Question: As per Madhva, the spiritual Vaikuṇṭha is one loka which has Ayodhya as the capital city and Vrndāvan as a forest/village. Vaikuṇṭha is not a multiplicity or an agglomeration of different Vaikuṇṭha lokas or planetary systems as is shown in the Goloka charts. Are there śāstric references which distinctly state that there are separate planets for Narasiṁha, Varāha, etc. in Vaikuṇṭha as we commonly understand?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
vaikuṇṭha-bhuvane nitye nivasanti mahojjvalāḥ
avatārāḥ sadā tatra matsya-kurmādyao ’khilā
“All the greatly effulgent avatāras such as Matsya and Kūrma always live in eternal spiritual abodes in Vaikuṇṭha.” Padma Purāṇa [Laghu-bhāgavatāmṛta 1.1.24 Baladeva Vidyabhusana’s commentary]
ananta-prapancānanta-vaikuṇṭha
“The abodes of Vaikuṇṭha are without limit.” [Bhagavat Sandarbha Anuccheda 49; Ujjvala-nīlamaṇi 1.21]
[Tripāda-vibhūti-mahā-nārāyaṇa-upaniṣad, Chapter 7]
yā yathā bhuvi vartante
puryo bhagavataḥ priyāḥ
tās tathā santi vaikuṇṭhe
tat-tal-līlārtham ādṛtāḥ
“All the abodes in which the Supreme Lord takes delight on the earth are present in Vaikuṇṭha. He honors each of them with various pastimes.” (Skanda Purāna)
tasyāḥ pāre para-vyomni
tripād-bhūtaṁ sanātanam
amṛtaṁ śāśvataṁ nityam
anantaṁ paraṁ padam
‘Beyond the Virajā River is the tripāda-vibhuti which is eternal, never ceasing to exist, infinitely vast (anantaṁ) and the highest abode.’
– (Padma Purāna, Uttara Khanda, Quoted in Bhagavat-sandarbha, Anuccheda 8)
In Cc Madhya 21.4-8, SCM personally identified the fact that there are unlimited Vaikuṇṭha planets, but specific śāstric references are not supplied.
Śrila Prabhupāda explained in a letter to Ekayāni dasi that the non-human forms of avatāras do not have their planets in the spiritual sky, although he asserts the same as what SCM established in Cc M 21.
Letter to Ekayani — Los Angeles 25 July, 1970
So far the Avatāras are concerned there are two types. One is called nitya and the other is called naimittic. Nitya means eternal and Namittic Avatāras appear for some specific function in the material worlds. Nitya Avatāras have their eternal abodes in the spiritual sky from which they may sometimes descend to the material worlds, but Naimittic Avatāras are expansions of Nitya Avatāras for some timely purpose. So, the non-human forms of Avatāras do not have their planets in the spiritual sky.
