How To Disappear The Earth #1 - Mayesvara das

How to Disappear the Earth
   

Mayesvara Das  


To: Dhanesvara (das) (ACBSP) (Kiev - UA), Krishnaland, Ganapati Swami, Tattvavit (das) ACBSP (BBT), amalapurana2@gmail.com, anandahdas@gmail.com, Jyotiredhama Das, lakeisle@gmail.com, Lalitanatha (das) RNS (Copenhagen - DK), Maha Sakti Das, Mayesvara Das, Praghosha, Saul Porecki, Vaiyasaki Per Sinclair, Emily Nayhree  

This is an example of how the concept of Bhu-mandala was magically disappeared by a complete misunderstanding, and lack of faith in the Puranic description of the sapta-dwipa or seven islands of Bhu-mandala.

As you know a Purana by definition has certain features which characterize it as a Purana. The cosmological section is one of ten features that a Purana generally covers. The 18 major Puranas generally repeat the same information regarding the structure of the universe. There are some slight variations in detail but by and large they repeat the same information as we have in our fifth Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam.


Now, when you look at the translations and particularly the footnotes to these translations of the Puranas by Western scholars, and also those by Hindu scholars who follow their precedence, it is quite amazing how the Bhu-mandala literally disappeared by a complete disregard, complete misunderstanding, and complete lack of faith in the Puranic description of the great Earth plane.


Below is a typical example of utter speculation that convinced the Hindus that the Vedic Earth is a small globe in space, and not a vast plane covering hundreds of millions of miles. Completely disregarding the huge measurements of each dwipa and its surrounding oceans, the whole Bhu-mandala was passed off as 'poetic' and 'imaginative' (mythological) but with some basis in reality; i.e. to keep the peace we will give the Vedic sages some credit that their wild fantasy of an Earth plane has some correlation to places on 'the globe.'



From Narada Purana, Notes to Chapter Three: Description of the Sphere of the Earth and of Bharata, pp 99-100, Motilala Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi, 1950



11. Seven Continents:


The dominant cosmographical conception of the Puranas is that of the earth consisting of seven concentric island-continents (saptadvipa Vasundhara).

Each continent has its own chain of principal mountains, river-systems. The names of these continents, as enumerated in the next (43rd) verse, are:

Jambu, Plaksha, Shalmala, Kusha, Krauncha, Shaka and Puskara.




This order of dwipas is found also in VP.2.4, Bh.P.5.20 but M.P. 121, 122, AP. 103.1-3 differs, though all begin with Jambudwipa. The following is briefly the Puranic

conception of these dwipas:



(l) Jambudwipa with mount Meru or Sumeru at the centre and surrounded by the ocean of Lavana (salt water). It is identified with India and the land around it as Bharata varsha—a prominent part thereof is ‘to the north of

the salt sea and south of the Himalayas' (.NP. 1.3.46 below) and the glorification of this holy land from vv.47-72 below leaves no doubt that India is the land so praised.

(2) Plaksa—Surrounding the Lavana ocean and surrounded by the ocean

of Iksu (sugarcane juice).

(3) Shalmali—Surrounding the Iksu ocean and surrounded by the ocean of Sura (wine); probably Chaldea—chal-dia<.shalmali dvipa: Ancient region SW

Asia on the Euphrates and Persian Gulf (Webster—College Dirt. P. 1106), if the derivation recorded by N.L. De in GDAM I, p.175 be correct. But the rivers Nirvrtti and Vitrishna mentioned by him in Brahmanda P. Ch.53 are not

traced in Jagdish Shastri’s new edition (Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi) either at ch.19 describing Plaksadvipa or ch. 53 as mentioned by De at the corresponding ch. therein.)

(4) Kusha—Surrounding the Sura ocean and surrounded by Sarpis: (Ghee) ocean. Puranas state that the source of the Nile is in a lake in the Kusha dvipa. It is, of course, a region in Africa. Ancient Persian inscriptions mention a country called ‘Kusha’ and its people ‘Kushiya’ “There is no doubt that

Kusha was situated in North East Africa beyond Egypt" D. G. Sircar—GAMI P. 25. Probably it is Ethiopia.

(5) Krauncha—Surrounding sarpis ocean and surrounded by the ocean of Dadhi' (curds).

(6) Shaka—Surrounding the 'Dadhi ocean and surrounded by the ocean of milk. It is obviously the land of Sakas or Seythians of the Greeks. Dr. Ray Choudhary identifies it with Seistan ( <Shakasthana) in Eastern Iran, the land

of the Magi and of the Mihira cult and its inhabitants. The Magn-a'vijar worshiped Surya-rupadharo Harih. There had been three settlements of Sakas—modern Mesopotamia, Helmund in Eastern part of Iran, and Seistan.

