Pitrulok
Realm of the ancestors (Pitrus)
1 human month = 1 of their days
Bright fortnight = their day, dark fortnight = their night. Their year = 365 of their days = 365 earth months = 30.4 earth years.
01 · The Premise
Time runs differently in each realm
The scriptures state that a single day-and-night is experienced very differently across the loks. If we treat one year of each realm as a single revolution around our Sun, the length of that year tells us how far out that realm must sit.
Devlok
Realm of Indra & the devas (Swarga)
1 human year = 1 of their days
Uttarayan = their day, dakshinayan = their night. Their year = 365 of their days = 365 earth years.
Brahmalok
Realm of Brahmaji, the creator
1 of their days = 8.64 billion yrs
A kalpa (day) + pralaya (night). His year = 365 of his days = 3.15 trillion earth years.
02 · The Realms in Orbit
Where each realm orbits the Sun
Watch each realm circle the Sun. Use the toggle: Inner Realms spreads Pitrulok & Devlok across a √-scale so both are visible; Include Brahmalok switches to a logarithmic scale so Brahmaji’s vastly farther orbit fits on screen too. Motion is sped up and not to real-time scale.
Distances use a √-compressed scale; the true value in AU is labelled on each ring. 1 AU = 149.6 million km. Pluto orbits at ~39.5 AU.
03 · Who Lives There
Pitrulok sits between Guru and Shani — so who dwells in it?
Our diagram places Pitrulok at ~9.74 AU, right on Saturn’s (Shani’s) orbit, just beyond Jupiter (Guru). Per the Puranic and Vachanamrut tradition, here is who inhabits each realm and what they do.
Pitrulok
The realm of the ancestors
Who: the Pitrus — departed forefathers who lived righteously, dwelling in a subtle body between one earthly life and the next.
Presiding: Aryaman, chief of the Pitrus (Gita 10.29: “among ancestors I am Aryama”), with Yama, lord of the departed, governing the southern path.
What they do: they await the working-out of karma and their next birth, sustained by the shraddh and tarpan (offerings of water and food) that descendants perform. It is a realm of waiting — not of liberation.
Devlok
The realm of the devas (Swarga)
Who: Indra the king, the 33 devas, plus gandharvas and apsaras.
What they do: they enjoy immense celestial pleasure — the fruit (punya) of great good karma. But it is temporary: when the merit is spent, they fall back into the cycle of rebirth.
Vachanamrut note: even the devas cannot attain final liberation from their own realm — only a human birth in Bharat-khand makes that possible.
Brahmalok
The realm of Brahmaji, the creator
Who: Brahmaji, agent of creation, with great sages and liberated souls — the highest of the material lokas.
What he does: he fashions and administers the cosmos through his colossal day (a kalpa), which dissolves in his night (pralaya).
Vachanamrut note: even Brahmalok lies within maya and ends with Brahmaji’s lifetime; Akshardham, the abode of God, is beyond it all.
04 · The Method
Kepler’s Third Law does the rest
For anything going around the Sun, the length of its year tells you its distance. The rule is: multiply the year by itself, then take the cube root. That answer is the distance in AU.
d = ∛(T × T)
- T — the realm’s year, counted in earth years
- d — its distance from the Sun, in AU (astronomers call this “a”)
- ∛ — “cube root”: the number that, times itself three times, gives what’s inside
- 1 AU = the Earth–Sun distance = 149.6 million km
- 1 light-year = 63,241 AU
1
Take the year, T. How many earth years is one year in that realm?
2
Multiply it by itself: T × T.
3
Take the cube root of that answer — that is the distance d, in AU.
4
If it’s huge, divide by 63,241 to turn AU into light-years.
05 · The Derivation
How we arrived at each distance
Each realm’s year (in earth years) is fed straight into Kepler’s law. The final distance counts up as you scroll to it.
Pitrulok
- Ratio 1 of their days = 1 of our months
- Year (T) 365 of their days = 365 months = 30.4 earth years
- T × T 30.4 × 30.4 = 924
- ∛924 cube root of 924 = 9.74
0
AU
≈ Saturn’s orbit (9.58 AU)
Devlok
- Ratio 1 of their days = 1 of our years
- Year (T) 365 of their days = 365 earth years
- T × T 365 × 365 = 133,225
- ∛133,225 cube root = 51.1
0
AU
≈ Kuiper Belt, just past Pluto (39.5 AU)
Brahmalok
- Ratio 1 of his days = 8.64 billion yrs
- Year (T) 365 × 8.64 bn = 3.15 trillion earth yrs
- T × T = 9.95 × 1024
- cube root = 215 million AU
- ÷ 63,241 AU per ly → 3,400 ly
0
light-years
Within the Milky Way (~100,000 ly across)
06 · Zooming Out
Brahmalok on the galactic ladder
The inner realms fit in our solar system; Brahmalok is 3,400 light-years away. This logarithmic ladder places every realm on one scale — each step is 10× farther.
07 · Appendix
Brahmaji’s ladder of time (Vachanamrut)
The scriptural units that build up to a single day of Brahma, each mapped to human years.
| Unit | Composed of | Earth years |
|---|---|---|
| 1 lav | — | 666 yrs 8 months |
| 1 nimish | 60 lav | 40,000 |
| 1 pal | 60 nimish | 2,400,000 |
| 1 ghadi | 60 pal | 144,000,000 |
| 1 day (30 ghadi) | 30 ghadi | 4,320,000,000 |
| 1 full day + night | 60 ghadi | 8,640,000,000 |
08 · The Picture
The realms line up with the scripture
| Realm | 1 day-night | Their year | Distance from Sun | Anchor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pitrulok | 1 earth month | 30.4 yrs | 9.74 AU | ≈ Saturn |
| Devlok (Indra) | 1 earth year | 365 yrs | 51.1 AU | ≈ past Pluto |
| Brahmalok | 8.64 billion yrs | 3.15 trillion yrs | 3,400 light-years | Within the Milky Way |
The tighter the time-dilation, the closer the realm — exactly the ordering the Bhugol-Khagol cosmology describes. The math and the scripture line up.
Sources
References
- Vachnamrut time-units (lav → day of Brahma) — Swaminarayan Satsang · satsangweb
- Measurement of Time — Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Bhuj · swaminarayan.faith
- The Puranic Divisions of Time · sacred-texts
- Yuga — deva & pitru day-ratios · Hindupedia
- Kalpa (time) · Wikipedia
A devotional thought-experiment blending the Vachanamrut’s Bhugol-Khagol cosmology with orbital mechanics. Distances are a mathematical mapping of scriptural time-scales, computed relative to the Sun via Kepler’s Third Law.