The Teaching of Cosmology is in Eastern Religion
The Teaching of Cosmology is in Eastern Religion
Mong Nu Ching Marma, Royal Pandit (O.S.S), B.A (Hons) BPU, M.A (Buddhist Studies)
Postgraduate Institute of Pāli and Buddhist Studies (PGIPBS),
University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
Introduction
The world is the planet Earth and all life upon it, including human civilization. In a philosophical context, the "world" is the whole of the physical Universe, or an ontological world. In a theological context, the world is the material or the profane sphere, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent. "End of the world" scenarios refer to the end of human history, often in religious contexts. Cosmology talks about universe as a whole which includes origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe. The term cosmology derived from Greek words, kosmos "world" and logia "study of", study of the origin and evolution of the Universe is, what basically Cosmology studies.
When eastern religious teachings on cosmology is taken into consideration, eastern religious mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology. Eastern Religious cosmologies usually include an act or process of creation by a creator deity or a larger pantheon. In this context, I basically discuss the major moments of Buddhist cosmology, the Maha Kappa concept, and the monastic guide to Brahma’s pure realm, the drama of the “Sahasra-cosmology” and eschatology of the “Asankhyeya-cosmology”. I also give special attention on Buddhist cosmology. In this work, the methodology is a textual study and mainly depends on secondary sources and the relevant monographs and also internet sources are also consulted.
Teachings of Cosmology in Eastern religious context
A common recognized aspect of the Buddha’s teaching centers about the rejection of speculations concerning the beginning and end of the world, the limited nature of its extension in space and a variety of questions which relate the soul to the body and to the cosmos. The fourteen difficult questions “caturdasavyakrtavastuni” are a systematic presentation of these speculations in summary fashion. Are the world and the self eternal? Non-eternal? Both eternal and non-eternal? Neither eternal nor non-eternal? Are the world and the self finite? Infinite? Both finite and infinite? Neither finite nor infinite?
Does the Tathagata, who has attained nirvana, exist after death? Does he exist after death? Does he both exist and not-exist after death? Does he neither exist nor not exist nor not-exist after death? Is the vital principle the same as the body? Is it different from the body? Then, the Buddha refused to answer these questions because they were vain and had no significance for salvation. All of the proposed alternatives are rejected by tradition as false or heretical. The scholastic difficulties inherent in apparent corollaries of two of these positons shed additional light on the implications of these “cosmological” questions.
If the universes are limited in number and since each of the innumerable Buddha’s saves by himself and immense “aprameyya” and incalculable “asankhyeyya” number of beings, the totality of beings would be exhausted in the course of time. If there are not always new beings, their number would be exhausted. If, on the other hand, the universes are infinite in number, the Buddha would not be omniscient.
In Buddhism, like other Indian religions, there is not ultimate beginning nor final end to the universe. It considers all existence as eternal, and believes there is no creator god Buddhism views the universe as impermanent and always in flux. This cosmology is the foundation of its Samsara theory, which evolved over time the mechanistic details on how the wheel of mundane existence works over the endless cycles of rebirth and redeath in early Buddhist traditions. Saṃsāra cosmology consisted of five realms through which wheel of existence recycled. This included hells (niraya), hungry ghosts (pretas), animals (tiryak), humans (manushya), and gods (devas, heavenly). In latter traditions, this list grew to a list of six realms of rebirth, adding demi-gods (asuras). The
"hungry ghost, heavenly, hellish realms" respectively formulate the ritual, literary and moral spheres of many contemporary Buddhist traditions. According to Akira Sadakata, the Buddhist cosmology is far more complex and uses extraordinarily larger numbers than those found in Vedic and post-Vedic Hindu traditions It also shares many ideas and concepts, such as those about Mount Meru. The Buddhist thought holds that the six cosmological realms are interconnected, and everyone cycles life after life, through these realms, because of a combination of ignorance, desires and purposeful karma, or ethical and unethical actions.
Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to the Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It consists of temporal and spatial cosmology, the temporal cosmology being the division of the existence of a 'world' into four discrete moments (the creation, duration, dissolution, and state of being dissolved, this does not seem to be a canonical division however). The spatial cosmology consists of a vertical cosmology, the various planes of beings, their bodies, characteristics, food, lifespan, beauty and a horizontal cosmology, the distribution of these world-systems into an "apparently" infinite sheet of universes. The existence of world-periods (moments, kalpas), is well attested to by the Buddha.
The self-consistent Buddhist cosmology, which is presented in commentaries and works of Abhidharma in both Theravāda and Mahāyāna traditions, is the end-product of an analysis and reconciliation of cosmological comments found in the Buddhist sūtra and vinaya traditions. No single sūtra sets out the entire structure of the universe, but in several sūtras the Buddha describes other worlds and states of being, and other sūtras describe the origin and destruction of the universe. The synthesis of these data into a single comprehensive system must have taken place early in the history of Buddhism, as the system described in the Pāli Vibhajyavāda tradition (represented by today's Theravādins) agrees, despite some minor inconsistencies of nomenclature, with the Sarvāstivāda tradition which is preserved by Mahāyāna Buddhists
The picture of the world presented in Buddhist cosmological descriptions cannot be taken as a literal description of the shape of the universe. It is inconsistent, and cannot be made consistent, with astronomical data that were already known in ancient India. However, it is not intended to be a description of how ordinary humans perceive their world rather, it is the universe as seen through the divyacakṣus (Pāli: dibbacakkhu), the "divine eye" can perceive all of the other worlds and the beings arising (being born) and passing away (dying) within them, and can tell from what state they have been reborn and into what state they will be reborn. The cosmology has also been interpreted in a symbolical or allegorical sense.
When Buddhist cosmology is taken into consideration, Buddhist cosmology can be divided into two related kinds, spatial cosmology, which describes the arrangement of the various worlds within the universe; and temporal cosmology, which describes how those worlds come into existence, and how they pass away. Spatial cosmology can also be divided into two branches. The vertical cosmology describes the arrangement of worlds in a vertical pattern, some being higher and some lower. By contrast, the horizontal (sahasra) cosmology describes the grouping of these vertical worlds into sets of thousands, millions or billions. In the vertical cosmology, the universe exists of many worlds. Each world corresponds to a mental state or a state of being. A world is not, however, a
location so much as it is the beings which compose it; it is sustained by their karma and if the beings in a world all die or disappear, the world disappears too. Likewise, a world comes into existence when the first being is born into it. The physical separation is not so important as the difference in mental state; humans and animals, though they partially share the same physical environments, still belong to different worlds because their minds perceive and react to those environments differently.
The vertical cosmology is divided into thirty-one planes of existence and the planes into three realms each corresponding to a different type of mentality. These three realms (Tridhātu) are the Ārūpyadhātu (4 Realms), the Rūpadhātu (16 Realms), and the Kāmadhātu (15 Realms). This Sakwala/solar system of existence comprises the "five or six desire realms". In some instances all of the beings born in the Ārūpyadhātu and the Rūpadhātu are informally classified as "gods" or
"deities" (devāḥ), along with the gods of the Kāmadhātu, notwithstanding the fact that the deities of the Kāmadhātu differ more from those of the Ārūpyadhātu than they do from humans. It is to be understood that deva is an imprecise term referring to any being living in a longer-lived and generally more blissful state than humans. Most of them are not "gods" in the common sense of the term, having little or no concern with the human world and rarely if ever interacting with it; only the lowest deities of the Kāmadhātu correspond to the gods described in many polytheistic religions.
