Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.17

v1.c6.17

It was early Indian or Vedic knowledge of cosmology that was transmitted to China along with Buddhism. This contained the concept of *kalpa* (*aeon*), cyclical model of destruction and creation, cosmic structure and dimension etc. According to the Buddhist world view, a *kalpa* (eg. *vivartakalpa*) begins with the arising of primordial wind leading to the creation of a structure of universe or cosmos after the destruction of everything by fire at the end of a *kalpa*. The world thus completes a turn of the wheel of life and it will then be recreated. Buddhist classics describe ancient Indian cosmic structure in terms of the unity of theory of relativity and quantum theory – in the cosmos/universe everything exists on an enormous wind wheel whose thickness is about 1,600,000 *yojanas* (Vedic measure of distance, which according to some estimates approximated one *yojana* to 8 miles in modern measurement). There is a water wheel on the wind wheel, which is 1,200,000 *yojanas* thick, of which 320,000 *yojanas* from the surface are compressed into a gold wheel. The combined diameter of the water and gold wheel is 1,203,450 yojanas and its circumference is triple the diameter. The gold wheel is placed in the centre of Sumeru Mountain [which according to various legends is a mandala (circular figure symbolising universe) like complex surrounded by mountains and seas with planets circumambulating it]. Both its height over the surface and depth below surface are each said to be of 84,000 yojanas. It is surrounded by seven Gold Mountains in turn. There are four continents outside the seven Gold Mountains. These are Wheel Ring Mountains outside the four continents. The depth of seven Gold Mountains and the Wheel Ring Mountains under the surface are equivalent to that of Mt Sumeru but height and width of each diminishes according to their distance from Sumeru. There are eight seas among nine mountains, in turn, the earlier seven seas are “inner seas”, the innermost sea is 80,000 yojanas in width, and the periphery is 240,000 yojanas in circumference. The width of each of the next six seas are reduced by half in turn. The eighth sea is the “outer sea” and was 321,000 yojanas in width. This ancient Indian cosmic model is similar to the ancient Chinese canopy cosmic model but presently there is no certain evidence about the close connections between the two.