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The Earliest Cosmologies

The universe as pictured in thought by the ancient Hebrews, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Iranians, and Indo-Aryans: a guidebook for beginners in the study of ancient literatures and religions

William Fairfield Warren

Copyright, 1909, by 
EATON & MAINS.
.
NORTH POLAR 
ZETUTH 
THE BABYLONIAN UNIVERSE 
Illustrating pages 33-40 
The upright central line is the polar axis of the heavens and earth. The two seven-staged pyra 
mids represent the earth, the upper being the abode of living men, the under one the abode of the dead. 
The separating waters are the four seas. The seven inner homocentric globes are respectively thf> 
domains and special abodes of Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Ishtar, Nergal, Marduk, and Ninib, each being a 
"world-ruler" in his own planetary sphere. The outermost of the spheres, that of Anu and Ea, is the 
heaven of the fixed stars. The axis from center to zenith marks " the Way of Anu "; the axis from 
center to nadir " the Way of Ea." See Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. xxii, pp. 138- 
144; xxiii, opposite p. 388; and xxvi, pp. 84-92.
.
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED 
WITH FRIENDLY PERMISSION 
TO 
C. H. W. JOHNS, M.A., Lrrr.D. 
QUEENS COLLEGE 
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 
ENGLAND
.
CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Dedication 
*
f\ 
Illustrations 
Preface 
11 
CHAPTER I 
THE HEBREW UNIVERSE AS COMMONLY PICTURED 
A typical representation 
* 
Inconsistency in interpretation 
Lack of thoroughness , 
21 
Antecedent probabilities 
22 
A profession of faith 24 
The declaration of an astronomer 25 
CHAPTER II 
THE HEBREW UNIVERSE AS PICTURED BY SCHIAPARELLI 
An improved reconstruction of the system 
International interest therein 26 
Diagram less inclusive than its title 27 
A double firmament and the reasons therefor 29 
OfJ 
Embarrassing questions 
God s will effective below but not above the earth 32 
CHAPTER III 
THE BABYLONIAN UNIVERSE NEWLY INTERPRETED 
Seven diagrams representing the Babylonian universe 3 
No two of the seven alike 33 
A new interpretation needed * 
The twelve conditions to be met a 
A diagram that satisfies each of the twelve requirements 38 
Origin of this remarkable world-concept 
40 
CHAPTER IV 
THE BIBLICAL, RABBINICAL, AND KORANIC UNIVERSE IN THE 
LIGHT OF THE BABYLONIAN 
Was the Biblical universe essentially Babylonian? 4 
An argument against the supposition 
4 
5
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6 CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Considerations favoring the supposition 45 
The Rabbinical world-view 49 
The Koranic 52 
Mohammed s six ascents into the seventh heaven 53 
CHAPTER V 
THE EGYPTIAN UNIVERSE 
A pioneer s first representation 58 
A contemporary criticism 60 
Picture embodying some later modifications 62 
Difficulties remain 64 
Traces of agreement with the Babylonian system 66 
Steindorff discovers but fails to correlate the Counter-earth 68 
CHAPTER VI 
THE HOMERIC UNIVERSE 
A claim that the Homeric earth is a sphere 70 
Other parts of his universe more or less Babylonian 73 
Where further evidence may be found 73 
The irremovable "thresholds" above and below the earth 75 
Testimony of Herodotus to Babylonian influence 76 
An ampler present-day claim 77 
CHAPTER VII 
THE INDO-IRANIAN UNIVERSE 
The world-concept of the Surya Siddhanta 79 
Sevenfold division of the Northern hemisphere 81 
Sevenfold division of the Southern hemisphere 83 
Substantial identity of Indian and Iranian world-concepts 85 
The seven "island continents" 86 
A puzzling passage made plain 93 
CHAPTER VIII 
THE BUDDHISTIC UNIVERSE 
Four chief deviations from the parent system 95 
Nine points of agreement with it 95 
Both agreements and deviations should be further investigated. 99 
Two pictures of the Buddhistic universe 100 
One with quadrangular Dvfpas, the other with circular 100 
More detailed description of this world-view in the Appendix . . 100
.
