S.B. 3.19.26 - Accepting the Entire Vedic Cosmology (San Diego 4/2/92)
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This esoteric Puranic verse on the battle between the Vishnu Boar incarnation (Varaha) and the great demon Hiranyaksa sounds like mere myth when viewed out of context and through the lens of our modern scientific paradigm. But Sadaputa Dasa (Dr. Richard L. Thompson) suggests that, when understood within the entire cosmological context of the Puranic world view, this same narrative acquires both universal and deep personal significance.
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In the Bhagavatam, Bhu-mandala—the “earth mandala”—is a disk 500 million yojanas in diameter.
The yojana is a unit of distance about 8 miles long, and so the diameter of Bhu-mandala is about 4 billion miles which is the full size of the single material universe.
Bhu-gola can also mean the universal bubble the Bhu-mandala 4 billion mile sized universe is surrounded by.
Bhu-gola can also mean the earth global sphere we live on which is a spec within the Bhu-mandala universe.
A Mandala is drawn on a plane. A Mandala is a 'magical diagram' that often has a wheel or whorl structure, like a lotus. Bhu Mandala is a cosmic plane or disc that contains our Solar System.
A GOLA is a Globe. Bhu-Gola is a sphere or globe-shape Loka like our Earth planet or the great universal bubble the 4 billion mile sized inner material universe is in.
The Bhu-Gola where we reside is a globe world or sphere within the PLANE called the BHU MANDALA Universe.
The Plane in which our BHU GOLA Earth planet is fixed in its orbit around Meru is called the Bhu Mandala universe.
Although the Bhagavatam doesn’t explicitly describe the Earth as a globe, it does so indirectly. For example, it points out that night prevails diametrically opposite to a point where it is day.
Likewise, the sun sets at a point opposite where it rises. Therefore, the Bhagavatam does not present the naive view that the Earth is flat.
Bhu-mandala as a Map of the Solar System or the 4 billion mile single universe
Here’s another way to look at Bhu-mandala single universe that also shows that it’s not a flat-Earth model.
Descriptions of Bhu-mandala have features that identify it as a model of the solar system, a literal flat plane made up with many planets.
When relate this to just our Earth globe, it looks at first like we’re back to the naive flat Earth, with the bowl of the sky above and the underworld below.
Bhu-mandala cannot be the Earth globe because Srimad Bhagavatam describes Bhu-mandala as 4 billion miles in size, our Earth is nowhere near that size.
The solar system is nearly flat. The sun, the moon, and the five traditionally known planets—Mercury through Saturn—all orbit nearly in the ecliptic plane. Thus Bhu- mandala does refer to something flat, but it’s not the Earth.
One striking feature of the Srimad Bhagavatam’s descriptions has to do with size. If we compare Bhu-mandala with the Earth, the solar system out to Saturn, and the Milky Way galaxy, Bhu-mandala matches the solar system closely, while radically differing in size from Earth and the galaxy.
Furthermore, the structures of Bhu-mandala correspond with the planetary orbits of the solar system .
If we compare the rings of Bhu-mandala with the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, we find several close alignments that give weight to the hypothesis that Bhu-mandala was deliberately designed as a map of the solar system or the 4 billion mile single universe.
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