This page groups realms by the specific role a faith gives them in its own teaching. Wikipedia notes that "in the Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Islam, and some schools of Judaism, as well as Zoroastrianism, heaven is the realm of afterlife where good actions in the previous life are rewarded for eternity." Browsing by doctrinal status lets a visitor compare how differently two traditions rule on the same realm.
Facts
Overview
Peoples and Traditions CoveredAncient Egyptian, Ancient Greek, Norse, Celtic, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Aztec and Maya cosmologies, together with modern Western esoteric, Pagan and Spiritualist belief. These are unrelated traditions with incompatible maps of the cosmos; the heading is comparative and imposes no single scheme on them. 1 Learn More
The Otherworlds and Their Inhabitants
A realm, in this category, is one of the otherworlds, heavens, underworlds or intermediate places described by a tradition's cosmology: the Norse nine worlds, the Hindu and Buddhist lokas, the Greek Hades, the Kabbalistic worlds, and many more. Each entry records the tradition the realm belongs to, its place in the wider cosmos, and who is said to dwell there or pass through it.
Realms are the geography of the mythic and metaphysical world, where the gods live, where the dead go, what lies above and below the ordinary world, and how the levels are joined by a world-tree, a mountain, a bridge or a river.
How Cosmologies Differ
Traditions disagree about how many realms there are, how they are arranged, and what determines which a soul reaches. Some picture a simple upper and lower world with the living between; others build elaborate storeys of heavens and hells, or wheels of rebirth through many planes. The entries report each scheme on its own terms.
The realms group by kind (heavens, underworlds, planes and worlds), so a reader can compare, say, the underworlds of many traditions side by side. The largest of these structures connect outward to the section on Cosmology & Realms.
Doctrinal Status
Sources
1. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. CosmologyView the Source Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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