Shloka 35
प्रलय-त्रिविध-विभागः एवं प्राकृतप्रलय-वर्णनम्
चाषपत्रनिभाः केचिद् उत्तिष्ठन्ति घना घनाः केचित् पुरवराकाराः केचित् पर्वतसंनिभाः
cāṣapatranibhāḥ kecid uttiṣṭhanti ghanā ghanāḥ kecit puravarākārāḥ kecit parvatasaṃnibhāḥ
Some dense clouds rise with the sheen of a chāṣa-bird’s wing; some gather into thick, compact banks; some assume the forms of splendid cities; and some appear like mountains—vast, unmoving, piled upon the sky.
Sage Parāśara (teaching Maitreya)
Speaker: Parasara
Topic: Process and signs of dissolution (pralaya), especially the cosmic rains and clouds
Teaching: Cosmological
Quality: authoritative
Vishnu Form: Narayana
FAQs
This verse uses varied cloud-forms—like wings, cities, and mountains—to communicate the vastness and ordered beauty of the cosmos described in Ansha 2.
By classifying visible phenomena (here, cloud shapes and densities), Parāśara presents the world as intelligible and structured—an expression of an underlying, governing order.
Even when Vishnu is not named in the verse, the cosmographic narration in the Vishnu Purana is framed as describing a universe sustained by the Supreme Reality—Vishnu—as its ground and regulator.