The ANDEAN COSMOVISION

In all original cultures – and markedly in the Andean world – it remains solid along the centuries the concept of cosmovision, which is based on cosmogony, a mythological step about explanation of the world, namely the global vision of reality in all its forms and manifestations, whose ultimate goal in the harmony of any part, material or spiritual, individually or collectively, recognizing diversity and plurality as richness in unity.

According to Andean vision, hananpacha, the kingdom of heaven, hosts celestial beings, deities, constellations, stars, the rainbow, the lightning, clouds, while kaypacha, the earthly world – kay means here in quechua language – is populated by all the living forms on earth, such as mountains, rivers, lakes, animals, plants, human beings, to finally deepen into uckupacha, the lower and inner world of mystery, where the mallquis represent the seeds and the spirits of ancestors, buried into the very core of the Earth, from where new lives come up. 

Between the world of mystery and the earthly world there exists a physical communication through natural openings, such as caves, craters, lagoons, called paqarinas, related to the origin of living things

Between the earthly world and the celestial kingdom the communication is ideal, spiritual: the human beings become the mediators and interpreters of the messages from heaven.

The Andean world, in its geographic location in the southern hemisphere, recognizes as a symbol the constellation of the Southern Cross, since ancient times called chakana in quechua language, a term perhaps born from the union of the words chaka, meaning bridge, union and hanan, meaning heaven or alternatively sourced from the whole word chakana, in the sense of scale symbolizing the ascent to hanapacha.

The pattern recognized as chakana is an effective and complex graphical representation of the concept of cosmovision and the levels and connections of the three worlds, simultaneous, parallel and communicating.