Hare Krishna,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami and His translations and purports to Srimad-Bhagavatam! All glories to Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and His translations and annotations of Surya-Siddhanta and Siddhanta-Siromani (as Bimala Prasad Datta)! All glories to both Prabhupadas!
First, I wish to make it clear that I am comparing at least two or three systems here - (1) Puranic cosmology, and (2) astronomy, both (i) eastern (Vedic/Jyotisha) and (ii) western, including (iii) astrology, using both the sidereal and tropical zodiacs. So there is a fair amount of subject matter to reconcile. Also I would like to acknowledge that as Bimal Prasad Datta was awarded the title Bhaktisiddhānta for his work on the Siddhantas before he accepted Abhay Charan De as his disciple (later A. C. Bhaktivedānta Swami), we therefore we cannot dismiss the Siddhantas just because they present a different perspective to the Bhagavatam, as both scriptures have commentaries authored by both Prabhubadas.
Regarding the differences between Puranic cosmology (the Bhagavatam) and astronomy including both zodiacs (sidereal and tropical) of Vedic Jyotish (the Siddhantas) and Western systems (astronomy and astrology) we encounter an apparent paradox. Surya-Siddhanta, Siddhanta-Siromani and astronomy/astrology are by and large the same, apart from any minor difference between nomenclature and the use of geocentric or heliocentric systems – superficially the geometry may differ but the respective calculations result in the same outcomes for both systems. For the purposes of making observations and erecting charts and horoscopes using the motions and positions of the heavenly bodies there is no technical argument therein. It must be made clear that Puranic cosmology does not deal with any of that - for example Ekadasi is calculated using the jyotisha of the Siddhantas, not the cosmology of the Bhagavatam!
Using scriptual knowledge and impirical information to arrive at an intellectual and philosophical understanding is bona fide and not the same thing as wild mental speculation about mundane affairs. In fact, one is always encouraged to use one's brain to understand instead of just parroting things like a robot! Inquisitiveness coupled with healthy scepticism may open many a door locked to even the most pedantic lover of doctrinal dogma.
Personally, in comparing cosmology to astronomy I wouldn't have expected that our solar system could be mathematically reckoned to a cosmological universe. But in researching this I happened to stumble across one possible explanation - Demigod Yojanas! We already know that demigod time is different to Earth Time - so why not distance as well? After all, time and space are both 'dimensions'. Read on if you're interested...
In astronomy the approximate figure of 4 billion miles for the Sun/Pluto distance is a radius, whereas the roughly 4 billion miles wide universe quoted in cosmology is a diameter. This makes our Solar System twice larger at 8 billion miles wide. So, aren't we trying to compare chalk and cheese here? Something else must be going on.
Before we get to the concept of demigod yojanas.... this is not the place to argue about Flat Earth, Moon Landing hoax, fake NASA, etcetera etcetera. Do that somewhere else and at another time. Sticking to what is relevant here, first we must acknowledge that the SB 5th Canto Chapter 22 is a minefield of typos! I will no doubt be accused of fault-finding but really I am just trying to get to the bottom of this and the truth. What I want to bring attention to here (rather than to nit-pick) is that the confusion caused by differences in the two models (cosmology vs astronomy both eastern and western) is compounded many times over by the errata and typos in the 5th Canto.
Although eastern and western astronomy closely align, if we compare the three models they don't match up, and we're used to that. For example, Lord Brahma's planet Satyaloka at the top of the cosmological universe, being some 2 billion miles above the Sun, would work out to be closer than our astronomical Pluto at roughly 4 billion miles out. This doesn't make any sense - two completely different sized models.
Now... add in the typos and see how even more confusing it becomes!
Take Śanaiścara (Saturn) for example. Using the texts from SB 5.22.8-16 or Chart Three at the front of the volume we find that Saturn is 1.3 million yojanas (10.4 million miles) above the Sun in the text - yet from Chart Three it is 1.4 million (11.2 million).
Which one is it?
Alas, the figure given by western astronomers is over 70 times that, around 886 million miles, illustrating the vast difference in the sizes of the two models. Adding Pluto to that equation emphasises that even more so.
Now... SB 5.22.8 re Sun/Moon distance clearly states 'lakṣa-yojanataḥ' and in the translation 100,000 yojanas...
... yet in Chart Three we find the Moon drawn above the Sun by 200,000 yojanas - not 100,000!
Which one is it?
