![]() The first known reference to a Hindu source is found in a letter by Jesuit Emanual de Veiga (1549-1605), written at Chandagiri on 18 September 1599, in which the relevant passage reads Alii dicebant terram novem constare angulis, quibus cœlo innititur. Hume’s “Let us remember the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant” suggests that that the story was already widely known at the time. The Shatapatha Brahmana identifies the earth as its lower shell, the atmosphere as its body and the vault of heaven as its upper shell. The most widespread name given to the tortoise is Kurma or Kurmaraja. Hindu mythology has various account of World Tortoises, besides a World Serpent (Shesha), Kurmaraja and world-elephants. Hindu mythology: Kurma or Kurmaraja Hindu mythology ![]() At the very least, the Chinese, the Hindu and the Iroquois have creation mythology that places turtles/tortoises at their center. The World Turtle or the idea of the Earth being carried on the back of a turtle is not an idea that is unique to Terry Pratchett. Most of the weight is of course accounted for by Berilia, Tubul, Great T’Phon and Jerakeen, the four giant elephants upon whose broad and star-tanned shoulders the Disc of the World rests, garlanded by the long waterfall at its vast circumference and domed by the baby-blue vault of Heaven.” ( of The Colour of Magic) ![]() In a brain bigger than a city, with geological slowness, He thinks only of the Weight. Through sea-sized eyes that are crusted with rheum and asteroid dust He stares fixedly at the Destination. Great A’Tuin the turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters. “In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part …
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