[Advaita-l] loka-aloka mountain

[Shrinivas Gadkari]

Namaste, 

Putting together information collected from different sources, and 
my own contemplation on 7 dvIpa-s mentioned in puraNa-s. 

Primary reference source is bhAgavatam Book 5. 

- Description of jAmbu dvIpa alone can be (somewhat) correlated 
with the Geography of earth. So let us go ahead and conjecture 
that jAmbu dvIpa is a term used to denote "all land" on earth. 
Then it makes sense to say that jAmbu dvIpa is surrounded by 
salt water ocean. 
- Regarding other dvIpa-s, we have two options, (a) discard this as 
fantasy, or (b) be open to the possibility that these are earth-like 
planets somewhere in the universe. 
- Let us consider option (b), with further assumption that these are 
earth-like planets within out own galaxy. 
- Then the term dvIpa will mean land on that particular planet, and 
samudra is the ocean on that planet. 
- In general "meru" mountain represents the axis of a system 
- in our body "meru" is the central axis corresponding to spinal column. 
- For earth "meru" is the axis of rotation 
- For Solar system, "meru" is the axis of revolution of planets around the sun. 
- For our Galaxy, "meru" is the axis passing through the center of our 
  Galaxy, around with all stars (along with their planets) revolve. 
- Now can we assume that the ordering of the dvIpa-s from jAmbu to puSkara 
  is representative of their location within our galaxy? In my opinion - yes. 
  The clue for this is the loka-aloka mountain. 
  The ordering of dvIpa-s is: jAmbu-plakSa-shAmali-kusha-shaka-puSkara-lokAloka 
- Now what may be loka-aloka mountain? 
- Bhagavatam 5.20.35 says that : this mountain has mirror like appearance, and 
  "any object dropped into this cannot be retrieved". 
- To me this seems like an apt description of the "event horizon" of the massive 
  block hole at the center of our Galaxy. 
- So the ordering is: jAmbu dvIpa is farthest from Galactic center and puSkara dvIpa 
  is the closest. 
- Brahma loka may either be puSkara dvIpa itself or near it. Bhagavatam mentions 
  that on puSkara dvIpa, the inhabitants worship god brahmA. We know that time flows 
  very slowly in brahma loka. This makes perfect sense if brahma loka is located 
  very close to the event horizon of the galactic black hole - the lokAloka mountain. 

Hari Om. 

Regards, 
Shrinivas Gadkari