Buddhist cosmology

• 1. Introduction

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  Buddhist cosmology describes a universe resting on a foundation of golden earth. That foundation floats on water eight million yojanas deep, held up in turn by a circle of wind sixteen million yojanas across. This is not meant as a literal geology lesson. It is a map of where beings are reborn, drawn from what Buddhist scriptures and commentaries say about the shape and timespan of the cosmos. The whole structure is said to be built from five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space. And it is tied at every level to karma. Some ages fill with prosperity and peace, while others fill with suffering, dishonesty, and short lifespans. Why would a religious tradition need a foundation this elaborate? Who is said to actually see this structure? And how does the same tradition explain a single human lifetime alongside the destruction of the entire universe?

• 2. The Divine Eye

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  The term used for this vision is dibbacakkhu, the 'divine eye,' the faculty by which a Buddha or an Arahant perceives beings arising and passing away across many worlds. Through this eye, a Buddha can tell what state a being has been reborn from, and what state awaits them next. Beings can appear as devas, humans, animals, asuras, pretas or hungry ghosts, or as inhabitants of the hell realms.

  Giving, moral conduct, and meditative development, together with their opposites, are the three factors said to decide how a being is reborn. Rebirth in the Kama-loka, the desire realm, follows from a person's moral conduct and practice of giving alone. Reaching the Rupa-loka, the form realm, or the Arupa-loka, the formless realm, additionally demands meditative development.

  Achieving Buddhahood, the tradition says, requires eons upon eons of perfecting charity, moral conduct, and meditative development. Full liberation from rebirth demands nothing less. Exactly how many of these worlds exist, and how they stack above and below the human plane, is a separate question entirely.

• 3. Piecing Together Scripture

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  In the Saleyyaka Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya, the Buddha lists the planes above the human world in ascending order. Several suttas in the Anguttara Nikaya lay out the causes of rebirth into those same planes, in the same sequence. Neither text describes the entire cosmos on its own; each discourse covers only a piece of the picture.

  The comprehensive system now associated with Buddhist cosmology comes from later commentaries and Abhidharma works, in both Theravada and Mahayana traditions. These works reconciled scattered comments found across the sutra and vinaya literature. That synthesis must have taken shape early in Buddhist history. The Pali Vibhajyavada tradition, followed today by Theravadins, agrees with the Sarvastivada tradition preserved by Mahayana Buddhists, apart from small differences in terminology. That inherited structure divides the universe both vertically, by realm, and horizontally, across countless repeating systems.

• 4. Three Realms of Rebirth

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  Thirty-one planes of existence divide the universe into three realms, called dhatus in the source texts. The formless realm, Arupyadhatu, holds four of those planes. The desire realm, Kamadhatu, holds eleven. The form realm, Rupadhatu, contributes sixteen planes to that total. Other Buddhist texts count Rupadhatu planes differently, as few as sixteen or as many as twenty-two, most often eighteen.

  Beings enter the Arupyadhatu after mastering one of four formless absorptions in an earlier life. The highest of its four planes is the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception. Udraka Ramaputra, the second of the Buddha's original teachers, reached this sphere and mistook it for enlightenment. Its inhabitants live for 84,000 Maha Kalpa. One level down sits the sphere of nothingness. Alara Kalama, the first of the Buddha's original teachers, reached it in an earlier life and made the same mistake. Its beings live 60,000 Maha Kalpa. Below that sit the sphere of infinite consciousness, at 40,000 Maha Kalpa, and the sphere of infinite space, at 20,000 Maha Kalpa. Each of these four planes sits 5,580,000 yojanas above the one beneath it. None of their inhabitants has a body or a location, so none of them can hear a Buddha's teaching.

