Pagan Flat Earth Cosmography

The prevalent cosmographies of all ancient civilizations were Flat Earth cosmographies.  This fact is attested to by learned men who have made exhaustive studies of them, both those who revere the beliefs of the ancients such as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and Rene Guenon -
http://www.fonsvitae.com/coomaraswamyseries.html
http://www.mrmlbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookware.cgi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Coomaraswamy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Gu%C3%A9non

and those who scoff at them like Andrew D. White -
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/andrew_white/Andrew_White.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Dickson_White

  Andrew Dickson White is evidently an outstanding representative of that class of men who are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.  Reguardless of the late Professor White's personal opinions, certain sections of his book (referenced in the link above) give specific references to vasts amounts of information reguarding descriptions of the Flat Earth cosmographies of ancient civilizations throughout the world.

  Following is an analysis of pre-Christian Flat Earth cosmographies throughout the world which does not in any way pretend to be comprehensive.  As the Hellenic philosophers finish off the list, the unbiased observation of many may be noted that as far as non-Christian philosophy is concerned, the well known Hellenic philosophers constituted the most meagre, weakest, recycled "John-come-latelies" among the more sophisticated philosophies and religions of more ancient civilizations, and it is among these that globularist fallacies gained significant ground for the first time which is not to say that it did not exist in older cicilizations but only that such a false cosmography held a more inferior position.  In this and in many ways, the revival of the debased philosophies of the Greeks and Romans since the renaissance and the decline of ancient Christian ways have formed somewhat of a basis for the spreading of falsehoods in the modern apostate world.  As Rene Guenon wrote, time is cyclical, and errors and heresies that have always existed throughout a cycle albeit in a small way gain undue prominence as disorder reigns before the close of a cycle at which point restitution is accomplished as there is nothing covered which shall not be uncovered.
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/guenon_crisis.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Athena

Brahmin Cosmography

  The following link has some information concerning Brahmin flat Earth cosmography which is definitely the philosophy of the Rig Veda as well as the 'Laws of Manu':

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/1335/Tech/brah_sc.html

  Vyasa is the compiler of the oldest vedic book, the Rig Veda.  He is the founder of Brahminism and hindu civilization.  Brahminism (which is the same as vedism or hinduism) originally held a flat Earth cosmography as can be discerned from its earliest books.  The flat earth cosmography of early hinduism was not substantially different from that of other early civilizations thoughout the world.  Early hindus believed that the Earth was a flat Circle of Land surrounded by the Waters with the Mountain Meru located at its center.  This flat Earth cosmography was held by virtually all hindus until well after the time of the Christ.  

The Deluge in Hindu Tradition

  In an article entitled 'The Deluge in Hindu Tradition,' Ananda Coomaraswamy wrote that the Flood waters obtained to the level of the Moon.  This fact conforms with the belief of the Ancients that the Cosmos is bounded by four Walls of Heaven located to the East, West, North, and South.  The four Walls of Heaven held the Waters in as they extended upwards.  The Hindu tradition that the Flood waters of Noe reached the level of the Moon does only tend to confirm the belief of the Ancients that the Four Walls of Heaven extend upwards past the Stars.

Four Maharajas

  According to 'The King of the World' by Rene Guenon, Hindu cosmology speaks of four Maharajas which are great Kings located at the extremities of the four corners of the World.  These immediately draw to mind the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Four Angels which control the Winds of the World from the four corners of the Earth spoken of in the Book of the Apocalypse (Revelation) 7:1.  Guenon asserted that in Hindu esoterism these four Maharajas are Kings over the four quarters of the Earth.  He also stated that a small subterranean Kingdom is located at the centre of the world, and that the King of this subterranean kingdom has authority over the Four Maharajas and the "King of the World."  This tradition is common to Buddhism as well, and Guenon is hardly the only writer to document this esoteric tradition.  Although Guenon vigorously objects to the notion, the fact should be evident that this "King of the World" is the Devil.
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/guenon_kingofworld.html
http://www.sophiajournal.com/Vol1Num1/Article02.html

Hindu Globularism

  The Gupta empire which lasted from approximately AD 300 to AD 510 was time of hindu revival and buddhist decline in India.  It is very significant that this period occurred after the spherical Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy.  Ptolemy's sphericism unfortunately influenced one of the most influential hindu astronomical treatise of the middle ages which was written during this era:  the Surya Siddhanta.  The Surya Siddhanta holds to spherical geocentrism.  This was certainly not the case with older hindus cosmology which was flat earth oriented, and flat earthism continued to be a force in hinduism after the appearance of the Srya Siddhanta, but the sphericism of the latter pagan greeks had made its appearance in India by means of this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surya_Siddhanta

So it was that medieval hindu cosmography had a sphericist element within it.  To their credit, hindu astronomers did continue to hold to geocentrism long after most europeans had given way to heliocentrism.

