kurma, and in Kuru, as Matsya, the Govinda who protects his devotees; so the all-pervading Hari lives everywhere in every form, the support of all and the self of all. In the eight varshas, Kimpurusha and the rest, there is no sorrow, no fatigue, no anxiety, no hunger and no fear. The people there are healthy and free of dread, and they live a steady ten or twelve thousand years; Indra never rains on them, because the earth itself gives them water, and the ages Krita, Treta and the rest are never counted there. In each of those varshas stand seven kula mountains, and hundreds of rivers come down from them.
Bharatavarsha: the land of action
“Maitreya, the country that lies north of the ocean and south of the Himalaya is called Bharatavarsha, and the descendants of Bharata live in it. Its extent is nine thousand yojanas. It is the karmabhumi, the land of action, from which a man reaches heaven or moksha, and from here, by sinful deeds, he falls into hell or into the womb of an animal. Heaven, moksha, the middle region and patala are all reached from this one country, because nowhere else on earth is karma laid on men as a duty. Seven kula mountains stand in it: Mahendra, Malaya, Sahya, Shuktiman, Riksha, Vindhya and Pariyatra. It has nine parts, Indradvipa, Kaseru, Tamraparna, Gabhastiman, Nagadvipa, Saumya, Gandharva, Varuna, and this ninth, the dvipa ringed by the sea, a thousand yojanas from north to south. In its east live the Kiratas and in its west the Yavanas, and in the middle live Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, each at his own work, yajna, war, trade and the rest. Its rivers: from the foot of the Himalaya flow the Shatadru and the Chandrabhaga; from the Pariyatra the Veda and the Smriti; from the Vindhya the Narmada and the Surasa; from the Riksha the Tapi, the Payoshni and the Nirvindhya; from the Sahya the Godavari, the Bhimarathi and the Krishnaveni, rivers that take sin away; from the Malaya the Kritamala and the Tamraparni; from the Mahendra the Trisama and the Aryakulya; from the Shuktiman the Rishikulya and the Kumari; and thousands more branch from these. Along their banks live the peoples of Kuru and Panchala and the middle country, of the east and of Kamarupa, the Pundras, Kalingas and Magadhas and the peoples of the south, Saurashtra, Abhira, Malava, Sauvira, Kosala, Madra, Parasika and many more. They live side by side and drink those waters, and the nearness of the rivers keeps them hale and stout.”
In this Bharatavarsha alone the four yugas turn, Satya, Treta, Dvapara and Kali, and nowhere else. Here the munis do tapas for the world to come, the sacrificers perform their yajnas, and givers give with respect. In Jambudvipa Bhagavan Vishnu, the Yajnapurusha whom yajna itself shapes, is worshiped always with yajnas; in the other dvipas he is worshiped in other ways. And even within Jambudvipa, Bharatavarsha is the best, for it is the karmabhumi; the other lands are lands of enjoyment only. Only when great merit rises up after thousands of births does a being sometimes win a human birth in this country. The gods themselves sing of it. “Those men who are born in Bharatavarsha, the road to heaven and to moksha, are more blessed than we gods are. Those who, born in that land of action, offer their karmas to the Paramatma Sri Vishnu without wanting any fruit of them, become stainless, with no sin and no merit left on them, and merge in that Ananta. We do not know where we shall be born when the karma that holds us in heaven is spent. Blessed are the men who are born in Bharatabhumi with the power of their senses whole.” So Parashara gave Maitreya Jambudvipa in brief, a lakh of yojanas across with its nine varshas, and ringed on every side by the salt ocean, itself a lakh of yojanas wide.
The seven continents and their oceans
As Jambudvipa is ringed by the salt ocean, the salt ocean is ringed by Plakshadvipa, twice Jambudvipa’s lakh of yojanas, and so it goes outward: each dvipa twice the one before it, each ringed by an ocean of exactly its own width, so that the world reads outward in bands of land and water, every band doubling the last. Each dvipa is the realm of one of Priyavrata’s sons, each is divided into seven varshas carrying the names of that lord’s seven sons, and each has its seven boundary mountains and its seven rivers. Medhatithi is lord of Plaksha. The sound of its rivers’ names alone takes sin away, and sinless people live there in the company of gods and gandharvas, free of every ill of body and mind. From Plaksha to Shaka, in all six dvipas, the time is forever like Treta: the people live five thousand years without disease, and the five dharmas, ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha, hold by varna and ashrama. In Plaksha the four varnas are called Aryaka, Kurara, Vidishya and Bhavi; a plaksha tree as tall as Jambudvipa’s jambu stands at its center and gives the dvipa its name, and there the Aryakas and the rest worship Hari, creator, all-form and lord of all, in the form of Soma, the moon. An ocean of sugarcane juice as wide as the dvipa rings it. Shalmaladvipa rings that ocean, twice as wide again. Its lord was the hero Vapushman; its seven mountains are veins of gems, and its rivers quiet every sin at the mere remembering. Its four varnas are Kapila, Aruna, Pita and Krishna, and, given to yajna, they worship with yajnas the imperishable Bhagavan Vishnu, the self of all, who stands in the yajna in the form of Vayu, the wind. A great shalmala tree, the silk-cotton, gives it its name and gives it peace. An ocean of wine rings it, and Kushadvipa rings the wine, twice Shalmala’s width. Its lord is Jyotishman, and men live there together with daityas and danavas, with gods, gandharvas, yakshas and kinnaras. Its four varnas, Dami, Shushmi, Sneha and Mandeha, each keep to their own work, and by doing the karma the scriptures ordain they wear out their prarabdha, worship Janardana in the form of Brahma, and destroy the fierce ahankara out of which prarabdha grows. A single clump of kusha grass gives the dvipa its name, and an ocean of ghee rings it.
