How many universes?

Stories about space and the probable existence of multiple universes rarely make it to the front pages. This one did, probably because there is a $100 million fund tagged to it or maybe because Stephen Hawking and a host of other names give it respectability. Yuri Milner who has invested in a range of businesses (all far removed from this one) said, "I was interested in launching this initiative because there is a big, philosophical question which people have been asking for years, are we alone in the universe?"

If there are others, what kind of worlds do they inhabit? Big questions like these are universal, have existed since the beginning of time and are yet to be answered. Let's take one of the big ones: how did the universe come to be and are there other universes? Mythology served as a means not to explain but air and expand different opinions on such questions. So to discover if there were other worlds, one had to first look at how the world we live in came to be. There is an entire body of myths about creation which are mostly bloody and violent accounts, a result of the way people engaged with the wild and untamed aspect of life and nature.

In the thirteenth century, Prose Edda, the Nordic text that is the source of almost all Norse myths, relates how the world is created when two spaces with different energies - the hot Muspelheim (Realm of Fire) and the cold Niflheim (Mist World) - meet in the empty space called Ginnungagap (Mighty Gap). Scholars believe the mighty gap is early man's attempt to explain the concept of infinity.

Creation hymns in the Rig Veda talk about the emergence of the universe from chaos - when heat and light pierced darkness wrapped in cosmic waters. But the hymn goes on to ask an even bigger question: where did our universe come from and are there others? The hymn also asks if anyone really knows the answer. Do the gods know? Well, the divinities descended upon us only after the universe was created, so how would they, the hymn goes on to say. Where the gods come from would be the next logical question. Where else, perhaps another universe?

The concept of multiple universes was explored in the Bhagvata Purana too. It says, "Every universe is covered by seven layers - earth, water, fire, air, sky, the total energy and false ego - each ten times greater than the previous one. There are innumerable universes besides this one, and although they are unlimitedly large, they move about like atoms in You [Vishnu in this case]."

The cosmic order was a subject of mythic fascination too. In one Nordic text, the planets are described as ants crawling around a millstone that is turning on its axle. How did the sun and the moon take their place was another concern. The Purusha Sukta in the Rig Veda says, "The Moon was gendered from his mind, and from his eye the Sun had birth; Indra and Agni from his mouth were born, and Vâyu from his breath." This world was created, according to some mythologies, by the dismemberment of a giant being. Although it is ridiculous to treat this as fact it is equally short sighted to dismiss it as puerile fantasies of infant minds.

Myths helped crystallise our thoughts and fuelled inquiry and scholarship in a range of disciplines. Joseph Campbell says the myths were meant to harmonise the mind with the body. The mind seeks answers to that which is not immediately obvious but in asking these questions, raises hypothesis and stimulates thought. This becomes the fount into which philosophy, science and culture dipped.

Myths emerged from universal and timeless questions like the one Milner is asking. And it may take several lifetimes to answer these, if at all. But if these had not been asked, we probably would never have reached the age of science and reason. So let them be asked and let the explanations pour in; and (hopefully) that will lead to some new myths too.