THE SEVEN SHELLS OR SEVEN SKULLS

There is more to this cosmic wisdom than meets the eye. According to the Vedic seers, the Creator of the universe has not one head or brain, but seven. The Creator was thus viewed as possessing a “seven-headed intellect.”

In the Vedic literature, the seven heads of the Creator are described as the seven shells (sapta-kapalas) of the cosmic egg, which correspond to the seven skulls (sapta-kapalas) of the cosmic head and the seven uncreated foundations (sapta-talas) of the created universe.

These seven cosmic shells are like seven cosmic spheres, each of which is filled with its own gradation of uncreated mind stuff and all of which hold up the uncreated picture of the universe. They can be understood as seven cosmic fields of uncreated mind stuff that both pervade and extend beyond the created form of the universe on all sides. The Vedic seers referred to these seven gradations as the seven primordial elements.