Kraunchadvipa rings the ghee, twice Kusha’s width, and its lord is the great-souled Dyutiman. One of its seven mountains, Svahini, is a mountain of jewels shaped like a horse’s face. The people live without fear in the company of the gods; the four varnas are called Pushkara, Pushkala, Dhanya and Tishya, and they worship Bhagavan Vishnu, Janardana, in the form of Rudra. An ocean of curds rings it, and Shakadvipa rings the curds, twice as wide, under its king, the great-souled Bhavya. A vast shaka tree stands there, served by siddhas and gandharvas, and the touch of its breeze fills the heart with delight. In its varshas dharma never declines and no one quarrels with anyone. The four varnas there are Maga, Magadha, Manasa and Mandaga, the Magas the best of Brahmins, and acting by scripture, with restraint, they worship Bhagavan Vishnu in the form of Surya, the sun. An ocean of milk rings Shakadvipa, and Pushkaradvipa rings the milk, twice as wide. Its lord, Maharaja Savana, had two sons, Mahavira and Dhataki, so it has two varshas and one mountain, Manasottara, ring-shaped, fifty thousand yojanas high and as many wide, standing in the middle of the dvipa and dividing it into two rings, Mahavira outside the mountain and Dhataki within. Men there live ten thousand years, free of disease and sorrow. There is no high and no low, no slayer and no slain, no dealing in truth and falsehood, no rivers and no other mountains. Men and gods there have the same dress and the same form, and without varnashrama, without the three Vedas, agriculture, the rod of government or service, those two varshas are the highest heaven the earth holds; all the people eat, without labor, the food of six flavors that appears of itself. In Pushkaradvipa stands a nyagrodha tree, Brahma’s best abode, where Brahma dwells, worshiped by gods and danavas. An ocean of sweet water rings it. So the seven dvipas are ringed by seven oceans, each dvipa equal to the ocean that rings it, and each pair double the last. Every ocean holds the same quantity of water at all times; as water in a pot swells when fire is set under it, the ocean’s water rises as the moon’s digits grow and falls as they wane, through the bright and dark fortnights, by five hundred ten angulas. Beyond the sweet-water ocean lies a golden land twice its size, empty of every creature and of any dwelling, and in it the Lokaloka mountain, ten thousand yojanas wide and as many thousand high; beyond that, dense darkness covers the mountain on all sides, and the shell of the egg covers the darkness. With that shell, the whole circle of the earth, with its dvipas, oceans and mountains, measures five hundred million yojanas across. This earth, richer in qualities than every other element from akasha down, is the support of the whole world, its nurse and its source.
The seven netherworlds and Shesha
“Maitreya, the earth is seventy thousand yojanas deep, and it is stacked: beneath it lie seven netherworlds, each ten thousand yojanas from the next, and their names are Atala, Vitala, Nitala, Gabhastiman, Mahatala, Sutala and Patala. Their grounds, set with fine palaces, run white in one place, black in another, red or yellow elsewhere, some gravelly, some stony, some made wholly of gold, and hundreds of kinds of danavas, daityas, yakshas and great nagas live in them. Once Narada came up from the netherworlds to heaven and told the dwellers there that Patala is lovelier than heaven itself. Where the nagas’ ornaments are set with bright gems that give delight to the eye, to what shall Patala be compared? Where daitya and danava maidens adorn every corner, which man, even a liberated one, would fail to love it? By day the sun’s rays give light there and no heat, and by night the moon’s rays spread their glow and bring no cold. The serpents and danavas delight in food and dainties and great drinks and never feel time pass. There are lovely forests and rivers, pleasant lakes and beds of lotus, male cuckoos calling sweetly across them and a sky that pleases the eye, and the dwellers of Patala, daityas, danavas and nagas, enjoy clean ornaments and fragrant unguents and the sounds of vina, venu, mridanga and turya, and every other pleasure that falls to the fortunate.”
