Shloka 93
Pracetās, Māriṣā, Dakṣa’s Re-manifestation, and the Brahma-parastava; Cyclic Creation and Genealogies
ऊर्ध्वं तिर्यग् अधश् चैव यदाप्रतिहता गतिः तदा कस्माद् भुवो नान्तं सर्वे द्रक्ष्यथ बालिशाः
ūrdhvaṃ tiryag adhaś caiva yadāpratihatā gatiḥ tadā kasmād bhuvo nāntaṃ sarve drakṣyatha bāliśāḥ
If motion is unobstructed—upwards, sideways, and downwards—then why, you foolish ones, do you not all behold the very end of the world?
Sage Parāśara (in instruction to Maitreya; framed as a rebuke to mistaken reasoners)
Speaker: Parasara
Topic: How the instruction leads Dakṣa’s sons to seek the ‘end’ of the world and not return
Teaching: Cosmological
Quality: revealing
Creation Stage: Secondary
Cosmic Hierarchy: Brahmanda
Concept: If one assumes free movement in all directions, the ‘end’ of the world should be seen—thus the verse provokes inquiry into the world’s true bounds and nature.
Vedantic Theme: Maya
Application: Use probing questions to expose hidden assumptions and deepen understanding before acting on life-defining projects.
Vishishtadvaita: The world’s apparent limitlessness points beyond itself to the sustaining Lord; inquiry matures into dependence on Bhagavān rather than egoic mastery.
FAQs
It is used to challenge simplistic physical reasoning: if one assumes motion is equally free in all directions, one might wrongly expect the world’s boundary to be easily reached or seen—showing the limits of naive inference in cosmology.
He rebukes the assumption that the world’s ‘end’ must be directly visible or reachable merely because movement seems possible in every direction, implying that the cosmos’ structure cannot be reduced to ordinary, surface-level logic.
Even when not named in the verse, the Purana’s cosmology is ultimately grounded in Vishnu’s sovereign ordering of reality—suggesting that the universe’s true measure and structure depend on the Supreme Reality, not on crude human conjecture.