Nowhere in the slokas or translated verses do we see the Sun referenced as 100,000 yojanas above the Earth. We only see it using the chart (you may also be able to find in English in a purport) but I cannot find that figure anywhere in Sanskrit or the translation - even using online search tools! Why did Śrīla Prabhupāda use NASA's figure of 93,000,000 miles in the purports? And anyway 800,000 miles is nothing like the 93 million miles we are all familiar with.
Which one is it?
It is a mystery where the unnamed artist who drew the Chart Three obtained the figure of 100,000 yojanas from for the Earth/Sun distance (perhaps Vishnu Purana?). It's not in the slokas or the translated verses, and can only arrived at by working backwards from the 4 million miles stated in the weird Text 11 purport which comes from the incorrect distances found in Chart Three. Very confusing!
Further investigation led me to realise just how astronomical the size difference (pun intended) of the two models is, the cosmological universe being a mere fraction of the astronomical universe that uses Light-years to measure vast distances (six trillion, or 6,000,000,000,000 miles approx = 1 light-year).
I do remember reading elsewhere that a yojana is a relative measurement – which may or may not account for the discrepancy between the two sizes of universe ie Earth vs Demigod yojanas – also it has various values ie 8 miles, 5 miles or 8 kilometres, etc as used by different Jyotish practitioners. 'As far away as a bull can be heard bellowing' and 'as far as one can see clearly' are two examples I have also come across for 1 yojana. Perhaps a yojana means one thing in outer space and another in a paddock? Or a more feasible explanation as one author suggests, is that in the same way that Demigod time is different to Earth time (eg one day of Brahma equals 4.32 billion Earth years) perhaps a Demigod yojana is much, much bigger than an Earth yojana!
https://m.facebook.com/VedicCosmology/posts/our-universe-is-4-billion-miles-in-size-but-is-that-demigod-size-or-earth-size-k/1652037028437556/
This actually makes a lot of sense to me in a way when I take the time to ponder the possibility. For quite some time I have agreed with Richard L. Thompson's view that Vedic Cosmology is described as seen from the Heavenly Planets - perhaps why it seems so perplexing to us. It is no wonder Vedic Cosmology has confused devotees and scholars the whole world over when we try to impose Earth value systems upon it.
We have all heard the expression "Too many cooks spoil the broth". There was more than one editor who worked on Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and similar works with the Devanagari, romanised Sanskrit, transliterations, translations, and purports and I think it is safe to say that some have made a few mistakes here and there, as we are all human. This is separate from any confusion caused by any measurement of spatial differences.
Personally I have no objection to the numerous typos in Śrīla Prabhupāda's books - and I am certainly not criticising Him. Not only do I not mind them, I value them - as they provide a valuable function! These typos serve to identify His Divine Grace's original books because they have since been removed from the edited, so-called 'corrected' and changed modern BBTi versions.
Besides, most of the typos are so glaringly obvious as mistakes that they generally don't cloud any meaning. Forr eximple, you moste probbly hav no diffculity unda standing wot this sentence meenz. Similarly with figures, when different numbers describe the same phenomena (such as 10,000 yojanas and 1,000,000 yojanas for the same distance of Siddhaloka below Rahu) we can do the sums in our head and work out with simple arithmetic, which one is correct.
Distances between planets in 5th Canto, Book Two, Chart Three differ not only from the texts - the texts differ from the purports. Even the heavenly bodies change names in some places! It is no wonder Vedic Cosmology has devotees confused the world over. It definitely seems to have confused the editors, proof-readers and typesetters!
Using both the search engines built into Vanipedia and Gitabase as well as reading and skimming through the actual 5th Canto, I cannot find a single Sanskrit reference to the 100,00 yojana distance between the Earth and the Sun anywhere in the texts (either in the Devanagari script, the Sanskrit, the transliterations, or nor the English translation of the Sanskrit). It appears in Chart Three as 100,000 yojanas; elsewhere in English in the purports varying as either 100,000 yj or 93 million miles; yet not a single mention in the actual Sanskrit slokas - at least not in the 5th canto which deals with our position in the material universe in detail.
Now, some of you might gloss over my pedantry as being trivial. But as having a western-type triple Virgo symbolism I was born to focus on these sorts of things. If it exists somewhere else in Sanskrit I would be very grateful if someone can show me where - IN SANSKRIT - in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, the Earth/Sun distance is (I am NOT referring to in the English in the purports). As far as I can see there is no reference IN SANSKRIT to either 100,000 yojanas nor 93 million miles which is a NASA figure. I would be very happy to be proven wrong, please do!
