Left Atrium Metaphorized (II): The Ocean and the Waters

The left atrium is the ocean[H1] . It contains an enormous quantity of “water” (see below). (The orb of the moon (left atrium) is said to be only “congealed water.”)

Oxygenated blood is the “waters.”

The pulmonary veins are oceans, containing “waters” (oxygenated blood).

The pulmonary vein oceans carry the (nectarine) waters (into the great left atrium ocean).

In the Vayu Purana, in the description of (the oceans surrounding Plaksa and other dvipas), the author clarifies on the increase and decrease in magnitude of the oceans. An ocean encompassing a dvipa is, in size, twice that of the previous one. The oceans are bodies containing copious amounts of water. 

In the Vayu Purana (49.131), we have the ocean being called “udadhi” on account of it being the store-house of waters:

udakasyādhānaṃ yasmāñca tasmādudadhirucyate

There are thus two distinct components: (1) the waters and (2) the ocean (containing that water). There is neither increase nor decrease in the amount of water. It remains the same. What changes is the “size” of the ocean. A simple analogy is applied—that of water being heated in a cooking pot. Just as the same water swells and expands in size with the increase in temperature, so also the (same) water in the ocean swells (49.128):

ukhāmyamagnisaṃyogāt jalamudricyate yathātathā mahodadhigataṃ toyamudricyate tataḥ

We have, also, in the Visnu Purana:

In this manner the seven island continents are encompassed successively by the seven oceans, and each ocean and continent is respectively of twice the extent of that which precedes it. In all the oceans the water remains at all times the same in quantity, and never increases or diminishes, but like the water in a caldron, which, in consequence of its combination with heat, expands, so the waters of the ocean swell with the increase of the moon. The waters, although really neither more nor less, dilate or contract as the moon increases or wanes in the light and dark fortnights.

This “swelling” of the waters comes about through the increase in the size of the water-body, the ocean.[1] The increase (and decrease) in the ocean again is the result of the waxing (and the waning) of the moon (49.129).

kṣayavṛddhirevamudadheḥ somavṛddhikṣayātpunaḥ

As one moves towards the alveolar zone, the “waters” (oxygenated blood) remain the same in volume; however are distributed across multiple, smaller oceans. Or: the same ocean expands in magnitude, as it were, (owing to increase in the number of pulmonary vein conduits) with the water remaining constant. The increase in the number of pulmonary vein conduits also represents the waxing of the moon and therefore, one may say: with the waxing of the moon, the ocean expands (although the volume of water remains constant); and reversely, with the waning of the moon, the ocean contracts (although the volume of water remains constant).

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[1] As one can observe from the actual situation below, this “increase in size” of the ocean is a rather figurative use of the term as it refers not to a literal increase but to an increase in the number of distribution channels (conduits).

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 [H1]Alternatively, the moon may not be represented as a ocean; it may simply be referred to as an orb of congealed water (oxygenated blood). Only the PV conduits may be referred to as oceans.