Below the seven netherworlds lies Shesha, the body of Vishnu made out of tamas, whose qualities no daitya or danava can describe. Devarshis praise him, and the siddhas call him Ananta. He is utterly pure, marked with clear swastikas, and he has a thousand heads, and the thousand gems in his hoods light every direction. His eyes are forever red with intoxication; he wears a single kundala, a crown and a garland, and he shines like a white mountain with fire inside it. Robed in blue and hung with white garlands, he is a second Kailasa with clouds across it and the Ganga’s stream running down. In his hands he holds a plow and a fine pestle, and the goddess Varuni, in a body of her own, attends him. At the end of the kalpa, Rudra named Sankarshana issues from his mouths, blazing like a tongue of poison-fire, and devours the three worlds. Revered by all the gods, Bhagavan Shesha sits at the base of Patala wearing the whole circle of the earth as his crown. The glow of his hood-gems turns the whole earth red, and the earth sits on him like a garland of flowers; who could describe his might? When Shesha yawns, his eyes rolling with that intoxication, the whole earth shudders, its oceans and its forests with it. Gandharvas, apsaras, siddhas, kinnaras, nagas and charanas have none of them reached the end of his qualities, and so this imperishable god is called Ananta, the endless. The naga wives anoint him with hari-chandana paste, and his breath scatters it again and again and perfumes the directions. By worshiping him the ancient maharshi Garga learned in truth the whole circle of the stars, the grahas and the nakshatras, and the fruit of every omen. That best of nagas holds this earth on his head, and holds with it the whole garland of worlds, with their gods and asuras and men.
The hells and the glory of the Lord’s name
Below the earth and its waters lie the narakas, into which sinners are cast down. Raurava, Sukara, Rodha, Tala, Vishasana, Mahajvala, Taptakumbha, Lavana, Vilohita, Rudhirambha, Vaitarani, Krimisha, Krimibhojana, Asipatravana, Krishna, Lalabhaksha, Daruna, Puyavaha, Papa, Vahnijvala, Adhahshira, Sandamsha, Kalasutra, Tamas, Avichi, Shvabhojana, Apratishtha and Aprachi: these and many more, each a terror of weapons and of fire, stand under Yama’s rule, and the sinful fall into them. The false witness, the man who out of partiality will not speak the truth, and the liar go to Raurava. The destroyer of an embryo, the destroyer of a village and the killer of a cow go to Rodha. Drinkers of liquor, killers of Brahmins, thieves of gold and those who keep their company go to Sukara. The man who reviles the Veda or sells it goes to Lavana. The thief and the breaker of settled bounds fall into Vilohita; the man who performs a yajna for an evil end goes to Krimisha; the man who eats before pitris, gods and guests have been fed falls into Lalabhaksha, and the makers of weapons into Vishasana. Takers of improper gifts and men who read the stars without knowing them fall into Adhomukha; poisoners, slanderers, house-burners and friend-killers into Rudhirandha. The destroyer of a yajna goes to Vaitarani; those who break the boundaries of fields fall into Krishna; the man who cuts forests for no need goes to Asipatravana; breakers of vows fall into Sandamsha. There are hundreds and thousands of narakas beyond these, and thousands more sins whose fruit men suffer in them; whoever goes against the dharma of varna and ashrama in mind, speech or deed falls into naraka. The dwellers of Adhomukha, hanging head down, can see the gods in svarga, and the gods see the beings of naraka in the worlds below. Having suffered its term, the sinner climbs back by stages, as a plant, then a worm, a creature of the water, a bird, a beast, a man, a man who keeps dharma, a god, and at the last one who wants nothing but moksha; at every rung the crowd thins, each stage holding a thousand times fewer than the one below. As many beings as are in svarga, so many are in naraka, and the sinner who does no prayashchitta for his sin is one of them.
Then Parashara came to the way out. “The maharshis, recalling the meaning of the Veda, have taught a prayashchitta suited to each sin, and Svayambhuva Manu and the other makers of smriti laid down great penances for great sins and small for small. Of all the penances of tapas and karma, though, the remembrance of Sri Krishna is the best. Prayashchitta is ordained for the man in whose mind remorse rises after a sin, and this remembering of Hari is by itself the supreme prayashchitta. Whoever remembers Sri Narayana at dawn, at dusk, at night or at midday has his sin destroyed in that instant. By remembering Sri Vishnu the whole heap of a man’s sin is burned and he gains moksha, and for him the winning of svarga is counted an obstacle; for the man whose mind rests always on Bhagavan Vasudeva in japa, in homa and in archana, Indra’s rank and fruits like it are things in the way. Where is going to heaven, which brings a man back to birth, and where is the japa of the name Vasudeva, the best seed of moksha! So by remembering Bhagavan Vishnu day and night a man’s sins are all destroyed and he never goes to naraka again. What pleases the mind is svarga, and what displeases it is naraka; papa and punya are only other names for the two. When one and the same thing is the cause of pleasure and of pain, of envy and of anger, where is any fixed nature in things? The thing that gives delight now gives pain later, and the thing that stirs anger at one time gives pleasure at another. So nothing is made of pain and nothing is made of pleasure; pleasure and pain are turns the mind takes. Knowledge is the supreme Brahman, and under the covering of avidya that same knowledge becomes the cause of bondage. This whole universe is made of knowledge; there is nothing apart from it. Know vidya and avidya too, Maitreya, as knowledge. So I have told you the whole circle of the earth, all the patalas and the narakas, and in brief the oceans, mountains, dvipas, varshas and rivers. What more do you wish to hear?”
Source: Vishnu Purana (Gita Press, Gorakhpur)