  The Rupadhatu's beings keep physical bodies, but the material is invisible to those below them in the Kamadhatu. A yojana, the unit used to measure these worlds, is sometimes reckoned at 4,000 times the height of a man, or about 4.54 miles. Bodies of the Rupadhatu carry no sexual distinctions, unlike bodies in the realm below. The highest and rarest tier of the Rupadhatu is the Suddhavasa, the Pure Abodes. Only Anagamins, non-returners who have destroyed the five lower fetters, are reborn there. Brahma Sahampati, the deva who urged the Buddha to teach the Dhamma, lived in the Suddhavasa as an Anagami from a previous Buddha's era. Unlike the worlds below it, the Suddhavasa is never destroyed by natural catastrophe. It can still sit empty for long stretches whenever no Buddha appears to raise new beings into it.

  The Kamadhatu centers on Mount Sumeru, an immense peak ringed by oceans and lesser mountain ranges. Four heavens float in the air above its peak, each a bounded plane 80,000 yojanas square. Tusita, the world of the joyful devas, is where a Bodhisattva lives before a final rebirth as a human. Svetaketu, the Bodhisattva of Tusita until a few thousand years ago, was reborn as Siddhartha and became the Buddha Sakyamuni. On Sumeru's own summit sits Trayastrimsa, ruled by Sakra, lord of the devas. On its lower slopes sits the Caturmaharajika, guarded by four heavenly kings. At the mountain's base, in the ocean, live the Asuras, led by figures including Vemacitrin and Rahu. They are still fighting to reclaim the summit they were once hurled from, drunken. Below the human world lie the Narakas. Different schemes count eight cold hells and eight hot hells, each holding beings only as long as their karma dictates.

  Multiply a single one of these world-systems by a thousand, then by a thousand again, and the scale barely begins.

• 5. Worlds Beyond Counting

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  Sahasra means 'one thousand,' the term behind this cosmology's horizontal scale. Every plane described so far, from the sphere of neither perception nor non-perception down to the Avici hell, forms one single system called a Cakkavala.

  A group of one thousand Cakkavala forms a Culanika Lokadhatu, a small chiliocosm. A group of one million forms a Dvisahassi Majjhima Lokadhatu, a medium dichiliocosm. The largest grouping described, a Trisahassi Mahasassi Lokadhatu, holds a billion world-systems. It is called a great trichiliocosm, or simply the Galaxy.

  A Tathagata who wished to could send his voice and his power throughout an entire great trichiliocosm. He does this by filling that trichiliocosm with his own radiance. Its inhabitants perceive the light first, before his voice and power reach them. None of this repetition holds forever; even a great trichiliocosm, in Buddhist cosmology, rises and collapses on a schedule of its own.

• 6. Cycles of Creation and Ruin

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  A mahakalpa, or 'Great Eon,' is the basic unit of this time scale. Its length in years is never defined exactly, only that it runs to billions of years or more. Each mahakalpa divides into four kalpas, since the word kalpa itself simply means 'moment.' The four are named the eon of evolution, the eon of evolution-duration, the eon of dissolution, and the eon of dissolution-duration.

  During the creation kalpa, called the Vivartakalpa, beings descend from higher realms into coarser forms of existence. Humans alive at this point have no limit on their lifespan. The duration kalpa, the Vivartasthayikalpa, begins the moment the first being enters hell. It unfolds across twenty antarakalpas, intermediate stretches in which the human lifespan drops from 80,000 years down to ten, then climbs back up again. Between each rise and fall comes what the tradition calls the 'seven day purge.' Humans who no longer recognize each other turn violent, and some go into hiding. Survivors emerge afterward and repopulate the world, and the whole cycle of rise and fall begins again. This purge-and-repeat pattern happens around eighteen times within the duration kalpa.

  The Mahasudassana-sutta tells of a cakravartin king named Mahasudassana, who lived for 336,000 years. The Cakkavatti-sihanada-sutta describes a later dynasty of cakravartins, five of whom had lifespans of over 80,000 years. The seventh king of that line broke tradition, refusing to abdicate his throne at the customary age. Poverty followed his misrule, then theft, then capital punishment, then a spreading contempt for life. Human lifespan then fell quickly from 80,000 years toward 100, apparently halving with each generation, while lying, greed, hatred and disrespect for elders all increased. Three Buddhas of this current antarakalpa lived during that decline. Kakusandha Buddha taught when the lifespan was 40,000 years, Kanakamuni Buddha at 30,000 years, and Kasyapa Buddha at 20,000 years. Sakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, lived to the age of 80 during this same antarakalpa. Present time is reckoned as falling near the end of that same first antarakalpa.

