TheWorld Turtle, also called theCosmic Turtle or theWorld-Bearing Turtle, is amytheme of a giantturtle (ortortoise) supporting or containingthe world. It occurs inHinduism,Chinese mythology, and themythologies of some of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Thecomparative mythology of theWorld-Tortoise discussed byEdward Burnett Tylor (1878: 341) includes the counterpartWorld Elephant.
The World Turtle in Hinduism is known asAkūpāra (Sanskrit: अकूपार), or sometimesChukwa. An example of a reference to the World Turtle in Hindu literature is found inJñānarāja (the author ofSiddhantasundara, writing c. 1500): "A vulture, whichever has only little strength, rests in the sky holding a snake in its beak for a prahara [three hours]. Why can [the deity] in the form of a tortoise, who possesses an inconceivable potency, not hold the Earth in the sky for akalpa [billions of years]?"[1][dead link]The British philosopherJohn Locke made reference to this in his 1689 tract,An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which compares one who would say that properties inhere in "substance" to the Indian, who said the world was on an elephant, which was on a tortoise, "but being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed tortoise, replied—something, he knew not what".[2]
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable lists, without citation,Maha-pudma and Chukwa as names from a "popular rendition of a Hindu myth in which the tortoise Chukwa supports the elephantMaha-pudma, which in turn supports the world".[3]
In the Chinese mythology, the creator goddessNüwa cut the legs off the giant sea turtleAo (simplified Chinese:鳌;traditional Chinese:鰲;pinyin:áo) and used them to prop up the sky afterGong Gong damagedMount Buzhou, which had previously supported the heavens.[4]
TheLenape creation story of the "Great Turtle" was first recorded between 1678 and 1680 byJasper Danckaerts. The belief is shared by otherindigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, most notably those of theHaudenosanee confederacy,[5] and theAnishinaabeg.[6]
The Jesuit Relations contain aHuron story concerning the World Turtle:
"When the Father was explaining to them [some Huron seminarists] some circumstance of the passion of our Lord, and speaking to them of the eclipse of the Sun, and of the trembling of the earth which was felt at that time, they replied that there was talk in their own country of a greatearthquake which had happened in former times; but they did not know either the time or the cause of that disturbance. 'There is still talk,' (said they) 'of a very remarkable darkening of the Sun, which was supposed to have happened because the great turtle which upholds the earth, in changing its position or place, brought its shell before the Sun, and thus deprived the world of sight.'"[7]
The usilosimapundu ofZulu folklore also bears some similarities to the world turtle. It is a creature so large that it contains many countries and that one side of it experiences a different season than the other side.[8]
TheDiscworld book series, created byTerry Pratchett, takes place on a fictional world that is a flat disc sitting on top of four elephants astride the shell of a giant turtle namedGreat A'Tuin.
In the bookMonday Begins on Saturday byArkady and Boris Strugatsky, a disc upon elephants on a turtle is said to have been discovered by a pupil who entered an ideal world of imagination.
In the bookIt byStephen King, Pennywise's archenemy is a giant turtle named Maturin. Maturin also appears in King'sWizard And Glass, the fourth book inThe Dark Tower series.
In the start of the first chapter of the bookA Brief History of Time byStephen Hawking, an old woman says, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really aflat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."[9]
The filmStrange World is revealed to take place on and inside a World Turtle, with the characters trying to stop an infection from killing it.[10]
In thePokémon Scarlet and Violet videogame expansion, The Indigo Disk, the legendary PokémonTerapagos can undergo terastallization bearing the Stellar Type. In this form, Terapagos resembles the world as the ancients saw it.
InUrusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer a giant turtle is carrying the world which is in some sort of time knot.
In the bookA Wild Sheep Chase byHaruki Murakami, the narrator references this idea: "The "world"--the world always makes me think of a tortoise and elephants tirelessly supporting a gigantic disc."
The television seriesWhat We Do in the Shadows (TV series) references character Nandor the Relentless's belief in the World Turtle in the episode "The Casino". A B-plot of the episode involves character Colin Robinson teaching Nandor about theBig Bang Theory.
The young adult novelTurtles All the Way Down and subsequentfilm adaptation derives its name from the World Turtle and discusses it.
The television seriesIt’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia references this idea in the episode “Charlie Rules the World”, as Frank Reynolds, arguing with Dennis Reynolds about what is real, claims that they could be in “a turtle’s dream in outer space.”
Sturgill Simpson’s “Turtles All the Way Down” is a modern country psychedelic ballad from his 2014 album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Sturgill comes to a conclusion, choosing to encourage listeners to live their life the way they please, and don’t waste their time trying to find the answers, because “it’s turtles all the way down the line.”
Theregress argument inepistemology and theinfinite regress inphilosophy often use the expression "turtles all the way down" to indicate an explanatory failure based on an explanation that needs a potentially infinite series of additional explanations to support it.[citation needed]
For some Indigenous peoples, Turtle Island refers to the continent of North America. The name comes from various Indigenous oral histories that tell stories of a turtle that holds the world on its back. For some Indigenous peoples, the turtle is therefore considered an icon of life, and the story of Turtle Island consequently speaks to various spiritual and cultural beliefs.
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