Hindu tradition possesses one of the richest and most continually evolving cosmologies in the global culture. From the most ancient Indian religious compositions, the Vedas, to contemporary twenty-first-century Indian theories combining science and religion, time and space have been lavishly narrated and meticulously calculated. Moreover moral, social, and philosophical meanings underlie these cosmologies in compelling ways.

This article will focus on six major frames for Hindu cosmology: the Vedic, Upaniṣadic, epic, Purāṇic, non-Sanskritic, and contemporary scientific-philosophical. Although through the millennia Hindu thinkers have dramatically redrawn notions of time, space, and person, they also share a wealth of common imagery: the reciprocal effects between natural and human affairs, the central idea of a cycle, and the divisions of space into particular realms and spheres. Each new cosmology does not completely replace the old but stands alongside of it as yet another cosmological option.

Vedic Cosmology