{
  "title": "The lotus and the axis",
  "basis": "Bhāgavata Purāṇa cosmography",
  "edition": "A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda translation at VedaBase, Sanskrit checked beside the selected translated verses.",
  "status": "A source-linked schematic and fictional world-design grammar; not a measured astronomical model or a complete critical edition.",
  "centre": {
    "name": "Meru in Ilāvṛta, within Jambūdvīpa",
    "source": "5.16.7"
  },
  "rings": [
    {
      "land": "Jambū",
      "ocean": "Salt water",
      "source": "5.20.2",
      "colour": "#68d7b2"
    },
    {
      "land": "Plakṣa",
      "ocean": "Sugarcane juice",
      "source": "5.20.7",
      "colour": "#e6ca59"
    },
    {
      "land": "Śālmalī",
      "ocean": "Surā",
      "source": "5.20.7",
      "colour": "#d16aab"
    },
    {
      "land": "Kuśa",
      "ocean": "Ghee",
      "source": "5.20.13",
      "colour": "#ffae58"
    },
    {
      "land": "Krauñca",
      "ocean": "Milk",
      "source": "5.20.18",
      "colour": "#bbe0fa"
    },
    {
      "land": "Śāka",
      "ocean": "Curds",
      "source": "5.20.24",
      "colour": "#aa93f2"
    },
    {
      "land": "Puṣkara",
      "ocean": "Fresh / sweet water",
      "source": "5.20.29",
      "colour": "#72e0dd"
    }
  ],
  "upper": [
    "Bhūr",
    "Bhuvar",
    "Svar",
    "Mahar",
    "Jana",
    "Tapa",
    "Satya"
  ],
  "lower": [
    "Atala",
    "Vitala",
    "Sutala",
    "Talātala",
    "Mahātala",
    "Rasātala",
    "Pātāla"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "locator": "5.16.5",
      "note": "Lotus and central circular region",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/16/5/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.16.7",
      "note": "Golden Meru at the centre",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/16/7/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.2",
      "note": "Jambū, salt water, Plakṣa; nested widths",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/2/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.7",
      "note": "Plakṣa and Śālmalī; surrounding oceans",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/7/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.13",
      "note": "Kuśa and ghee; luminous grass",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/13/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.18",
      "note": "Krauñca and milk",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/18/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.24",
      "note": "Śāka and curds",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/24/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.20.29",
      "note": "Puṣkara and freshwater; golden lotus",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/20/29/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "2.5.38",
      "note": "Bhūr through Mahar; universal-body correspondence",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/2/5/38/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "2.5.39",
      "note": "Jana, Tapa and Satya; universal-body correspondence",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/2/5/39/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "2.5.40-41",
      "note": "Seven lower worlds; universal-body correspondence",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/2/5/40-41/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.24.7",
      "note": "Seven named lower worlds",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/24/7/"
    },
    {
      "locator": "5.24.8",
      "note": "Lower-world palaces, gardens and households",
      "url": "https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/5/24/8/"
    }
  ],
  "boundaries": [
    "Horizontal land/ocean rings and vertical lokas are different structures. Do not turn the seven dvīpas into seven planets or seven chakras.",
    "The schematic compresses distance. Repeated doubling in the selected text is a design constraint for scale, not reproduced by the equal-width drawing.",
    "No modern kilometre conversion is applied. The inspected English page for 5.16.5 says one million yojanas, while 5.16.7 and 5.20.2 use 100,000 in their comparisons; this internal presentation discrepancy remains unresolved.",
    "Viṣṇu Purāṇa II.2, Wilson translation, lists curds before milk, unlike the selected Bhāgavata passages. This edition follows Bhāgavata, not a merged universal Purāṇic map.",
    "Lower worlds are not interchangeable with Naraka. The selected 5.24.8 explicitly depicts rich inhabited environments.",
    "Concentric fields, lotus structure and an axis are source-based motifs. Iridescence, decorative petal counts, nested optical geometry and the Court of Time are artistic additions, not a canonical Śrīcakra or a newly discovered scriptural yantra.",
    "Do not identify the book’s conscious Void with an ocean, a ring or a named loka. It remains a distinct metaphysical theme in the authored story.",
    "The Keeper’s frozen kingdom is an invented enclosure within the imagined Court, not a scripturally named realm. It must never be labelled Sutala or attributed to Bali.",
    "Guruji’s relation to the universal-body motif is the comic’s fictional interpretation. These verses are not historical testimony that he is the Purāṇic deity.",
    "The art evokes selected motifs; precise counts and names are guaranteed by the editable schematic, not by treating generative illustrations as accurate maps."
  ],
  "comparison": {
    "title": "Viṣṇu Purāṇa II.2, H. H. Wilson translation (1840)",
    "url": "https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/vishnu-purana-wilson/d/doc115961.html",
    "state": "Inspected primary translation reproduced by Wisdom Library",
    "note": "Different sea ordering recorded; Wilson’s editorial footnotes are not the Purāṇa’s own words."
  },
  "route": [
    {
      "page": 1,
      "place": "Govardhan → threshold",
      "role": "The son’s grief has distanced him from his mother. He asks for another evening with his father. The four companions enter the Court; he loses track of the return doorway among its arches."
    },
    {
      "page": 2,
      "place": "The balcony and the Keeper’s globe",
      "role": "Meru establishes the landscape beyond the balcony. A close view through the globe reveals one frozen city. Its guardian’s promise tempts the grieving son."
    },
    {
      "page": 3,
      "place": "Views from the same balcony",
      "role": "Guruji explicitly tells the son that the Keeper cannot undo a death. The seed in luminous openness and the shore with Kuśa-inspired grass are views beyond the glass, not additional journeys. Their growth reveals what the paused city has lost. Void remains distinct from a geographical region."
    },
    {
      "page": 4,
      "place": "Beside the Keeper’s enclosure",
      "role": "The Keeper asks how he can protect people without controlling their time. After Guruji answers, he offers the globe. The son relinquishes his own plea. Guruji releases the enclosure; the city and underlying geography survive."
    },
    {
      "page": 5,
      "place": "A lower-world garden seen in section",
      "role": "The vista evokes 5.24.8 without asserting which named lower world contains the invented city. Life resumes inside the released enclosure, not throughout a previously frozen universe."
    },
    {
      "page": 6,
      "place": "Return to Govardhan",
      "role": "All companions return to the courtyard. The watch stays stopped and the father remains dead. The son chooses to sit with his mother tomorrow. Having seen Chunmun choose the arch before it opened, he wonders whether she already knew the Court. This chapter has not toured all seven regions or all fourteen worlds."
    }
  ],
  "storyRules": [
    "Every large vista retains a central golden Meru and recognisable concentric land/ocean organisation. Cutaway views use ordered levels; no arbitrary floating duplicates.",
    "At a threshold, geometry appears first in a reflection, then in the inhabited landscape. Colour shifts reveal relations rather than changing where a place is.",
    "The same region keeps its colour, topological position and characteristic ecology when the camera moves. Luminous kuśa grass and a golden outer lotus give specific details.",
    "Psychedelic means perceptual transformation: nested patterns, prismatic light, depth inversion and recursive scale. No drug mechanism or practice instruction is introduced.",
    "The human watch/loss story continues through these ordered regions. The climax releases the invented enclosure; it does not destroy, reorder or permanently freeze the Purāṇic universe."
  ]
}