When using the search tools built into Vedabase, Gitabase and Vanipedia, with the words "Sun", "Earth", "distance", "above" in quotation marks - even including the Boolean term AND between them to narrow down the results - I didn't find ANYTHING in the actual Sanskrit-to-English text. There are plenty of references everywhere else but they all use figures based on western astronomy, not Vedic. I guess this is why Śrīla Prabhupāda uses the 93,000,000 figure. As far as I could fathom the actual figure of 100,000 yojanas (or 800,000 miles) comes from the Viṣṇu Purana, not the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.. but that still doesn't explain how 100,000 yojanas found its way into Chart Three mistakenly as double that figure.
So we have these unusual entries:
#1. SB 5.22.8, the Moon is listed as 100,000 yj above the Sun; whereas in Chart Three it is drawn as 200,000 yj;
#2. SB 5.22.11 is an absolute ripper of an example of errata and typos in 3 ways. The bold text says that the 28 Stars are 1,600,000 miles above the Moon, yet in the purport it reads "above the Sun". The whole purport 5.22.11 says:
"The stars referred to herein are 1,600,000 miles above the sun, and thus they are 4,000,000 miles above the earth (sic)."
If we take the Earth/Sun distance as 800,000 miles (and ignore what is written elsewhere in SB about 93 million miles) it can only add up to 3.2 million. The distance of the 28 Stars above the Earth at 4 million miles only adds up using the Chart 3 distance of the Moon being 1,600,000 miles above the Sun instead of 800,000 as it the text. Therefore the 5.22.11 purport is wrong in three ways because it uses:
a. Double the Moon/Sun distance resulting in the wrong figure;
b. An unexplained figure of 100,000 yojanas for the Earth/Sun distance found nowhere but in the incorrect chart. Nowhere in the body of the text EXCEPT THE PURPORTS is the height of the Sun above the Earth given - and even then in other places it is 93 million miles; and
c. It says the sun and not the moon;
#3. SB 5.24 chapter introduction states re: Siddhaloka, etc are below Rahu "by another 1,000,000 yojanas" whereas 5.24.4 says only 10,000 yojanas;
#4. Chapter 24 goes on to say that the seven Subterranean planets, each the same size as Earth, are 10,000 yj apart. Chart Three shows them situated as starting at 70,000 yj beneath the Earth (which is about 1,000 yojanas diameter according to Surya-Siddhanta). This is also summarised previously in the last verse 5.23.9 which says 30,000 yj below the subterranean planets lies the Garbhodaka ocean some 130,000 yj below Earth. None of this adds up when looking at Chart Three.
The only way anyone can interpret subterranean as meaning 'inside hollow Earth' is obviously by taking its meaning literally and disregarding the arithmetic. They can't all be the same size as Earth and yet fit inside it! Yes, 'subterranean' means 'below the crust of the Earth'', as in underground - but certainly not below the Earth's plane which is the context in which it appears to be used! Perhaps an overzealous editor substituted or suggested the word not knowing the correct context of 'subterranean'?
These are just a few typos that I found by double-checking a few chapters of just one book. My point is, the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is wonderful, but regarding these minor discrepancies, anyone who takes EVERYTHING they read literally, especially the multitude of contradictions in the 5th Canto, is sure to be getting the wrong picture. Perhaps they spent a little too much time experimenting in Haight-Ashbury during the 60s? Maybe that explains how some people can accommodate both a Flat Earth and a Hollow Earth at the same time…
From what I have read, besides Giriraj who was very qualified and did most of the editing and proofing before anything was sent to the printers, there were others who at various times may have 'helped' eg typed, copied manuscripts, dotted the i's and crossed the t's etcetera to get everything ready for printing. We take it as a given that the Devanagari script, Sanskrit romanisation, word-for-word transliteration, and all the text translations were all done by highly qualified and experienced people. You will be hard-pressed to find any mistakes there.
It is in the purports that we invariably find all the discrepancies, not just typographical errors, for in some places the information is for the wrong sloka, partially scrambled, or completely incorrect, rendering it very confusing to the reader. This is where I suspect some garden-variety editors made very human mistakes.
We all agree that Śrīla Prabhupāda's Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam are masterpieces. As I have said before, the typos that they do contain help identify them as the originals because subsequent edited and altered editions don't have them. Therefore they serve a valuable purpose rather than detract from the greater body of work.
No-one can deny that human error has crept into the editing of SP's books. These listed typos are proof of that. Yet it does not stop us from marvelling at these most sacred of scriptures.
In your service,
Sam
Hare Kṛṣṇa
हरे कृष्ण