Sahasra means "one thousand". All of the planes, from the plane of neither perception nor non-perception (nevasanna-asanna-ayatana) down to the Avici – the "uninterrupted" or "unceasing" (avici literally means "without interval") niraya – constitutes the single world-system, cakkavala (intimating something circular, a "wheel", but the etymology is uncertain described above. In modern parlance it would be called a 'universe', or 'solar system'.
A collection of one thousand solar systems are called a "thousandfold minor world-system" (culanika lokhadhatu).
A collection of 1,000 times 1,000 world-systems (one thousand squared) is a "thousandfold to the second power middling world-system" (dvisahassi majjhima lokadhatu).
According to this, the largest grouping, which consists of one thousand cubed world-systems, is called the "tisahassi mahasassi lokadhatu" or great trichiliocosm. The Tathagata, if he wishes, could affect his voice throughout a great trichiliocosm. He does so by suffusing the trichiliocosm with his radiance, at which point the inhabitants of those world-system will perceive this light, and then proceeds to extend his voice throughout that realm.
Maha Kappa Concept
The word kalpa, means 'moment'. A maha kalpa consists of four moments (kalpa), the first of which is creation. The creation moment consists of the creation of the "receptacle", and the descent of beings from higher realms into more coarse forms of existence. During the rest of the creation moment, the world is populated. Human beings who exist at this point have no limit on their lifespan. The second moment is the duration moment, the start of this moment is
signified by the first sentient being to enter hell (niraya), the hells and nirayas not existing or being empty prior to this moment. The duration moment consists of twenty "intermediate" moments (antarakappas), which unfold in a drama of the human lifespan descending from 80,000 years to 10, and then back up to 80,000 again. The interval between 2 of these "intermediate" moments is the "seven day purge", in which a variety of humans will kill each other (not knowing or recognizing each other), some humans will go into hiding. At the end of this purge, they will emerge from hiding and repopulate the world. As of May 2015, it seems the lifespan of humans is 80 years, during the time of Gotama Buddha it was 100 years. After this purge, the lifespan will increase to 80,000, reach its peak and descend, at which point the purge will happen again.
Within the duration 'moment', this purge and repeat cycle seems to happen around 18 times, the first "intermediate" moment consisting only of the descent from 80,000—the second intermediate moment consisting of a rise and descent, and the last consisting only of an ascent.
After the duration 'moment' is the dissolution moment, the hells will gradually be emptied, as well as all coarser forms of existence. The beings will flock to the form realms (rupa dhatu), a destruction of fire occurs, sparing everything from the realms of the 'radiant' gods and above (abha deva). After 7 of these
destructions by 'fire', destruction by water occurs, and everything from the realms of the 'pleasant' gods and above is spared (subha deva). After 64 of these destructions by fire and water, that is—56 destructions by fire, and 7 by water—a destruction by wind occurs, this eliminates everything below the realms of the 'fruitful' devas (vehapphala devas, literally of "great fruit"). The pure abodes (suddhavasa, meaning something like pure, unmixed, similar to the
connotation of "pure bred German shepherd"), are never destroyed. Although without the appearance of a Buddha, these realms may remain empty for a long time. It should be noted that the inhabitants of these realms have exceedingly long life spans.
The formless realms are never destroyed because they do not consist of form (rupa). The reason the world is destroyed by fire, water and wind, and not earth is because earth is the 'receptacle'. After the dissolution moment, this particular world system remains dissolved for a long time, this is called the 'empty' moment, but the more accurate term would be "the state of being dissolved". The beings that inhabited this realm formerly will migrate to other world systems, and perhaps return if their journeys lead here again.
According to above explanation in brief this Maha Kappa can be divided into four kalpas or "eons", each distinguished from the others by the stage of evolution of the universe during that kalpa. The four kalpas are:
All of the structures of the earth, Sumeru and the rest, extend downward to a depth of 80,000 yojanas below sea level – the same as the height of Sumeru above sea level. Below this is a layer of "golden earth", a substance compact and firm enough to support the weight of Sumeru. It is 320,000 yojanas in depth and so extends to 400,000 yojanas below sea level. The layer of golden earth in turn rests upon a layer of water, which is 8,000,000 yojanas in depth, going down to 8,400,000 yojanas below sea level. Below the layer of water is a "circle of wind", which is 16,000,000 yojanas in depth and also much broader in extent, supporting 1,000 different worlds upon it. Yojanas are equivalent to about 13 km (8 mi).