CONTENTS 7 
CHAPTER IX 
RECOVERED TRACE OP Two LOST SPHERES 
PAGE 
Two lunar and two solar spheres 101 
Discriminations hitherto neglected 102 
Difficulty of the task 103 
It should nevertheless be undertaken 103 
A long-standing problem in Egyptian cosmology 104 
Its solution 107 
CHAPTER X 
POINTS AND PROBLEMS FOR FUTURE STUDT 
The prehistoric world-concept 109 
Myths as beginnings of a philosophy of nature 110 
Why hard to understand 112 
Their seeming lack of harmony often unreal 112 
Mythical representations of the world s axis 113 
Also of the cosmic water-system 115 
And of inter-mundane highways 116 
The lunar sphere as bridge from underworld to upper 118 
The Zodiac, when invented, and where 119 
The answer to these questions becoming clearer 126 
APPENDIX 
I. The Mandala Oblation 133 
II. Homer s Abode of the Dead 157 
III. Homer s Abode of the Living 178 
IV. The Gates of Sunrise in the Oldest Mythologies 192 
V. The Homeland of the Gandharvas 197 
VI. The World-Tree of the Teutons 200 
VII. Problems Still Unsolved in Indo-Aryan Cosmology 205 
Index of Authors 217 
IX. Index of Subjects 221
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ILLUSTRATIONS 
Universe of the Ancient Babylonians FRONTISPIECE 
PAGE 
The Hebrew Universe, drawn by Whitehouse 20 
The Hebrew Universe, drawn by Schiaparelli 27 
The Egyptian Universe aa described by Maspero 59 
The Egyptian Universe as later drawn by him 63 
The World of Homer 169 
Rootage of the Teutonic World-Tree 203 
Original diagrams illustrative of the Earth of the Iranians, the 
Earth of the Indo-Aryans, the Navel of the Earth, the Earth of 
Dante, and the Earth of Columbus, are given in The Cradle of the 
Human Race. 
The diagrams by Whitehouse, Schiaparelli, and Maspero, repro 
duced in the following pages, are used with the kind permission 
of their publishers.
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PREFACE 
IN the judgment of those who have seen it 
the following treatise sheds a new light on not 
a few important questions. It ought to prove 
helpful to all students of ancient thought, pre 
eminently to all teachers of ancient literatures. 
It deals with a theme fundamental beyond all 
others. Back of every religion, and of every 
philosophy or science worthy of the name, lies 
a "world-view" a concept in which are in 
cluded all localities and all beings supposed in 
that religion or philosophy or science to exist. 
In proportion to its clearness and complete 
ness, it in every case groups and mentally 
pictures these localities and beings in certain 
relations to each other, and thus also in their 
total unity as a universe. The science which 
critically investigates and expounds the worldview 
of any people, or of any system of doctrine, 
is called Cosmology; the branch which does this 
for a group or class of world-concepts is known 
as Comparative Cosmology. The present work 
may be regarded as an introduction to this 
fascinating study. 
For more than three decades it has been the 
duty and the delight of the writer to inquire 
11
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12 PREFACE 
into the world-concepts of the most ancient 
peoples of the earth, and to interpret these 
concepts as clearly as possible to successive 
classes of eager-minded students. Almost at 
the very beginning of this comparative study 
there began to be reached results noticeably 
divergent from current teachings in various 
fields of scholarship ; results so illuminative and 
mutually self-supporting, however, that in the 
year 1881 I was led to publish a paper entitled 
The True Key to Ancient Cosmology and 
Mythical Geography. Eminent scholars, not 
only in this country but also in Great Britain 
and on the continent of Europe, welcomed the 
essay with generous interest and appreciation. 
In 1885, in a work on The Cradle of the Human 
Race, further studies in the ancient cosmologies 
were published on both sides of the Atlantic. 
A few years later, in the Journal of the American 
Oriental Society for 1901, I set forth the view 
of the Babylonian heavens and earth opened 
to me by the "True Key"; illustrating it more 
fully in the same Journal for the year 1902, 
and for the year 1905. Though this new view 
(pictured in the frontispiece of the present 
volume) differed toto cwlo (and tola terra) from 
all previously presented, it at once received 
attentive consideration from some of the most 
authoritative of Assyriological scholars. Three 
such, all university professors of international 
reputation, representing respectively Paris, Ox
.
PREFACE 13 
ford, and Munich, eagerly expressed their partial 
or full indorsement. One of them wrote : "Your 
paper is full of light. I believe you have dis 
covered what was really the orthodox cosmological 
system of the Babylonians, and at 
the same time the origin of the Pythagorean 
system." So self-evidencing has the new inter 
pretation proved that, in the eight years since 
it was proposed as a substitute for the various 
older teachings, not one writer has to my 
knowledge questioned its complete agreement 
with ancient Babylonian thought. 
In this recovered Euphratean world-view my 
recent pupils have found such assistance toward 
a ready understanding of the biblical and other 
ancient cosmologies that they have repeatedly 
urged me to print more of the comparative 
studies that have proved helpful to them. So 
immense, however, is the field, and so frag 
mentary must be the contribution which any 
one man can hope to make, that I have hesitated 
to issue what I have prepared. Almost daily 
new light is reaching the investigator of pre 
historic times and peoples, so that any new 
archaBological deduction is liable to need for its 
best statement some modification before it can 
be carried through the press and through the 
judgment day that awaits every book sufficiently 
comprehensive to be of interest to many and 
diverse specialists. In the world of scholars, 
as elsewhere, however, obligations are mutual,
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14 PREFACE 
and owing, as I do, to other pioneers all that I 
myself have come to see, I cannot refuse to 
make such return as I may be able. The book 
has been forty years, I suppose, in the making, 
but no doubt I could spend forty more upon 
it and still find each new touch suggesting and 
demanding yet another. 
