Mudgalapurana 2.15: saptapātālavarṇanaṃ nāma pañcadaśo'dhyāyaḥ

Salutation to the glorious Gaṇeśa.

Mudgala said: / Atala, Vitala, Sutala, and Talātala, / Mahātala, Rasātala, and Pātāla is remembered as the seventh.

Atala is dark in colour and situated well below the earth; / its depth is indeed ten thousand yojanas, and its breadth is a hundred thousand yojanas.

Joined with the son of Maya and those headed by Namuci, / and also with other diverse serpents, Atala is adorned, O lord.

Vitala is white in colour and remembered as situated beneath it; / and that cavity is situated at ten thousand yojanas.

There serpents and asuras dwell, enjoying happiness: / Kambala, Śaṅkukarṇa, Hayagrīva, and Jumbhaka.

Sutala is yellow in colour, similarly established beneath it; / right there are birds such as the sons of Vinatā, and Bali, ruler of Daityas;

And others such as Kālanemi, various Daityas, dwell happily; / and the serpents, free from fear, wander about and dwell together.

Talātala is to be known as gravelly; those who dwell there / are Mayāsura and others, and others headed by Bāṇa and Andhaka.

Other serpents, free from fever, dwell there in happiness, / as do the Kālakeyas with great bodies, and the Nivātakavacas.

Mahātala is black in colour; there the serpent Takṣaka / and many other serpents dwell, enjoying happiness.

And other Daityas whose abode is Hiraṇyapura by the thousands, / having cast off fear of the gods, dwell there, O Prajāpati.

Rasātala is rocky, situated beneath in the same way, being immense; / with serpents headed by Vāsuki and with various kinds of Daityas;

In that cavity filled with all splendour, supreme and granting various pleasures, / there those who are radiant, with sharp and fierce poison, dwell.

Pātāla is blue in colour, established beneath it; / and there an abode was made by Śeṣa for the sake of his work.

There Daityas, gods, and serpents always worship him; / endowed with devotion and discernment, [they worship] the king of serpents of mighty abode.

In these cavities of Pātāla, various dwellings have been built, / and also forests, villages, and cities, O Prajāpati;

Trees endowed with extraordinary enjoyments, various kinds of birds, / resplendent temples, and lakes filled with blue lotuses.

There living beings enjoy pleasures equal to heaven, O Dakṣa; / all the people are joyful and thriving, living for a hundred thousand years.

Endowed with boundless lifespan, they are truly of great splendour; / very difficult to be overcome by the gods and others, moving as they wish, they dwell there.

Thirty thousand yojanas below that, O Prajāpati, / there Śeṣa himself, king of serpents, always remains;

Endowed with devotion to Gaṇeśa, born from a portion of Gaṇeśa, / and an incarnation as a part of Viṣṇu, he is also remembered as Kālarudra.

He is the sole thousand-faced one, highly fortunate and of great strength, / the flame born of whose poison would burn up the entire universe.

He alone is devoid of death; therefore he is proclaimed as Ananta; / having brought about dissolution at the end of a day of Brahmā, he remains of himself.

Serpent kings headed by Vāsuki always worshipped him, / as did asuras headed by Prahlāda, devoted to service.

Submerged [in devotion], they and other serpent women worship him, / dedicated to devotion to Ananta for the accomplishment of various desires.

Below that, at one thousand yojanas, O lord, / lies the abode of the tortoise, the incarnator Viṣṇu.

There Varuṇa and others serve him, intent on devotion— / Nārāyaṇa, free from disease, who is present in the form of the tortoise itself.

A thousand yojanas below that, Viṣṇu himself is situated, / bearing the form of the boar, conqueror of enemies' cities.

All those headed by the earth serve him, intent on devotion— / the great god of dreadful visage, bestower of fearlessness upon his devotees.

All this has Śeṣa as its support; he is remembered as having the tortoise for his support; / the tortoise is properly situated on the support of the form of the boar.

[Section 2, Chapter 16, Page 35] And the Boar, without support, remembering Gaṇeśa in his heart, / stood [firm]; by his power he is remembered as the support of all.

Beneath him are situated the hells beginning with Raurava, / which all inflict torments and bring about purification for sinners:

Raurava, and Tāmisra, and the one named Mahāraurava, / and the one called Andhatāmisra, and another, Sūcīmukha;

Lohadaṇḍa, Taptavāluka, and Khaḍgapatraka, / Lālāsya, and Kṛmibhakṣya—these and many others are recalled,

in which hells evil-doers alone are thoroughly boiled. / This much of the cosmic sphere has been described to you in brief.

In full it cannot be told at all, O Prajāpati. / By the force of the curse's delusion, delusion has come upon you;

today, through worship of Gaṇeśa, the destruction of your delusion will come to pass; / then you will know all in its true reality, no doubt herein.

Thus the world shone similarly across all the cosmic eggs / endowed with the eight enclosures, having Gaṇeśa as their support.

This form of Gaṇapati, having the nature of the cosmic egg, / has been narrated by me to you in brief, granting all perfections.

Whichever man listens with devotion or recites it, it gives him all, / bringing enjoyment and liberation in the future, destroying the cloak of sin.

Om tat sat. Thus ends the fifteenth chapter, named 'Description of the Seven Underworlds,' in the Ekadantacarita of the second section of the glorious and venerable Mudgala Mahāpurāṇa, an Upaniṣad of the Purāṇas.