Multiverse, a very modern phenomenon that you see in science fiction genre and movies and shows made by MCU but what if I told you we Indians had the theory of hundreds of years before ?
Well, you wouldn't exactly be shocked as every scientific phenomena or math equation these westerners discovered was already discovered by us 1000 years prior.....quite literally.
Gaudiya Vaishnavism aka Bengali Vaishnavism or Chaitanya Vaishnavism founded in 13th Century CE, inspired by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has a concept of Multiverse.
Not only this sect but Vedic texts also mention an idea of Multiverse. According to Vedic physics, space inside our universe is multidimensional. There are 64 main dimensions and each dimension is further divided into many sub-dimensions.
Since the inhabitants of earth can only perceive three dimensions, their senses have no access to many other realms of universal reality. Therefore, we are unable to perceive many other planets and their inhabitants.
Not exactly Multiverse but kind of many dimensions thriving in one universe.
Lets come back to Gaudiya Vaishnavism belief of Multiverse. Here you find an hierarchy of Lord Vishnu or we can say several forms of him.
1) At top comes Krishna Paramaatma, the one with eternal Vishwaroop that he showed to Arjun.
2) From Krishna Paramaatma came Mahavishnu. Through whom universes keep forming.
As you can see in this image, new universes keep emerging from Mahavishnu.
3) Each of these universes have a Garbhodakshayi Vishnu, who creates diversities in their given universes. He sometimes is referred as Hiranyagarbha, as through his navel Brahmadev emerged.
4) Then comes Ksheerodakshayi Vishnu who resides in the heart of every living creature he is similar to that of Mahavishnu. His abode is Vaikunth.
But this concept of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is different from western interpretation. The west believes that the Multiverses are parallel to each other, with alternative scenarios.
For example, You have a option of having pasta or pizza for lunch, and you chose pasta. Thus an alternate timeline will be created where you chose pizza instead.
These alternate timelines are referred to as Multiverse by Western scientists.
But in Gaudiya Vaishnavism there are no concept of Alternate timelines, here the Multiverses are not parallel to each other but neither do they ever intersect i.e. never have contact with each other.
□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□
A/N
FUN FACT - THE PHILOSOPHIES OF GAUDIYA VAISHNAVISM ARE THE BASE OF ISKCON AND HARE KRISHNA MOVEMENT.
SO A LOT YOU WANT ME TO DO MYTHOLOGY TV SHOWS REVIEW. SO I'LL DO IT.