Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Sign In
Text size
100%
Theme
Browse By

Sanskrit

This page groups realms by the language their descriptive name comes from. Wikipedia notes that "chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld," a term rooted in Greek. Browsing by language lets a visitor find every realm whose descriptive name traces to the same tongue.

Facts
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
Realms of blessedness, reward or divine dwelling, gathered from unrelated cosmologies so they can be read side by side. What each tradition means by such a place - who reaches it, on what terms, and whether it lasts - differs sharply, and nothing here should be read as one shared idea of heaven. 2
Peoples and Traditions Covered
Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Norse, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist and Aztec cosmologies, together with modern Pagan and Spiritualist belief. These are unrelated traditions and the heading is a comparative convenience, not a claim that they describe the same place. 2
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
A standard comparative category in the study of religion 2
Directory
Category
Realms 1
Learn More
The heavens

This group gathers the heavens, the upper and celestial realms of the world's cosmologies, the dwelling-places of gods, the blessed dead or the highest states of being. Conceptions of heaven vary widely, from a single divine abode to elaborately layered celestial spheres.

The browser will find the heavenly realms the atlas gathers from across the traditions. The entries describe each realm's inhabitants, character and place in its cosmology, reporting each tradition's own account rather than merging them.

Sanskrit
Filter Results6 entries
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Heaven and HellView the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.