Jantar Mantars

  In particular, Maharaja Jai Singh II of Rajasthan in the early 1700's became a prominent astronomer (perhaps the last of the great medieval hindu astronomers).  He recognized the muslim Mogul empire had begun to decline with the deatrh of Aurangzeb, and he gained military control of most of northern India and recognition by the emperor.  He then studied and researched the astronomy of India and its methods in great detail.  He then researched the astronomical doctrines and observation methods of other civilizations, many other countries including those of the europeans as far away as the traditional Observatory of Tycho Brahe in Denmark.  Jai Singh then built five Great Observatories in five different cities in India.  He named them the Jantar Mantars.  These are possibly  the greatest of the remaining observatories of the old astronomy ianywhere in the world.  The Jantar Mantar in Jaipur, Rajasthan (Jai Singh's capitol city which he built himself in accordance with the geometry of traditional hindu Architecture) is still fully functional.  The following is a website describing the Jantar Mantars:
http://www.jantarmantar.org/

A brief monograph on Jai Singh II:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jai_Singh_II

Resurrection Versus Reincarnation

  Of particular interest with respect to Jainism, Brahminism, and Buddhism compared with some other pagan religions is the difference between the words cosmography and cosmology.  Whereas cosmography strictly speaking signifies the study of the cosmos, cosmology is broader in the sense that it also may include soteriology or the study of the salvation of souls, and there is somewhat of a difference with reguards to this between certain religions.  Even the ancient Egyptians (and Zoroastrians of Iran) were different from MODERN hindus in that ancient Egyptians used burial and did not cremate.  The practice of cremation being linked to the false theory of reincarnation, it would be of the utmost interest to know which is the oldest practice.  As erudite Hindu writer Ananda Coomaraswamy shows, the doctrine of reincarnation is modern in spirit and NOT a part of traditional Brahminism or Hinduism:
http://www.fonsvitae.com/bugbearliteracy.html

  An entire chapter in his book 'The Bugbear of Literacy' is dedicated to this subject which begs the question if Hindus always cremated or was there a time when they did not.  Rene Guenon has stated that Zoroastrianism, the pre-Islamic religion dominant in Iran has origins racially and to some extent religiously involved with India rather than the Arab countries (the muslim connection of Iran with the Arab world being only since AD 650).  Small Iranian Zoroastrian communities (known as Parsis) which still exist today in such palces as BOMBAY< Karachi and rural Iran maintain that reincarnation is definitely not traditional Zoroastrianism and that reincarnation is false as it denies the resurrection.

Buddhist Cosmography

Without endorsing either Brahminism (which is Vedism or Hinduism) or Buddhism but merely to state some truths concerning the relationships between these two demonic religions.  As Buddhism is derived from Brahminism (in a very rough way like protestantism is to papism), most aspects of these religions are compatible in some way.  This is demonstrated in several learned books by Ananda Coomaraswamy which basically assert that those who delve the deepest into these religions discover that they are essentially the same while often exteriorally different:
http://www.mrmlbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookware.cgi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ananda_Coomaraswamy

 One could accurately view Jainism, Brahminsim, and Buddhism as three different levels of the same religion (although many Jains would characteristically likely find that untenable).  Jainism is the most ascetic and least popular, especially in the modern world.  It does not proselytize which explains why it never left India.  However, research which takes the ancient records of both the Jains and the Brahmins at face value would (if honest) end up concluding that Jainsim is the oldest of the three and that hinduism is derived from Jainism and not the other way around.  If Jainism is separated from hinduism because it is too loose, then Buddhism tends to the opposite extreme.  Buddhism is more lax than hinduism, does proselytize and has spread to other countries, and tends to attract larger numbers of people with doctrines like its "great truth of the Middle Way."

  Despite exterior differences in many aspects, the cosmography of the Brahminism and Buddhism is often consistently the same.  (The more complex Jainist cosmology is something to behold.)  Buddhism also believes in Mehru, the great Mountain in the receses of the North around which the Sun revolves.  This fact is actually compatible with the flat Earth cosmography of virtually all ancient religions (even the ancient Israelites as the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the Mountain in the recesses of the North).  It is the modern World which rejects the concept of Mehru.  Some western educated Hindus and Buddhists who accept modern astronomy try to explain this away by equating Mehru with the axis of a globe and thereby dismiss or deemphasize precisely those very Sacred beliefs of their Ancient ones which happen to be true.

