Why is it always day on top of Mount Sumeru?

Not only on our earth, but also on the other planets that form Bhū-mandala, the inhabitants experience days and nights every 24 hours. There is, however, an area where it is always day.

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Not only on our earth, but also on the other planets that form the earthly realms of Bhū-mandala, the inhabitants experience days and nights every 24 hours following the movements of the sun, as well as the annual movements of the seasons. Life conditions may be different, but this particular detail is constant.

There is, however, an area where it is always day. For the inhabitants of the top of Mount Sumeru, the central pivot, it’s always day. Why the difference? The summit of Mount Sumeru is positioned in such a way that the sun never goes below the horizon. The inhabitants thus see the sun as always circling overhead, similar to what can be observed on our planet in the region of the North Pole during summer.

This is revealed by Śukadeva Gosvāmi:

“The living entities residing on Sumeru Mountain are always very warm, as at midday, because for them the sun is always overhead. Although the sun moves counterclockwise, facing the constellations, with Sumeru Mountain on its left, it also moves clockwise and appears to have the mountain on its right because it is influenced by the dakṣiṇāvarta wind.” (SB 5.21.8)

The top of Sumeru Mountain is a celestial region, where Brahma and the other principal demigods have their administrative cities; from there, they can oversee the management of Bhū-mandala performed by the Manus.

This verse also corroborates the whole model of the sun having two simultaneous movements that is described in the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. As the verse states: “Although the sun moves counterclockwise, facing the constellations, with Sumeru Mountain on its left, it also moves clockwise and appears to have the mountain on its right because it is influenced by the dakṣiṇāvarta wind.”

The counter-clockwise movement of the sun facing the constellations and with Sumeru on its left is made by the forward movement of the chariot of the sun. This is the annual movement through the zodiac that results in the seasons.

At the same time, however, the sun is forced to move backwards in a circular motion at great speeds, a clockwise motion imposed by the dakṣiṇāvarta wind. In this movement, the sun travels with Sumeru on its right.

Because the backwards movement is much faster, it appears that the sun is moving backwards, even though it is constantly traveling forward. To understand that, we could imagine the situation of a person walking through the aisle of a plane, front to back. In this case, the person is walking forward at a speed of maybe 5 or 6 km/h, while the plane is moving in the opposite direction at 900 km/h. For another person inside the plane, the person moves forward, but from the perspective of someone looking from the outside, the person appears to be moving backwards, since the movement of the plane is much faster.

In summary, the daily rotation of the sun is produced by the cosmic kāla-cakra centered on Dhruvaloka, while the motion through the zodiac signs belongs to the sun’s independent chariot.

“People living in countries at points diametrically opposite to where the sun is first seen rising will see the sun setting, and if a straight line were drawn from a point where the sun is at midday, the people in countries at the opposite end of the line would be experiencing midnight. Similarly, if people residing where the sun is setting were to go to countries diametrically opposite, they would not see the sun in the same condition.” (SB 5.21.9)

This verse confirms the point of the spherical nature of our planet, and explains how this is key for our experience of days and nights due to the daily movement of the sun, different from the experience of the inhabitants of the summit of Mount Sumeru, a flat surface where it’s always day.

This description also supports the point made by Prabhupāda in his conclusions about the model of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, of the other tracts of land described in the model of Bhū-mandala being also separate planets, which are connected by subtle pathways, since the description implies that the nature of days and nights should be consistent in the whole Bhū-mandala, or, in other words, similar to our planet.

He confirms this conclusion in his introduction to chapter 21: “Sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight occur in all these places because of the movements of the sun. Diametrically opposite the place where the sunrise takes places and the sun is seen by human eyes, the sun will be setting and passing away from human vision. Similarly, the people residing diametrically opposite the point where it is midday will be experiencing midnight. The sun rises and sets with all the other planets, headed by the moon and other luminaries.”

The fact that Śukadeva Goswami connects this with the point about being always day on top of Mount Sumeru is also significant, for it distinguishes the experience of demigods living there from the humans living in the earthly heavens of Bhū-mandala. If the other inhabitants of Bhū-mandala would also live on a flat surface and see the sun constantly circling overhead, there would be no practical difference between them, and the point raised by Śukadeva Goswami would become meaningless.

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