These are some thought I had on the subject.
Jahnu Prabhu wrote:
Sadaputa prabhu has explained that when the moon is further away than the sun it is to be understood that it is the distance to the plane of bhumandala that is measured. So the moon is higher above bhumandala than the sun (and thus further away). The sun is closer to the plane but orbits it further out than the moon.
This is a good guess but lacks sufficient support from Bhagavatam.
Taking the direct meaning of Bhagavatam instead of possible interpretations. The Bhagavatam gives very detailed description of the Sun’s orbit around the Bhumandala. The Sun rides over the peaks of the Manasottara mountain which is located at a distance of 15750000 yojanas from the base of the Mount Meru. Also, we know that the Sun rotates in a circular orbit in a plane
which is 100,000 yojanas above the Bhumanadala plane.
So assuming that the Phythogoras theorem (right angle triangle) is applicable in this situation, we can find the point to point distance from base of the bhumandala to the centre of the Sun globe to be 15750300 yojanas.
But the Bhagavatam 5th canto doesn’t give much information about the nature of orbit of the Moon around the Mount Meru. The only information we have is it rotates on a plane that is 200,000 yojanas above the Bhumandala plane. We don’t know whether the orbit is circular and if so what its radius is?
Assuming its circular and restricted to a plane parallel to Bhumandala. For the Moon to be farther than the Sun from the base of the Bhumandala, its orbital radius should be no less than 15749000 yojanas.
So since we don’t have the necessary information to verify this, we should take shelter of the acaryas especially our Founder Acarya who consistently maintained Moon is farther than the Sun.
And also SB 5.24.2 points out that the moon is twice as large as the Sun.
“The sun globe, which is a source of heat, extends for 10,000 yojanas [80,000 miles]. The moon extends for 20,000 yojanas [160,000 miles], and Rahu extends for 30,000 yojanas [240,000 miles].â€
And from our normal human perspective we can see that Moon looks smaller than the Sun if not bigger. This goes well with the Bhagavatam perspective that the Moon is bigger and farther than the Sun. This was also pointed out by Madhudvisa Prabhu.
Hope this helps. Let me know if I got something wrong.
- Lndasa