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The 'ikra are an inquisitive and intelligent species, and over their millennia of history they have developed several models to make sense of Tagra and the greater universe.
The world
Despite the difference in their interpretations, all traditional cosmologies start from a common physical description of the world. Tagra is a roughly circular landmass surrounded by seawater and by the Wall of the Sea, beyond which additional lands might or might not exist. Tagra may be believed to turn once a day around an axis, which passes through the “Heart of the World” (i.e., the South Pole). These lands and waters together form a flat disk, which is inserted in the middle of a sphere, cutting it precisely in half. The upper half of this sphere contains the heavens and celestial bodies, whereas the lower half is hidden and inaccessible.
There are three words in the Chaatai language that might be translated as “world”:
- tagra primarily refers to the material, observable world: land, sea, and sky. In a narrow sense (the one used elsewhere in this wiki), it refers to the Antarctic continent and the surrounding waters, at least out to the Wall of the Sea. In the broadest sense, it refers to all physical existence, from the ground to the stars, as opposed to the realm of deities, spirits, and pure thought (compare the English terms “mundane” or “terrene”).
- dji (literally “egg”, though it might be translated as “orb” or “sphere”) refers traditionally to the spherical shell in which the flat disk of Tagra is embedded. In modern scientific language, it refers primarily to planet Earth, as opposed to the specific continent of Tagra.
- t'aakai'a (literally “all-around”) is the closest to the English term “universe”, referring to the totality of existence. It specifically includes all that is not directly observable by the 'ikra: the world of abstract concepts, the space below Tagra, hypothetical lands beyond the Wall of the Sea, and so on.