Om Namo Narayanaya 🙏🏻🙏🏻
When the ocean itself is on the planet Earth, then how could the demon Hiranyaksha hide Mother Earth deep in any ocean??
Here ocean doesn’t just mean a normal ocean, it’s not a geographically one, which we see on the Globe! It means a cosmic Ocean, the waters which fill the lower regions of the Universe’s creation. So according to this, our Planet Earth is a planetary body which is floating or placed in a vast cosmic layout (Garbhodaka ocean). Garbha means womb and Udakamu means water.
And Garbhodaka can be compared to the Hiranyagarbha, the golden Egg from which the entire Universe is born, or in simple terms, it can be referred as the Baby who takes birth in the mother’s garbha(womb) and how the baby is safely covered by the placenta and within amniotic fluid :)
To understand it deeply, we should understand the concept of cosmology mentioned in our Sanatana Dharma’s scriptures.
According to our scriptures, Universe is divided into fourteen distinct realms or lokas, seven higher worlds and seven lower worlds. The lower worlds are called Patalas.
And according to Vishnu Puranam, Hiranyaksha hid mother Earth(Bhudevi) in the Rasatala realm’s deep ocean. Rasatala is the sixth realm among the seven lower worlds (situated directly beneath Mahātala and just above Patala).
So, Shri Vishnu assumed the form of Varaha, initially small like a tiny piglet, then swelling to a colossal, mountain-like size and plunged into the dark depths of the ocean. Then Lord Varaha gently lifted Bhudevi on his mighty tusks out of the water. After a fierce battle lasting thousands of years, Varaha killed the demon Hiranyaksha and restored dharma.