chiliocosm
English edit
Etymology edit
chilia- + Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos, “world”).
Noun edit
chiliocosm (plural chiliocosms)
- (Buddhism) A collection of many worlds.
- 1848, Faxian, Abel Rémusat, & Julius von Klaproth, The Pilgrimage of Fa Hian, page 131:
- It is he who in the Fa houa king is called the Lord of the Savaloka, the great Brahma, who governs the grand chiliocosm, that is the greatest of the three aggregations of universes, containing a thousand million of suns, of Sumerus, and quadruple continents such as we behold.
- 2003, Pram Nguyen, The Ultimate Theory of the Universe, →ISBN, page 233:
- Beyond one such chiliocosm, there lies another and so on to endless. All chiliocosms alike are under the domination of the Supreme Law of Nature of the Law of Karma.
- 2015, Ford Lumban Gaol, Interdisciplinary Behavior and Social Sciences, →ISBN:
- It has the similar meaning with a poem written by William Blake, a British poet: To See a World in a Grain of Sand, And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand, And Eternity in an hour. So, a better translation is put forward: A tiny flower represents a chiliocosm, as a single tree covers the bodhi.
- 2016, Text, History, and Philosophy: Abhidharma across Buddhist Scholastic Traditions, →ISBN, page 319:
- The first order chiliocosm encompasses one thousand worlds, each of them identically structured, with Mount Meru at the center, surrounded by four major continents and eight subcontinents. The second order chiliocosm has one thousand times as many worlds as the first, and the third order chiliocosm has one thousand times as many worlds as the second.
Usage notes edit
Some texts adapt this traditional Buddhist concept to modern astronomy, where the worlds are solar systems and hence the chiliocosm is a galaxy.