The Cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana: Mysteries of the Sacred Universe

From the flat earth to the sun's chariot traditional spiritual texts seem wedded to outmoded cosmologies that show, at best, the scientific limitations of their authors. The Bhagavata Purana, one of the classical scriptures of Hinduism, seems, at first glance, to be no exception. However, a closer examination of this text reveals unexpected depths of knowledge in ancient cosmology. This shows that the cosmology of the Bhagavata Purana is a sophisticated system, with multiple levels of meaning that encode at least four different astronomical, geographical, and spiritual world models. By viewing the text in the light of modern astronomy, Richard Thompson shows how ancient scientists expressed exact knowledge in apparently mythological terms. Comparison with the ancient traditions of Egypt and the Near East shows early cultural connections between India and these regions including a surprisingly advanced science. However, quantitative science is only part of the picture. This work also offers a clear understanding of how the spiritual dimension was integrated into ancient Indian cosmology.

Contents

Introduction to Bhagavata Cosmology, 1. Introduction to Texts, 2. The Islands and Oceans of Bhu-mandala, 3. The Solar System in Projection, 4. The Solar System in three Dimensions, 5. The Earth and Local Geography, 6. The Realm of the Demigods, 7. The Greater Universe, 8. Notes on Time and Chronology, 9. General Observations, Appendices, Bibliography, List of Tables, Glossary, Index.

Review(s)
"This is a very original book, and it represents an important advance in the understanding of the cosmology described in the famed Bhagavata Purana of India. Thompson looks at this cosmology from several points of view and he presents a compelling case showing that this cosmology is intended to have multiple meanings, the span, the terrestrial, the astronomical, and the spiritual planes." - Prof. Subash Kak, Louisiana State University

"Thompson takes us back in time when man regarded himself as an integral part of the cosmos and shows us how, in a strange way, such a system as the Bhagavatam cosmology bears an uncanny harmony with modern astronomy. More important and interesting is the way Thompson shows how the Bhagavatam literature presents visual astronomy in geographical and mythological settings which, in this respect, are very cosmologies of other ancient cultures of the world...Gripping, scholarly and ground-breaking, this deserves to be widely read and discussed." - Robert G. Bauval, author of The Orion Mystery and co-author of The Message of the Sphinx.

"Dr Thompson has a talent that may well be unique in our times: the ability to take complex, esoteric ideas that require high-level mathematics, specialized technical expertise, and a familiarity with scholarship that spans the history of civilized humanity, and present them to lay reader in a narrative style that is as user-friendly as a novel, but packed with sound reasoning, solid scholarship, and impressive empirical research" - Prof. William W. Wall Santa Fe Community College, Florida

"Mr Thompson's premise is that the system of the Bhagavatam includes some modern understandings of the science of astronomy, not just mythology... If the reader can judge what is not science, putting aside the non-science aspects of the cosmology, it seems clear that there are indeed a number of references to known scientific aspects of the sky in the Bhagavatam." - Jeanne E. Bishop, Planetarium Director, Westlake, Ohio

"A revolution in our understanding of the cosmology of the Puranas is the making here. This book offers a way of reading ancient Indian texts that is profoundly interesting, that overturns a long history of scholarly undervaluation of the supposedly 'only mythological' contents of Puranic literature." - Prof. Gene R. Thursby University of Florida

About The Author

Richard Leslie Thompson, also known as Sadaputa Dasa (Sadāpūta Dāsa; February 4, 1947 – September 18, 2008), was an American mathematician, author and Gaudiya Vaishnava religious figure. Historian Meera Nanda described him as a driving intellectual force of 'Vedic creationism' as co-author (with Michael Cremo) of Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race (1993), a work that has attracted significant criticism from the scientific community. Thompson also published several books and articles on the relationship between religion and science, Hindu Cosmology and astronomy. He was a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (popularly known as the Hare Krishna movement or ISKCON) and a founding member of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, the branch of ISKCON dedicated to examining the relationship of modern scientific theories to the Vaishnava worldview. In the 'science and religion community, he was known for his articulation of ISKCON's view of science. Danish historian of religion Mikael Rothstein described Thompson as "the single dominating writer on science" in ISKCON whom ISKCON has chosen to "cover the field of science more or less on his own". C. Mackenzie Brown, professor of religion at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, described him as "the leading figure" in ISKCON's critique of modern science.

The way people view the universe has a profound impact on their understanding of themselves. Today we see the Earth as a small, fragile globe, orbiting at just the right distance from the sun for life to flourish. It appears to be the only planet with life in the solar system, and the planets themselves are mere specks in the vacuum of space. Human life seems reduced to insignificance when set against the vast nearly empty spaces of modern astronomy.

But before the modern era, the universe often appeared much more comfortable and accommodating. Thus medieval European cosmology placed the earth in the centre of a small, spherical universe surrounded by the “coelum empireum,” the abode of God and the Elect. Within the sphere, the sun, the moon, and the planets out to Saturn followed regulated orbits against the backdrop of the Zodiacal constellations. The earth in the centre was at one end of a hierarchy of being, connecting human beings with the heavenly realm.

