Kurma Purana — Purva Bhaga, Shloka 15
Puṣkara-dvīpa, Lokāloka, and the Measure of the Brahmāṇḍa
Cosmic Egg
एतै सप्त महालोकाः पातालाः सप्तकीर्तिताः / ब्रह्माण्डस्यैष विस्तारः संक्षेपेण मयोदितः
etai sapta mahālokāḥ pātālāḥ saptakīrtitāḥ / brahmāṇḍasyaiṣa vistāraḥ saṃkṣepeṇa mayoditaḥ
Thus the seven great worlds and the seven nether realms (Pātālas) have been declared. This, in brief, is the extent and ordering of the Brahmāṇḍa—the Cosmic Egg—as I have spoken.
Sūta (narrator) summarizing the cosmographic teaching in the Kurma Purana frame-narrative
Primary Rasa: shanta
Secondary Rasa: adbhuta
FAQs
This verse is primarily cosmographic: it summarizes the universe (Brahmāṇḍa) as a structured field of experience—seven higher lokas and seven pātālas—within which embodied beings live out karma; it does not directly define Ātman, but frames the domain in which liberation-oriented teachings (elsewhere in the Purāṇa) operate.
No specific yoga practice is taught in this verse; it functions as a concluding summary of cosmology. In the Kurma Purana, such mapping supports dharma and sādhana by situating human life within a graded cosmos, while yoga instructions are treated more explicitly in other sections (notably the Upari-bhāga’s Ishvara Gītā discourse).
This verse does not explicitly mention Śiva or Viṣṇu; it presents a shared Purāṇic cosmology. In the Kurma Purana’s broader Shaiva–Vaishnava synthesis, such cosmological order is ultimately upheld by the one Supreme Lord understood through both Śaiva and Vaiṣṇava theological lenses.