SAILING TO JAMBŪDVĪPA
Did Lord Varaha Lift an Earth Globe?
VARĀHA-AVATĀRA - and the flat earth
The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes Varāha-deva saving the Earth which had fallen from its position, this is referring to the whole Bhū-maṇḍala. There is no second conception of Earth as a globe-shaped planet in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:
O Lord, as the peaks of great mountains become beautiful when decorated with clouds, Your transcendental body has become beautiful because of Your lifting the earth (Bhū-maṇḍala) on the edge of Your tusks. (SB 3.13.41)
Here it is specifically said ca saukaraṁ bhū-maṇḍalenātha datā dhṛtena te, in the form of a boar you lifted Bhū-maṇḍala on your tusk.
Lord Varāhadeva lifting the flat earth, Bhū-maṇḍala modern concoction of NASA pseudo earth-ball
All of the old traditional indian paintings always show Varāha-deva holding the complete Bhū-maṇḍala earth-plane on his tusk. Only very modern paintings and pictures by westernized people show the concocted Nasa-Earth, atheistic pseudo science, made in PaintShop.
Thus Bhūmi (the personified Earth) appealed to Brahma, and on Brahma's appeal, Lord Krishna eventually incarnated to halt the advance of the demons who had become a burden on the Earth (bhū-bhāra).
The burden of the earth [bhū-bhāra] was certainly diminished by the Personality of Godhead and by others as well. When He was present as an incarnation, all good was performed because of His auspicious footprints. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.17.26)
When Śrīla Prabhupāda was questioned as to whether Varāhadeva should be depicted holding a globe or the whole Bhū-maṇḍala, the following conversation ensued with Prabhupāda humbly deferring to the research of his disciple Bhakti-Prema:
Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, previously we painted in the art department... Just like Varāha lifted the earth, and the earth was a globe, and we showed also a globe of the earth. How does that relate to this? Previously, when we painted, we showed the earth a ball. So now the artists will be very confused. How it fell in the Garbha Ocean as a ball?
Yaśodānandana: It depends on what we mean by earth. The Western conception of earth is just five continents and a few oceans, but according to Bhāgavatam, earth means Jambūdvīpa, because earth is connected with Jambūdvīpa.
Devotee (2): So whole Jambūdvīpa fell.
Bhakti-Prema: Bhāgavata describes the height of Himalayas, eighty thousand miles.
Prabhupāda: No, about this earth globe.
Bhakti-Prema: About the earth it describes four billion miles. Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: That means Jambūdvīpa.
Bhakti-Prema: No, that means complete earth, four billion miles. That is eight lakhs miles, Jambūdvīpa.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Four billion is the universe. Bhakti-Prema: Bhū-maṇḍala.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Bhū-maṇḍala. Oh, the Bhāgavatam describes Bhū-maṇḍala as earth.
Prabhupāda: Oh. Yaśodānandana: Bhūmi.
Bhakti-Prema: ...has come right from the ocean, from the bottom of the ocean.
Prabhupāda: So explained there. Then this question is solved.
Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Yes. The whole Bhū-maṇḍala fell.
Bhakti-Prema: So the universe is round, and from bottom of the Garbhodaka ocean to top of Satyaloka there is four billion miles. Then the again, from east to west again is another four billion miles. Because Bhū- maṇḍala is situated in between the earth.
Prabhupāda: Explain. He'll explain. (Showing of Planetary Sketches, June 28, 1977, Vṛndāvana)
This explanation is also confirmed by Sadāpūta Dāsa in his book Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy:
In the pastime of Lord Varāha's lifting the earth from the ocean, the earth is frequently depicted by artists as our familiar earth globe. However, the Sanskrit verses of Śrīmad- Bhāgavatam describing this pastime do not use any words denoting a sphere when referring to the earth, and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa indicates that Lord Varāha lifted Bhū-maṇḍala as a whole. The relevant passage states that after lifting the earth from the waters, Lord Varāha divided it into seven great continents, as it was before, thus indicating that the earth that was lifted included the seven dvīpas of Bhū-maṇḍala (VP,
p. 65). The Vaiṣṇava commentator Vaṁśīdhara, in his commentary on SB 5.20.38, also points out that the earth lifted by Lord Varāha is Bhū-maṇḍala (see Appendix 1).
In the Fifth Canto the earth is directly described as the vast disc of Bhū-maṇḍala. The word bhū-golam, or "earth-globe," generally refers to the sphere of the universe, and the Bhāgavatam seems to make no direct reference to the earth as a small globe. (Vedic Cosmography and Astronomy VCA 3.C Planets as Globes in Space).
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