Void

Hellenic religion

• Void appears in Hellenic religion.

  Hesiod’s Theogony opens with Chaos as the first yawning gap before the ordered world. A named Hellenic cosmogonic void-speech in that poem, not aether as bright upper air and not every later emptiness slogan.

  from Hesiod · Theogony, c. 700 BCE

  appears in · sourced · documented

Norse tradition

• Void appears in Norse tradition.

  Snorri’s Gylfaginning seats Ginnungagap as the yawning void between Muspell’s heat and Niflheim’s ice before the world’s shaping. A named void-kind in that prose, not ginnungagap as the named place already walked and not a Buddhist emptiness dump.

  from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220

  appears in · sourced · documented

Shinto

• Void appears in Shinto.

  The Kojiki opens when heaven and earth have not yet separated and the world is an undifferentiated beginning — void-like chaos before the first kami and island births. Named void of that cosmogonic opening, not Buddhist śūnyatā identity and not Ginnungagap alone.

  from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968

  appears in · sourced · documented

Buddhist traditions

• Void appears in Buddhist traditions.

  Watson’s Lotus Sūtra seats empty space (void) among the open regions where the assembly and buddha-lands appear. Void as gap/space speech in that sūtra, not śūnyatā as emptiness doctrine alone and not ordinary vacancy mood.

  from Burton Watson (translation) · The Lotus Sutra, 1993 (this translation); Sanskrit/Chinese recensions much older

  appears in · sourced · documented