According to the Hindu cosmology, the universe is cyclically created and destroyed. But, according to Hindu Vedic cosmology, there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. Similarly, the space and universe has neither start nor end, rather it is cyclical. The current universe is just the start of a present cycle preceded by an infinite number of universes and to be followed by another infinite number of universes. Its cosmology divides time into four epochs or Yuga, of which the current period is the Kali Yuga.
There are four ages. T
hey are
Dvapara Yuga and
According to these four ages, Kali Yuga is the last of the four stages the world goes through as part of a 'cycle of yugas' described in the Sanskrit scriptures. According to the Puranas A few Hindu texts state that the world is destroyed at the end of the Kali Yuga, but most Hindu texts present the alternate cyclical theory, wherein caturyugas follow each other without interruption. The numerous differences in Hindu cosmology has been used by some scholars to chronologically date the texts that contain them, based on the presumption that the simpler models preceded more elaborate mythologically richer ones.
According to Henry White Wallis, the Rigveda and other Vedic texts are full of alternative cosmological theories and curiosity questions. For example, the hymn 1.24 of the Rigveda asks, "these stars, which are set on high, and appear at night, whither do they go in the daytime?" and hymn 10.88 wonders, "how many fires are there, how many suns, how many dawns, how many waters? I am not posing an awkward question for you fathers; I ask you, poets, only to find out? To its numerous open-ended questions, the Vedic texts present a diversity of thought, in verses imbued with symbols and allegory, where in some cases forces and agencies are clothed with a distinct personality, while in other cases as nature with or without anthropomorphic activity such as forms of mythical sacrifices.
But when we Nasadiya Sukta is taken into consideration, it asks cosmological questions about the nature of universe and how it began
Darkness there was at first, by darkness hidden;
Without distinctive marks, this all was water;
That which, becoming, by the void was covered;
That One by force of heat came into being;
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it?
Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation?
Gods came afterwards, with the creation of this universe.
Who then knows whence it has arisen?
Whether God's will created it, or whether He was mute;
Perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not;
Only He who is its overseer in highest heaven knows,
Only He knows, or perhaps He does not know.
Even when Jains cosmology is discussed, they highly consider the loka, “universe”, as an uncreated entity, existing since infinity, having no beginning or an end. Jain texts describe the shape of the universe as similar to a man standing with legs apart and arm resting on his waist. This Universe, according to Jainism, is narrow at the top, broad at the middle and once again becomes broad at the bottom.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Indian cosmology unbounded in both space and time. This world system of ours was seen as only one of an infinite number. In the time dimension, there were also no limits. The universe was both beginning less and endless, cycling through immensely long eons of evolution and involution. With the scientific revolution, from the end of the 17th century through the 19th, much of the old structure was dismantled. The heliocentric model, the discovery of galaxies, the understanding of geologic time and the evolution of species remade the entire universe. Of course, some refused to make the transition and clung to biblical certitudes, but for those who crossed over the new universe was a radically different one.
References
o Kloetzli, Randy. Buddhist Cosmology: From Single World System to Pure Land: Science and Theology in the Images of Motion and Light. Motilal Banarsidass Publishe, 1983
o Jayatilleke, K.N. "Facets of Buddhist Thought". Buddhist Publication Society. Buddhist Publication Society. (Retrieved 7 May 2015)
o Henry White Wallis, the Cosmology of the Ṛigveda: An Essay. Williams and Norgate, 1887
o Akira Sadakata (1997). Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins Kōsei Publishing, Tokyo