In this study, we will explore a similar earth-centred conception of the cosmos from India. This cosmological system is presented in the Bhagavata Purana, or Srimad Bhagavatam, one of India’s important religious scriptures. For centuries it has provided a meaningful framework connecting the world of observable phenomena with the transcendental world of ultimate reality.

The Bhagavatam describes innumerable universes. Each one is contained in a spherical shell surrounded by layers of elemental matter that mark the boundary between the transcendental and mundane realms. The shell contains an earth disk-called Bhu-mandala or “earth mandala”-that divides it into an upper, heavenly region and a subterranean domain filled with amniotic waters. The shell and its contents are characterized as the Brahmanda or Brahma egg”.

Although the “earth” is here conceived of as a disk, it has little in common with the familiar earth of day-to-day experience. The diameter of Bhu-mandala is given in the Bhagavatam and it is about the size of the orbit of Uranus. Bhu-mandala is divided into a series of geographic features called oceans and islands (dvipas in Sanskrit). But these are geometrically perfect rings of cosmic size, with no resemblance to irregular earthly continents.

In the centre Bhu-mandala is the circular “Island” of Jmubudvipa with nine subdivisions called varsas. These include Bharata –varsa, which can be understood in one sense as India and in another as the region inhabited by ordinary human beings. Jambudvipa is centred on the geometrically shaped Mount Sumeru, which represents the world axis and is surmounted by the city of Brahma, the universal creator.

At first glance, the cosmology of the Bhagavatam looks like an imaginative production that has little in common with reality. However, a deeper study shows a remarkable harmony between modern astronomical findings and Bhagavata cosmology. To understand this, it is necessary to realize that Bhagavatam describes reality using its own, uniquely premodern paradigm.

The Bhagavatam presents astronomy in geographical and mythological language, and the mode of presentation is different from the familiar modern approach. Modern cosmology aims to construct an abstract model with a one-to-one correspondence between elements of the model and elements of the universe. In contrast, the Bhagavatam uses concrete themes and images in multiple ways to represent different aspects of the universe. From the standpoint of the Bhagavatam, the universe is a multidimensional system including transcendental elements. Since the universe therefore cannot be encompassed by a single mental model, the Bhagavatam freely used model elements in different convenient ways to represent different aspects of the universe.

Although it may look like a naïve flat-earth model, careful study shows that Bhagavatam uses the earth disk of Bhu-mandala to represent at least four different things. These are:

1. The earth's globe, mapped onto a plane by stereographic projection

2. A map of the geocentric orbits of the planets.

3. A local map of India, the Himalayan region and nearby territories in south-central Asia.

4. A map of the celestial regions inhabited by demigods.

The great Bengali saint Caitanya Mahaprabhu remarked that “in each and every verse of Srimad Bhagavatam and in each and every syllable, there are various meanings” (Caitanya-caritamrta, Madhyalila 24.318). This appears to be true in particular of the cosmological section of the Bhagavatam and it is interesting to see how some of these meanings can be brought out and clarified with reference to modern astronomy.

There are bound to be contradictions when one structure is used to represent several different things in a composite map. But these do not cause a problem if we understand the underlying intent. We can draw a parallel with medieval paintings portraying several different parts of a story in one composition. These also contain contradictions (such as several instances of one character in a single painting), but a person who understands the storyline will not be disturbed by them.

The Bhagavatam does not describe the universe of galaxies and quasars, but it does contain a solid core of material that aggress remarkably well with the modern understanding of the Earth's globe and the solar system. In the work, we shall use modern astronomy as a reference frame to elucidate Bhagavatam cosmology as points stand out sharply in proper perspective when viewed in the light of modern astronomical knowledge. This enables us to shed new light on many topics in the Bhagavatam which have long been poorly understood.

The question naturally arises as to whether modern astronomical themes seen in an old text are really there, or are simply being read into the text by hindsight. Were such themes intended by the original authors, or is their apparent presence in the text due to coincidence or loose interpretation? It is difficult to clearly answer this question in all cases. Some of the correspondences with modern astronomy are consistent with ancient Greek astronomy and they could have been intentionally built into a medieval Sanskrit work. Others go beyond Greek astronomy, and it is hard to account for them historically.

Although some of these correspondences may be products of chance. It is possible to show that some of them are statistically significant. These might be the result of conscious scientific endeavour in ancient times. Or they might be seen as intuitive harmonies between nature and the Bhagavatam depending on divine inspiration.

This study has been organized as a book and as a CD-ROM. The book and the CD contain essentially the same text, but the book is designed to be read sequentially from beginning to end, while the CD has a hierarchical structure with hypertext links and a search engine. The main body of the CD is illustrated with some 250 colour pictures, 13 interactive picture sequences, and 24 animations including a video summarizing both this book and the CD.