Markandeya Purana — Adhyaya 56, Shloka 14
Adhyaya 56 — The Descent and Fourfold Course of the Ganga; Jambudvipa’s Varshas and Their Conditions
तथैव पश्चिमे पादे विपुले सा महानदी ।
सुचक्षुरिति विख्याता वैभ्राजं साचलं ययौ ॥
शीतोदञ्च सरस्तस्मात् प्लावयन्ती महानदी ।
सुचक्षुः पर्वतं प्राप्ता ततश्च त्रिशिखं गता ॥
tathaiva paścime pāde vipule sā mahānadī | sucakṣuriti vikhyātā vaibhrājaṃ sācalaṃ yayau | śītodañca saras tasmāt plāvayantī mahānadī | sucakṣuḥ parvataṃ prāptā tataś ca triśikhaṃ gatā ||
Likewise, on the broad western quarter, that great river—known there as Sucakṣu—went to Vaibhrāja together with its mountain. From there, flooding the Śītoda lake, the great river reached the mountain Sucakṣu, and then went on to Triśikha.
FAQs
The Purāṇa sacralizes landscape by narrating named rivers, lakes, and mountains as connected in a purposeful sequence, inviting reverence for geography as a theatre of dharma and pilgrimage-memory.
This is bhū-varṇana (world-description), a standard Purāṇic component that supports the broader cosmological framework alongside manvantara and vaṃśa materials.
The repeated pattern ‘flows to X, floods Y, reaches Z’ can be read as a symbolic itinerary of purification—power moving through successive ‘stations’ (tīrtha-like nodes) before reaching its final receptacle.