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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 . 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 . 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. . 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 . 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, . 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, . 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. .