Shloka 2
Adhyāya 108: Paścima-dik—Varuṇa’s Realm, Sunset Cosmology, and Sacred-Geographic Markers
Suparṇa–Gālava संवाद
गरुड़ कहते हैं--गालव! यह प्रसिद्ध है कि पूर्वकालमें भगवान् सूर्यने वेदोक्त विधिके अनुसार यज्ञ करके आचार्य कश्यपको दक्षिणारूपसे इस दिशाका दान किया था, इसीलिये इसे दक्षिण दिशा कहते हैं ।। अत्र लोकत्रयस्यास्य पितृपक्ष: प्रतिष्ठित: । अत्रोष्मपाणां देवानां निवास: श्रूयते द्विज,ब्रह्म! तीनों लोकोंके पितृगण इसी दिशामें प्रतिष्ठित हैं तथा “ऊष्मप” नामक देवताओंका निवास भी इसी दिशामें सुना जाता है
garuḍa uvāca—gālava! etat prasiddhaṁ yat pūrvakāle bhagavān sūryo vedokta-vidhinā yajñaṁ kṛtvā ācāryaṁ kaśyapaṁ dakṣiṇā-rūpeṇa asyā diśo dānaṁ dadau; tasmād eṣā dakṣiṇā diś ucyate. atra lokatrayasya asya pitṛpakṣaḥ pratiṣṭhitaḥ. atrauṣmapāṇāṁ devānāṁ nivāsaḥ śrūyate, dvija-brahman.
Garuḍa said: “Gālava, it is well known that in ancient times the blessed Sun, having performed a sacrifice according to Vedic ordinance, granted this quarter to the teacher Kaśyapa as dakṣiṇā; therefore it is called the Southern direction. Here the ancestral hosts of the three worlds are established, and here too—O Brahmin—dwells, as tradition reports, the class of deities known as the Uṣmapas.”
युपर्ण उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse grounds sacred geography in Vedic ritual ethics: a direction becomes ‘southern’ through a remembered act of yajña and dakṣiṇā, and the South is thereby linked with the Pitṛs and specific divine classes. It emphasizes that ritual gift-giving (dakṣiṇā) and tradition (prasiddham/śrūyate) establish enduring cosmic and moral order.
Garuḍa instructs Gālava by explaining why the southern quarter is so named: Sūrya once performed a Vedic sacrifice and gifted that quarter to Kaśyapa as dakṣiṇā. Garuḍa further notes that the Pitṛs of the three worlds are established there and that the Uṣmapa deities are traditionally said to reside in that same direction.