  Ten-year lifespans and marriages at age five are what the rest of this antarakalpa is prophesied to bring, alongside a total collapse of morality. A great war is set to follow, fought by the most hostile and aggressive, while the less aggressive hide in forests. Survivors will emerge afterward, repent their old habits, and see their lifespans begin to climb again. Once descendants of that ten-year generation reach a lifespan of 80,000 years, a cakravartin king named Sankha will rule. During his reign, that Bodhisattva will descend and be reborn as Ajita. Ajita will then leave the household life and reach full enlightenment as the Buddha Maitreya. After Maitreya's era, decline and renewal will repeat, each antarakalpa separated from the next by war, with peaks of civilization in between. After the nineteenth antarakalpa, the lifespan will rise to 80,000 years and simply stay there, ending the Vivartasthayikalpa.

  The dissolution kalpa follows next, as the hells and coarser realms gradually empty of beings. A destruction by fire then occurs, sparing only the realms of the Abhasvara devas and everything above them. After seven such fire destructions, an eighth mahakalpa ends instead in a destruction by water, sparing the Subha devas and above. After fifty-six destructions by fire and seven by water, the sixty-fourth mahakalpa ends in the most devastating destruction of all, by wind. That wind eliminates everything below the Vehapphala devas, whose name means 'having great fruit.' The formless realms escape every one of these destructions too, since without form, there is nothing in them for fire, water or wind to reach. None of this describes the far larger picture that later Mahayana traditions would paint of the universe.

• 7. A Universe of Countless Buddhas

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  The Lotus Sutra describes Buddhas projecting manifestations, called Nirmanakaya, throughout an infinite cosmos. These manifestations embody great wisdom and compassion, and appear constantly rather than as rare historical events. The Avatamsaka Sutra goes further still, describing a universe where every atom contains infinite Buddhas teaching the Dharma to infinite beings. This vision blurs any firm line between the ordinary and the sacred, treating space and consciousness as fundamentally non-dual.

  Mahayana cosmology also fills its universe with pure lands, or buddhakshetras, ideal environments reachable through faith, devotion and merit. Sukhavati, the Western Pure Land of the Buddha Amitabha, exists more than one trillion Buddha-lands away to the west, and offers easy attainment of enlightenment. Abhirati, the Eastern Pure Land of the Buddha Akshobhya, is instead marked by meditative stability and wisdom. Beyond a distance compared to the grains of sand in ten Ganges rivers lies the Radiant Lapis Lazuli land of the Medicine Buddha, Bhaisajyaguru. Sakyamuni Buddha himself is said to reside in his own pure land, called 'Unsurpassable,' from which he manifests here to teach.

  The Avatamsaka Sutra also describes Vairocana's own realm, the 'Lotus Treasury World,' as billions of interpenetrating universes. East Asian schools such as Tiantai expand the traditional six realms of rebirth into a set of ten. The four added realms are the Sravaka, or disciples of the Buddha; the Pratyekabuddha, or solitary Buddhas; the Bodhisattva Mahasattvas; and the Buddha realm itself. In the Tiantai schema, all ten realms are understood as mutually inclusive, so that even the most painful state still holds the potential for enlightenment.

  Vairocana, in this telling, is a Cosmic Buddha whose own body is said to encompass the entire multiverse. In the Shingon school, the Vajradhatu and Garbhadhatu mandalas render that same claim visually, each one picturing Vairocana's body standing in for everything that exists. What those two mandalas leave open is whether the ordinary room a listener sits in right now already counts as part of it.