The ten chapters of the work cover all the 
nations from whose literary remains we can 
hope for any important light on the worldconcepts 
of generations yet earlier. The Chinese 
are not included, for the reason that as yet the 
Sinologues have found in Chinese literature no 
system of cosmology clearly distinguishable 
from the Buddhistic and manifestly antedating 
it. Following the lead of my lamented friend, 
Mr. Terrien de la Couperie, an increasing 
number of scholars are coming to ascribe the 
beginnings of Chinese civilization to a pre 
historic colony of immigrants from the basin of 
the Euphrates. If this view shall ultimately 
find general acceptance, it will, of course, be 
easy to believe that the pre-Buddhistic worldview 
of this ancient nation, like that of so 
many others, was identical with that of the 
Babylonians. (See Richthofen, China, Bd. i, 
404ff.) 
In an Appendix I have given certain mis 
cellaneous papers pertinent to the general theme. 
But the most helpful supplement to the dis 
cussions presented in the ten chapters will be
.
PREFACE 15 
found in the work already mentioned, The 
Cradle of the Human Race (usually cited by its 
short title, Paradise Found), of which a new and 
enlarged edition (the twelfth) is nearly ready 
for the press. 
I cannot close this foreword without grateful 
mention of some of the colleagues and friends 
to whom I am indebted for valued private 
assistance in the preparation of the pages that 
follow assistance kindly given in personal con 
ference, or in correspondence, or oftenest of all 
in both interviews and letters. It must be 
understood, of course, that the mention com 
mits no one of the named to any of the inferences 
I have drawn from the information courteously 
communicated. To obviate the embarrassment 
of attempting to arrange the list according to 
the measure of my debt, the alphabetical order 
is adopted : 
Professor Philippe Berger, College de France, 
Paris; Ernest A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D., F.S.A., 
British Museum, London; Rev. Professor R. H. 
Charles, D.D., Trinity College, Dublin; Pro 
fessor Judson B. Coit, Ph.D., Boston University; 
Professor T. W. Rhys Davids, Ph.D., LL.D., 
London University; Professor Fritz Hommel, 
Ph.D., S.T.D., University, Munich; ProfessorE. 
Washburn Hopkins, Ph.D., LL.D., Yale Uni 
versity; Professor Herbert A. Howe, A.M., Sc.D., 
University Park, Colorado; Professor A. V. W. 
Jackson, L.H.D., LL.D., Columbia University,
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16 PREFACE 
New York City; Professor Morris Jastrow, Jr., 
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania; Rev. C. H. 
W. Johns, M.A., Fellow Queens College, Cam 
bridge, England; Professor E. Kuhn, Ph.D., 
University, Munich; Professor Charles Rockwell 
Lanman, Ph.D., LL.D., Harvard University; 
Professor Ernst Leumann, Ph.D., University, 
Strassburg; Professor Thomas Bond Lindsay, 
Ph.D., Boston University; Professor David 
Gordon Lyon, Ph.D., D.D., Harvard University; 
Professor A. A. Macdonell, Ph.D., Director 
India Institute, Oxford; Professor G. C. C. 
Maspero, D.C.L., College de France, Director of 
Excavations, Cairo, Egypt; Professor H. G. 
Mitchell, Ph.D., S.T.D., Boston; Professor W. 
Max Muller, D.D., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 
Professor Laurence H. Mills, M.A., D.D., Uni 
versity of Oxford; Directeur L. de Milloue, 
Mus6e Guimet, Paris; E. W. B. Nicholson, M.A., 
Librarian Bodleian Library, Oxford; Theophilus 
Goldridge Pinches, LL.D., London University; 
Professor Archibald H. Sayce, D.D., LL.D., 
Queen s College, Oxford; Rev. Jefferson E. Scott, 
Ph.D., S.T.D., Ajmere, India; Professor Wilhelm 
Spiegelberg, Ph.D., University, Strassburg; 
Professor E. B. Tylor, LL.D., F.R.S., University 
of Oxford; Rev. William Hayes Ward, D.D., 
LL.D., New York; Professor William Marshall 
Warren, Ph.D., Boston University; Mrs. Pro 
fessor George Arthur Wilson, Ph.D., Syracuse 
University.
.
PREFACE 17 
As I write these names I am painfully re 
minded of not a few others equally entitled to 
appreciative mention, whose honored bearers, no 
longer with us, have risen to loftier viewpoints 
in the universe than any we on earth can reach. 
Ever sacredly cherished shall be their memory. 
Postscript. Since the foregoing was written 
Dr. C. H. W. Johns has laid me under new and 
deeper obligation by carefully reading the entire 
manuscript of the work and kindly expressing 
his unqualified approval of its fundamental 
positions. 
Boston University. W. F. W.
.