In the Classical world, the language of cosmology was a means for framing philosophical concerns. Among these were issues of time, motion, and soul; concepts of the limited and the unlimited; and the nature and basis of number. This is no less true of Indian thought-Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Ājivika-where the prestige of the cosmological idiom for organizing philosophical and theological thought cannot be overstated. This essay focuses on the structural similarities in the thought of Plotinus and Buddhist cosmological/philosophical speculation. (...) It builds on research concerning the Buddha-field (buddhakṣetra), which identified two discrete numerologies central to this speculation: the thousands of worlds (sāhasralokadhātu) comprising the field of a single Buddha (buddhakṣetra), characteristic of the Hinayana, and the innumerable or incalculable (asaṃkhyeya) Buddha-fields filling the ten regions of space, characteristic of the Mahāyāna. The Enneads of Plotinus serve as a lens through which to view in a fresh way a broad range of difficult issues associated with Buddhist cosmology in three general areas. First, it asks whether Plotinus' understanding of Intellect and his treatment of infinite and essential number afford an understanding of the innumerables and thousands central to the concept of the Buddhā-field. This analysis involves a consideration of the Hindu creator god, Brahma, as 'demiurge.' Second, it suggests analogies between the One, Intellect, and Soul of Plotinus and the three Buddhist Realms-the Formless Realm, the Realm of Form, and the Realm of Desire. Finally, it explores the possibility that an understanding of the Enneads can provide a model for relating the cosmologies of the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna. (shrink)

This article examines the structures of the epico-Purāṇic divisions of time (yugas/sandhyās/kalpas) and asks what is joined by the Purāṇic ages known as yugas or joinings. It concludes that these structures reflect a combining of three systems of number—Greek acrophonic, Babylonian sexagesimal and Hindu decimal— represented as divisions of time. Since most interpretations of these structures, particularly yugas, focus on questions of dharma and its decline over the various ages rather than on number, it asks in conclusion if there is (...) any necessary relationship between number and dharma. (shrink)

This is an addendum to an earlier essay on the Purāṇic cosmograph interpreting it in terms of the principles of stereographic projection: Kloetzli (Hist Relig 25(2): 116–147, 1985). That essay provided an approach to understanding the broad structures of the Purāṇic cosmograph but not the central island of Jambudvīpa or its most important region (varṣa) of Bhārata. This addendum focuses on the works of Ptolemy as a resource for understanding the Purāṇic materials. It reaffirms the broad outlines of earlier conclusions, (...) but by understanding the major concerns of Ptolemy’s Geography, is able to provide a far ranging interpretation of the Purāṇic central island of Jambudvīpa. Viewed in the light of the main features of Ptolemy’s Geography, Jambudvīpa, the central island of the Purāṇic cosmograph, can be seen as a geograph modeled on the principles of Ptolemy’s Geography embedded within a larger cosmograph modeled on the principles of Ptolemy’s Planisphaerium—the earth at the center of the universe. Parallels between the seven Ptolemaic climates and the Purāṇic varṣas, the Nile and the Ganges, and the inhabited world (oikumene) and Bhārata deepen our sense of shared tradition as do representations of Bhārata alternately as Alexandria and Babylon. (shrink)