D.C. Sircar weighs the evidence and states, "Shaka-dvipa in the original Puranic conception...is the Shaka settlement in the Oxus and Jaxartes valleys in Central Asia" (GAMI. P. 25).

(7) Puskara—Surrounded by Sura sagara, ‘A portion of Central Asia commencing from the north of the Oxus including Western Tartary. Perhaps it has preserved its name in Bhushkara or Bokhara'—N.L. De GADMI, p. 163.




It will be seen that though the idea of concentric islands is poetic, there is some geographical reality about some lands in these Puranas.




This conception of sapta-dvipa vasumati is as old as Patanjali (187-151 3.0.) and has strongly influenced Jain works like Tiloya pannatti' :GAMI, pp. 22-24.



12. Seven Seas surrounding these island continents are traditionally mentioned as in v.44-B.



lavenekshu-sura-sarpir-dhadi-ksira-jalaih saman



i.e. seas consisting of (1) Salt water, (2) Sugar-cane juice (3) wine, (4) ghee, (5) curds, (6) milk and (7) sweet water. N.L. De locates them as follows :




(1) Lavana (salt water): The Indian Ocean surrounding Jambudwipa or India.

(2) Iksu (Sugar cane juice): Iksu is another name for the Oxus (V.P. 2.4.66 mentions this as a river). De explains, “Here the river is taken as a sea.”

(3) Sura (wine): Corruption of the sea of Sarain, another name for the Caspian sea and it formed the Southern or south-eastem boundary of Kusha dwipa.

(4) Sarpis or Grita (Clarified butter): It is a corruption of the Erythraen sea or the Persian Gulf and formed the boundary of Shalmali-dvipa or Chaldia i.e. Assyria.

(5) Dadhi (curds): The sea of Aral, Dadhi is Sanskritisation of Dahi (Dahae) the name of a Scythic tribe which lived in the upper Jaxartes and evidently on the shores of this lake, it formed the boundary of Krauncha dwipa.

(6) Kshira (Milk): It is a corruption of Shirwan sea, as the Caspian sea was called, and it formed the northern boundary of Shaka dwipa.

(7) Jala i.e. Svadujala (sweet water): Perhaps a corruption of Tchadun, a river in Mongolia forming a boundary of or flowing through Plaksha dwipa—GDAMI, p. 179.




Rivers and seas were formerly designated by the same word. Hence some rivers came to be understood as ‘seas’ in Puranas. The extent of some seas like the Caspian and the Aral were different (much larger than at present)

in ancient times. But the unanimous tradition in Puranas shows a race-memory and not a geographer's report of an expedition. The above is enough to show

that geography in Purinas is not all imagination, but had some basis in reality. (End)




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All the places of Jambudwipa were mistakenly identified as within India. Jambudwipa was thus magically disappeared and forgotten about as the varshas of Jambudwipa became places in and around India.




In this conversation below, Srila Prabhupada is not specifically refering to the globe controversy, but his argument about the Christians trying to discredit the Vedic texts as mythological does have bearing on the issue at hand:




Prabhupada: (Sanskrit) Chakra bhagavan. So there was a circle of friends. So all the friends conspired to make another friend bewildered. So they conspired that "As soon as you meet that gentleman you cry, 'Oh, here is a ghost! Here is a ghost! Here is a ghost!' " So all the friends, they come, "Oh! You are dead, you are ghost, you are ghost!" So after ten times like that, he thought, "Have I become a ghost?" Then he became bewildered, "Whether really I have become ghost, I am dead?" He became puzzled. This is like that: "There was no human being, there was no human being," and all the rascals are now thinking whether this is right. This is cakra bhagavan (Sanskrit). If you make conspiracy, even the sane man will think himself that "I have become ghost."

Svarupa Damodara: The influence of the...

Prabhupada: Yes, propaganda. That is the cause of India's cultural falldown. These Britishers simply made propaganda that "Whatever you have got in India, this is all allegory, fiction. These shastras  (scriptures) are nothing. But now you are learning from us England's work in India, that is your real... You are becoming civilized now. Otherwise, you are in the utopia, and all these sastras, throw it out." Because that was Lord Macauley's policy. Lord Macauley was sent to report how Indians can be governed nicely. So he reported that if you keep the Indians as Indians, you will never be able to govern them, because they are superior. You make propaganda that they are inferior and they will imitate you and then you can... That they did. (September 28 1972)

   
Just as in Prabhupada’s fable wherein a conspiracy of friends convinced one of the group that he was a ghost, similarly the conspiracy of Western ideologists convinced the Hindus that Bhu-mandala is a ghost idea – a dead concept belonging to primitive Hindu mythology. The great plane of Bhu-gola literally disappeared, and a tiny Earth globe floating in lonely space miraculously took it’s place.




Y.S Mayesvara