The lokas — the planes of existence

लोक

Also written: lokas · fourteen worlds · bhur bhuvah svah · patala · svarga · hindu cosmology worlds

The cosmos is described as fourteen lokas — seven above and seven below — with the earth at the junction. They are recited daily by anyone who says the Gāyatrī, whose first line names the first three.

The seven upper worlds
Loka	Character
Satya / Brahma	The highest; Brahmā's own realm; no return from it in the ordinary way
Tapas	The realm of the great ascetics
Jana	The realm of Brahmā's mind-born sons
Mahas	The realm of great sages and siddhas
Svar / Svarga	The heaven of the devas, reached by merit — and left when merit is spent
Bhuvas	The intermediate space between earth and sun
Bhūr	The earth

Below are Atala, Vitala, Sutala, Talātala, Mahātala, Rasātala and Pātāla — described in the Purāṇas not as places of torment but as regions of great splendour and intense sensory enjoyment, which is a rather different idea from a hell. The narakas, the realms of suffering, are a separate enumeration.

The one statement that governs the whole list

Whatever else the fourteen worlds are, the Gītā places a single limit across all of them, and states it with the highest of them named explicitly so that no exception can be read in.

आब्रह्मभुवनाल्लोकाः पुनरावर्तिनोऽर्जुन। मामुपेत्य तु कौन्तेय पुनर्जन्म न विद्यते॥

ā-brahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ punar-āvartino'rjuna mām upetya tu kaunteya punar-janma na vidyate

All the worlds, up to and including the world of Brahmā, are subject to return, Arjuna. But on reaching Me there is no rebirth.

— Bhagavad Gītā 8.16

The Muṇḍaka makes the same point about heaven with more contempt, and about a specific class of people: those who take ritual merit to be the highest good.

इष्टापूर्तं मन्यमाना वरिष्ठं नान्यच्छ्रेयो वेदयन्ते प्रमूढाः। नाकस्य पृष्ठे ते सुकृतेऽनुभूत्वेमं लोकं हीनतरं वा विशन्ति॥

iṣṭāpūrtaṁ manyamānā variṣṭhaṁ nānyac chreyo vedayante pramūḍhāḥ nākasya pṛṣṭhe te sukṛte'nubhūtvemaṁ lokaṁ hīnataraṁ vā viśanti

Deluded, holding sacrifice and charitable works to be the highest, they know no better good. Having enjoyed the fruit of their merit on the height of heaven, they enter this world again, or a lower one.

— Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.2.10

Hīnataraṁ vā — 'or a lower one'. That is the detail usually left out. The Upaniṣad does not merely say that heaven ends; it says the return may be to a worse position than the one departed from, because the merit that bought the stay has been consumed and nothing was accumulated during it. Three verses earlier it has already given the image for the whole enterprise.

प्लवा ह्येते अदृढा यज्ञरूपा अष्टादशोक्तमवरं येषु कर्म।

plavā hy ete adṛḍhā yajña-rūpā aṣṭādaśoktam avaraṁ yeṣu karma

Frail indeed are these rafts, these forms of sacrifice, in which the inferior work of the eighteen is declared.

— Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 1.2.7 — first line

Plava — a raft, not a bridge. A raft crosses one stretch of water and is then left behind or lost. The Gītā gives the same conclusion in the plainest commercial terms available: heaven is a purchase, and purchases are spent.

ते तं भुक्त्वा स्वर्गलोकं विशालं क्षीणे पुण्ये मर्त्यलोकं विशन्ति। एवं त्रयीधर्ममनुप्रपन्ना गतागतं कामकामा लभन्ते॥

te taṁ bhuktvā svarga-lokaṁ viśālaṁ kṣīṇe puṇye martya-lokaṁ viśanti evaṁ trayī-dharmam anuprapannā gatāgataṁ kāma-kāmā labhante

Having enjoyed that vast world of heaven, their merit exhausted, they enter the world of mortals. Thus those who follow the law of the three Vedas, desiring desires, obtain a going and a coming.

— Bhagavad Gītā 9.21

The lokas — the planes of existence

The one statement that governs the whole list

The tattvas — how existence is layered

Time — the yugas, kalpas and cycles

Karma and rebirth

Pañcāṅga — the reckoning of time