The Encyclopedia of World Religions

104 S cosmologies

travel, all human beings experienced a world that had the same general shape: a surface of earth and water covered by the dome of the sky. This is the world that G OD creates in the first chapter of Genesis. It is also the image found in indigenous American SWEAT LODGES . Some speculate that the ancient Chinese saw this world in the turtle-shells that they used for divination ( see C HINA , RELIGIONS OF ). To this model many religions add vertical lay ers above or below the earth or both. In H INDU ISM the sacred books known as the V EDA speak of “three worlds”: earth, atmosphere, and sky. Early Japanese collections of mythology speak of three different worlds: heaven, earth, and underworld. Religions may use a natural symbol to connect these three worlds, say, a cosmic tree or moun tain. Some scholars call such a symbol an axis mundi. Cosmologies may also involve more than three layers. After the Vedic period Hindus gen erally began with a seven-layer universe. Then they subdivided it and supplemented it. The Maya knew seven (or 13) layers of heaven and five (or nine) layers of the underworld ( see M AYA RELI GION ). G NOSTICISM spoke of the planetary spheres. Religions may connect human life with celestial events through ASTROLOGY . The preceding cosmologies emphasize the vertical. Other cosmologies emphasize the hori zontal. Indigenous American cosmologies associ ate the four cardinal directions with various colors, for example, west with black, north with white, east with red, south with yellow. Hindu mythol ogy identifies various “continents.” They take the form of concentric rings around a central conti nent, known as Jambudvipa, and its central pil lar, Mount Meru. Other religions imagine many worlds or universes. For example, certain forms of M AHAYANA B UDDHISM teach that there are an infinite number of heavens or, more precisely, “Buddha f ields.” Yet another kind of religious cosmology is more abstract. It identifies the forces and princi ples that underlie the world. Chinese traditionally see the world as resulting from the complementary interaction of two opposed principles, yin and yang

Hindu books known as the V EDA attributes the world as we know it to the sacrifice of the primal person (Rig-veda 10.90). The rise of scientific theories of the origin of the universe and of life has raised problems for traditional religious cosmogonies. Some have responded by rejecting science. For example, some Christian fundamentalists advocate what they call “creation science” ( see EVOLUTION AND RELIGION ). Others have rejected religious cosmogonies out of hand. Still others have taken a path in the middle. They accept the scientific accounts so far as they go, but they claim to see in the religious accounts deeper meanings that science lacks. cosmologies The image or models of the uni verse found in various religions. Most if not all religions provide their followers with an image of what the world looks like. This image is known as a religion’s cosmology. Scientists have cos mologies, too. For example, the ancient astrono mer Ptolemy developed an image of the universe centered on the Earth. This was a geocentric or “Earth-centered” cosmology. Copernicus said the Earth traveled around the sun. His was a heliocen tric or “sun-centered” cosmology. Religious cosmologies relate to human life. They may be very abstract. They also may envision an infinite number of worlds. But they never lose their focus on people and the way people experi ence the world. Religious cosmologies, then, are more than geocentric. They are anthropocentric, or “human-centered.” Some cosmologies describe the paths along which people move and the resources that they use. Ideal examples are the cosmologies traditional among indigenous Australians ( see A USTRALIAN RELIGIONS ). These cosmologies associate features of the landscape and patterns of traveling with mythical beings and events from the Dreaming, that is, the time of creation. Indeed, indigenous Australians traditionally believe that these beings are somehow still present in the landscape. Other cosmologies describe the world in terms of overarching structures. Before air and space