Caturdaśa Bhuvana
Caturdaśa Bhuvana · caturdaśa-bhuvana, “the fourteen worlds”
Grammar: neuter noun phrase; caturdaśa (fourteen) with bhuvana (world, from the root bhū, to be): “the fourteen worlds”.
Meaning: the fourteen lokas of the brahmāṇḍa, the seven above and the seven below, which together make the whole of the created world.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa speaks of the fourteen bhuvanas as the form of the brahmāṇḍa that rose from Śrī Hari.
The lotus from the navel. Parīkshit asked Śuka: “You said that the lotus whose form is the arrangement of the fourteen lokas arose from the navel of Śrī Hari. As an ordinary man has limited limbs, does Īśvara too have only limited limbs?” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 8). Maitreya tells Vidura that when Śrī Hari had appointed Brahmā to creation, Brahmā entered the kośa, the inner cup of the lotus, which had the power to become fourteen bhuvanas or even more, and divided it into three, the three worlds where beings taste the fruit of their karma (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 10).
The brahmāṇḍa. Śuka tells Parīkshit that the Purāṇas describe how Īśvara fashioned the brahmāṇḍa as fourteen bhuvanas; this brahmāṇḍa, like a sheath, is just this much, and it is directly the gross form of Bhagavān Nārāyaṇa, Purushottama (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 5, Chapter 26).
In the mouth of the child. Brahmā tells Nārada of the līlās of the avatāra to come: one day, as the child Śrī Kṛshṇa yawned, his mother Yaśodā saw in his mouth the fourteen bhuvanas; doubt filled her heart, and then the truth came to her that the child is an avatāra of Īśvara (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapter 7).
In the Bhavishya Purāṇa. The fourteen bhuvanas dwell in the limbs of cows (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 141). In a dāna of the Uttara Parva, the eight dig-gajas and the fourteen bhuvanas are also shown (Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapter 177).
Related terms: Bhuvana · Loka · Brahmāṇḍa · Triloka · Virāṭ Purusha
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 2, Chapters 7–8; Skandha 3, Chapter 10; Skandha 5, Chapter 26
- Bhavishya Purāṇa, Uttara Parva, Chapters 141, 177