Varaha Purana 113.5: Adhyaya 113, Shloka 5
Hymn to Varāha and Pṛthivī’s Inquiry
Prelude to the Sanatkumāra Dialogue
धरण्युवाच ॥ कल्पे कल्पे भवानेव मां समुद्धरते भवान् ॥ न बाहुश्चेष्टते मूर्तिर्मादृशीं गां च केशव ॥
dharaṇy uvāca || kalpe kalpe bhavān eva māṃ samuddharate bhavān || na bāhuś ceṣṭate mūrtir mādṛśīṃ gāṃ ca keśava ||
The Earth said: In every aeon, you alone lift me up. Yet this embodied form does not exert its arms as others do; still you raise a land like me, O Keśava.
Pṛthivī (Dharaṇī)
FAQs
It foregrounds cyclical cosmology (repeated kalpas) and frames Earth as a speaking interlocutor—an important literary strategy for articulating environmental and moral concerns.
No specific location is identified; the speaker is the Earth herself, treated as a cosmic entity rather than a single site.
A reflection on responsibility and support: the world’s stability is presented as requiring sustaining agency beyond ordinary exertion, encouraging a stewardship-oriented worldview.
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