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Underworlds
28 of 79 entries in Realms. Click any to see everything it connects to.
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Underworlds holds the realms of the dead and the regions below or beyond ordinary life, from courts of judgment to lands of ancestors, ghosts and demons. Traditions disagree sharply on what an underworld is for, a punishment, a way station, or simply where everyone goes regardless of how they lived.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingRealms below or beyond the living world to which the dead are said to go. The traditions gathered here disagree about whether such a place is a punishment, a shadowy continuation or a stage on the way somewhere else, and the entries keep those answers apart. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredAncient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Jewish, Norse, Islamic, Hindu, Aztec and Maya cosmologies. These are unrelated traditions; Sheol, Hades, Naraka and Jahannam are not four names for one place. 2 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryA standard comparative category in the study of religion 2 Learn More
The underworlds
This group holds the underworlds, the lower and subterranean realms of the world's cosmologies, the abodes of the dead and, in many traditions, of chthonic powers. The underworld ranges from a neutral land of shades to a place of judgement and torment, depending on the tradition.
The browser will find the underworld realms the atlas gathers. The entries describe each realm's inhabitants, rulers and character, reporting each tradition's own map of the world below.
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