What was the purpose of the European exploration? to discover trade routes to India, discovery of new lands, to determine if the world was round, to discover trade routes to the New World

It was a mixture of various reasons, although for the Spanish and Portuguese it was a question of reaching India for spice trades after the embargo instated on them by the Ottoman Turks.

The Portuguese went around Africa, and the Spanish tried sailing west across the barren ocean, and accidentally discovered America through Columbus.