The Philosophy of the Upanishads c10.s2.t5.19

c10.s2.t5.19

world, (2) around this the earth, (3) around this again the sea. The world is in breadth 32 days' journey of the chariot of the sun, the earth 64, the sea 128; according to which measurement the diameter of the egg of the universe would amount to 416 courses of the sun. "There," *i.e.* where heaven and earth as the two layers of the egg of the universe meet one another, "is a space as broad as the edge of a razor or the wing of a fly" (between the two layers), through which access is obtained to the place where the offerers of the horse-sacrifice are, *i.e.* probably to the "back of heaven" (*nâkasya prishṭham*) mentioned in other passages as being "free from suffering,"¹ where according to Taitt. Âr. 10. 1. 52 union with Brahman is obtained,² but according to Vâj. Saṁh. 15. 50 recompense for good works, and the latter according to Muṇḍ. 1. 2. 10³ is transitory. A second scheme of cosmography, though put forward by Yâjñavalkhya in Bṛih. 3. 6 in the same context, is irreconcilable with that mentioned in Bṛih. 3. 3. According to this theory the universe inwoven with the water is besides "inwoven and interwoven" with ten other layers, *i.e.* is overlaid by them, or, perhaps more correctly, is altogether surrounded by them. These ten layers (the worlds of the wind, the atmosphere, the Gandharvas, the sun, moon, stars, the gods, Indra, Prajâpati and Brahman) recall the degrees of bliss of Bṛih. 4. 3. 33 and Taitt. 2. 8, as well as the stations of the way of the gods.⁴ The difference is that in these, as we shall see later, measurements of time and space are co-ordinated together, exactly as in Chând. 2. 10. 5 similar terms are added together without consideration.⁵