Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Divine serpents living in subterranean realms, and taking the form of humans, are also a feature of the template Vedic cosmology. The Naga (serpent) race is said to live in a subterranean heavenly realm that is in some senses more opulent than the celestial heavens. In traditional Indian art, the Nagas are sometimes depicted in human or half-human forms.

Traditional Cosmology of Korea

Traditional Korean folk religion, like that of China, is a mixture of Confucianist, Buddhist, Taoist, and animist elements. It has a cosmic hierarchy that conforms to the pattern of our template cosmology.

According to Koreans, a person has three souls. One remains with the dead body in the grave. A second goes into the ancestor worship tablet kept in the home of the relatives. And a third goes into the afterworld (Clark 1932, p. 113).

The traditional Korean cosmic hierarchy includes gods of the heavens and earth, gods of mountains and hills, dragon gods, and gods who served as guardians of local districts. Some of these high ranking gods are the gods of the Buddhist pantheon. Below these are various household gods, including spirits of the kitchen and of possessions and furniture.

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Some spirits take the form of animals, and others possess young girls and turn them into exorcists. Other spirits threaten humans in various ways. These threatening spirits include spirits that cause tigers to attack humans, spirits that cause people to die while traveling on roads, spirits that cause women to die in labor, and so on (Bishop 1898, p. 421). Almost any imaginable calamity is caused by some specific kind of evil spirit.

About this multitude of spirits, traveler Isabella Lucy Bishop wrote

(1898, p. 404): “They fill the chimney, the shed, the living room, the kitchen

—they are on every shelf and jar. In thousands they waylay the traveller as he leaves his home, beside him, behind him, dancing in front of him, whirring over his head, crying out upon him from earth, air, and water. They are numbered by thousands of billions.”

Followers of traditional Korean religion are especially concerned with ghosts of departed humans, who are thought to be especially dangerous during the fall and winter. To appease the ghosts, the traditional Koreans offer them food in sacrifice. Younghill Kang (1931, p. 107), recalling his life in Korea, wrote: “All those who haunted around the tree-top from which they had fallen, those who had drowned and left their soul in the water, all who had died of hunger or of violence, was it not a pitying kindness toward them, to feed them now,—now especially, when hearts were anxious and the outlook dark?” Of all ghosts, the ghosts of persons who had drowned were considered most dangerous. Charles Allen Clark (1932, p. 203) wrote in Religions of old Korea, “They are said to be in torment confined to the water until they can pull some other poor unfortunate in to take their places. Then they can come out on land. They wail around the side of the water and try to entice people near. The boatmen are terribly afraid of them.”

Counteracting evil spirits is the business of the mudangs or exorcists. mudangs are women and come from the lowest social class. J. Robert Moose (1911, pp. 191–192) says of the mudang: “She claims to be in direct league with the evil spirits which infest the world, and can appease them and persuade them to leave those in whom they have taken up their abode for the purpose of afflicting them in body or mind. The religious feeling of the people is so strong that even the highest and best educated classes do not hesitate to call for the mudang when they are in trouble.”

Another kind of exorcist is the pansu. The pansu is male and, although he can come from any social level, his work is considered to be of a low kind, like that of the mudang . Moose (1911, p. 192) notes: “The pansu is always blind, and is supposed to be able to control the spirits not by persuasion but by power. They tell fortunes, and claim to be able to drive out evil spirits from sick people. The spirits are often soundly thrashed by these men, the evidence of which may be seen in the sticks with which they have been beaten. I have often seen bundles of these sticks, about as large as a broom handle and about two feet long, beaten into splinters at one end, caused by the severe thrashing which the poor, unfortunate spirit had received at the hands of the pansu . Sometimes an unruly spirit is driven into a bottle and corked up with a stopper made from the wood of a peach tree, and then delivered to a mudang to be carried away and buried.”

In addition to a whole array of gods and spirits, the traditional Korean cosmology also appears to have a supreme being, Hananim. Homer B. Hulbert wrote (1906, p. 404): “This word Hananim is compounded of the words ‘heaven’ (sky) and ‘master,’ and is the pure Korean counterpart of the Chinese word ‘Lord of Heaven.’ The Koreans all consider this being to be the Supreme Ruler of the universe. He is entirely separated from and outside the circle of the various spirits and demons that infest all nature.” Protestant missionaries used the word Hananim as a synonym for the Christian God. Catholics tended to use Chun-ju (or Chunchon ), a Chinese word that means the same thing (Hulbert 1906, pp. 404–405).

Local legends say that Chunchon once looked into a small box, and found many letters inside, some of which spelled out the following message, “The ‘ ok ’ (precious) Heaven controls all of the other thirty-six heavens, their inner apartments, and middle courts, the east and west lighted places, the depths and heights, the four departments and six places; also the ‘ yoosa ’ officials and their departments. All of this is in order to control the five thunders and the three kingdoms. Chunchon , being infinitely great, personally surveys all of these matters. He does not even need to employ all of these agencies” (Clark 1932, p. 277).

J. Robert Moose, in his book village life in Korea (1911, p. 191) , said about Hananim (Chunchon): “Strange to say, this the greatest of all the spirits, receives the least attention in the worship of the people. This is probably from the fact that he is considered good and the religion of Korea is one of fear and not of love. It is not worth while to bother the good spirits, since they will do no harm; but the bad ones must be placated. In times of severe drought, by special command of the king, sheep are sacrificed to Hananim. There are no temples or shrines dedicated to Hananim except the altars on which the above-stated sacrifices are offered. So it can hardly be said that the village religion has much to do with the great spirit Hananim .”

William Elliot Griffis (1882, p. 301) distinguished several kinds of dragons in the Korean cosmology. The first kind, the celestial dragons,

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watched over the palaces of the gods in heaven. A second kind, from a position below heaven but above the terrestrial level, controlled natural forces, such as wind and water. And a third kind, the terrestrial dragons, determined the courses of rivers and streams. And a fourth kind ruled over mines and hidden treasures. These categories of dragons reflect a division of the cosmos into a spiritual realm, a realm of higher beings in charge of natural forces, an earthly realm, and a subterranean realm. About this last kind of dragon, Griffis (1882, p. 301) noted, “Intense belief in the dragon is one of the chief reasons why the mines in Cho-sen [Korea] are so little worked, and the metals disturbed. The dragon pursuing the invaders of their sanctuary or fighting each other to gain possession of the jewel balls or sacred crystals is a favorite subject in all art of Chinese parentage.”