A question naturally arises now that if the dveepas and the seven
seas lie inside the earth,then what do the Puranas say about the
surface world?
It is surprising to note that the whole of the surface continents are
described together as Bharatvarsha because at one time the whole
surface world was ruled by emperor Bharata!
There is a bit of confusion here but I will make it clear.The Puranas
divide this Bharatavarsha into nine divisions, all different islands
as follows:1.Indradveepa, 2.Kasherumaan, 3.Tamraparna,4.Gabhastimaan,
5.Naagadveepa,6.Saumyadveepa
7.Gandharvadveepa, 8.Vaarundveepa, and 9.Bharatavarsha.
Thus we see that there are two Bharatavarshaas-one is the whole of
the surface world and the second is the Indian subcontinent which
stretches from the Himalaya to Kanyakumari
And so in that sense all of us no matter to which country we
belong,we all belong to Bharatavarsha!
Further Bharatvarsha is called as Karmabhumi.It experiences all the
four Yugas-Krita,Treta,Dwapar and Kali.But the Seven inner dveepas
have constant Tretayuga.
Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that they are least affected
by the influence of the stars and planets!
Abhishek
Related thread: puranas — Part of the September 2004 series of Puranic proofs begun in this thread
Abhishek
you said There is a bit of confusion here but I will make it clear.The Puranas
divide this Bharatavarsha into nine divisions, all different islands
as follows:1.Indradveepa, 2.Kasherumaan, 3.Tamraparna,4.Gabhastimaan,
5.Naagadveepa,6.Saumyadveepa
7.Gandharvadveepa, 8.Vaarundveepa, and 9.Bharatavarsha.
Thus we see that there are two Bharatavarshaas-one is the whole of
the surface world and the second is the Indian subcontinent which
stretches from the Himalaya to Kanyakumari
Would you like to tell me why you count that way?You could say for exemple one is Naagadveepa and the other is the whole surface world!As far as I can read there were 9 * islands.What happened to them?Could you translate their names?They should have intrinsic influences from below and from above and hence the peoples were differents.
Could you expand?
Larry
List Members,
The Puranas refer to the whole of the surface world as Bharatvarsha
and again divide it into nine varshas,the ninth one being called
again as Bharatvarsha,which is actually the Indian sub-continent.The
Puranas say nothing much about the other eight continents.They go on
giving beautiful descriptions of Bharatvarsha(Indian sub-
continent).The other eight dveepas mentioned are the references to
the other continents and islands of the world.But nothing is said
much about them.
Abhishek