Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Cosmology comes from the Greek word kosmos which, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary means ‘the world or universe as an ordered system’ or ‘order, harmony, a harmonious system’. Cosmology then, means the theory of the universe as an ordered whole, and of the general laws which govern it. In philosophy, it is taken to mean that part of metaphysics which deals with the idea of the world as a totality of all phenomena in space and time. According to Greek thought, cosmos came out of chaos—‘the formless void: a state of utter confusion and disorder’—by differentiating the various elements. The concept is often associated with cosmogony, ‘a theory, system, or account of the generation of the universe’.
In social anthropology, the meaning of cosmology has broadly followed the dictionary one, and is closely connected to the empirical study of *religions. To a large extent the two words have been used interchangeably, depending upon theoretical fashions and the predilections of the anthropologist. Some have used it to mean no more than religion.
†Edmund Leach, for example, defined it as ‘the system of beliefs and practices which social anthropologists commonly refer to as “primitive religion”’ (1982:229).
If, however, one tries to abide by the more rigorous definitions, then cosmology in anthropological usage is both more and less than religion. In some way or another the study of cosmology means taking account of the relationship between the whole and the parts: the macrocosm and the microcosm. Because the word kosmos can mean ‘order’ as well as ‘world of order’, in Greek thought microcosm can signify not only humans in relation to the universe, but also any part of a thing, especially a living thing that reflects or represents the whole it belongs to (Guthrie 1962). In anthropology, †Hocart was an early theorist who sought to elaborate this point. His aim was to establish that the root idea in human existence is the procurement of life. This, he claimed, is done through *ritual which derives its meaning from the ‘life-giving myth’. Discussing Vedic religious precepts and practices he states, ‘The participants are deliberately seeking to establish an identity between man and the ritual objects, between ritual objects and the world, and so between man and the world, a kind of creative syllogism’ (1970:64).
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