  The swastika is a cosmological symbolcommon to Jainism, hinduism, and buddhism.  It has four lines indicating the four directions, but also conveys the concept of revolution (i.e. of the Sun, Moon, and Stars around a central Axis which is Mehru, the central point of the swastika).  This is also consistent with the five elements of Earth, Air ,Water, Fire, and Ether being the fifth and highest of the elements and most closely connected to the essence of all five and symbolized by the centre point.  'Early Astronomy and Cosmology' by Menon has an extraordinary amount of information concerning the cosmological significance of the swastika:
http://www.kessinger.net/searchresults_orderthebook.php?Title=7114

Influence of Buddhism Upon the Modern World

  Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Russian Orthodox literature warned of the growth of the occult and particularly neo-Buddhism which was especially popular among many of the upper classes in Moscow.  One of the greatest of all the examples of such neo-Buddhists was Georgi Ivanovich Gurdjeff.  This Armenian philosophe has the odd distinction of having influenced both his fellow Caucasian Josef Djugashvili (Stalin) when he was a seminary student in pre-revolutionary Georgia as well as the Thule Society and the Bavarian Nazi Party by means of Hitler's Vice-Fuhrer Rudolf Hess.  The prevalence of anti-Bolshevist sentiment immediately following World War I obviously played a part in the frienship Gurdjeff developed with such students of his as Rudyard Kipling and Karl Haushofer (Rudolf Hess's mentor and teacher):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurdjieff
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/perry_gurdjieff.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Haushofer

Influence of Buddhism Upon the Ancient World

  A thesis largely ignored by the modern West is the influence of Buddhism upon late pagan Hellenic society.  The influence of Buddhism upon China is evident and obvious.  The influence of Buddhism upon the West is less obvious as it has taken different forms.  Hellenic philosophy became very degraded particularly after Aristotle.  This was also precisely the period which witnessed the rise of globularism (and other false doctrines) in the ancient Hellenic world.  Two chief schools developed:

1) the Stoics founded by Zeno
2) the Epicureans after Epicurus

  The Stoics were nominally conservative and coressponded with the Jewish Pharisees.  The Epicureans were notable for lack of belief in the miraclulous and corresponded with the Jewish Sadducees.  in fact, it is likely that the respective Jewish orders took the lead in forming the Gentile philosophic schools after themselves rather than the other way around with all that would imply politically and otherwise.

  As far as Buddhism is concerned, after the time of Alexander the Great, trade and exchange between Greeks and the East was greatly increased and many Hellenic philosophers travelled East.  This fact combined with the fact that Buddhism was much stronger in the West prior to the existence of Mohameddanism in Arab lands or the Gupta Dynastic revival in India (AD 300 to 500)(which saw Buddhism decline in India in favor of a newer hinduism, makes the case for a large Buddhist causitive role in the rapid degeneration of late Hellenic paganism completely tenable at a minimum.  This thesis has been advanced among others by mohammedan writer Harun Yahya in his book 'Islam and Buddhism':
http://www.harunyahya.com/buddhism01.php

and early in the twentieth century in 'An Introduction to Hindu Doctrines' by Rene Guenon:
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/guenon_hindudoc_toc.html

Jain Cosmology

Two Monographs on Jainist Geography of the World
www.jainpushp.org/munishriji/jg-1.htm
www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralsm/affiliates/jainism/workshop/Jain%20Geoghaph.PDF

  As will be seen from the corresponding post on hinduism (Brahmin Cosmography), an element of western sphericism crept into hindu cosmological belief during the Gutpa Empire era (AD 300 - AD 510)probably about the year of the Lord 400 with the publication of the sphericist hindu book 'Surya Siddhanta.'  Jain cosmology, however, has been much more consistent.  It has retained its flat Earth character from its foundation millenia ago even until today.

  It is significant to point out a few characteristics of Jainism that distinguish it from hinduism.  First, jainism is acknowledged by all as a much stricter religion than hinduism.  Most hindus today allow certain substances like milk that come from animals as part of their "vegetarianism."  Not only do Jains reject this, but they also reject certain vegetables like onions and potatoes.  Jainism is not a proselytizing religion which is why it never left India.  Its strictness is part of the reason so few people follow it.  It is in many ways the opposite of buddhism and buddhism's doctrine of the middle way.  

  Many modern secular historians date jainism's origin from the sixth century BC and its founder as Lord Mahavira who did live during the same time as Buddha, both from India.  As buddhism was a protest against  hinduism and a movement in a liberal (atheistic) direction (roughly like protestantism was to roman catholicism), jainism was a movement in the opposite direction.  Actually, the jains and their records maintain that jainism is more ancient than hinduism.  The sages of jainism are called tirthamkiras, and Mahavira was not the first but rather the twenty-fourth and last of the tirthankiras.  The jains state that the first tirthankira lived before Vyasa who is reguarded as the compiler of the rig-veda and the founder of hinduism.  The only people I have found doubting the antiquity of jainism are secular historians who rewrite history by saying it started around the same time as Buddha as part of the protests against hinduism about 550 BC, or at the earliest they admit it started around 800 BC, not the third millenium BC which jain historians maintain.  And also I have not found any traditional hindus who dispute the antiquity of jainism, but only modern secular historians who do not follow either religion.  As a matter of fact, Ashoka (the most powerful emperor of India ever who converted to Buddhism and became its most prominent sponsor in the middle of his reign) had a grandfather by the name of Chandragupta Maurya.  Chandragupta Maurya was the King of India at the time of Alexander's invasion, but as his capitol was in Patliputra (modern Patna), his kingdom never fell as it was beyond the furthest march of Alexander's armies which only went so far as such areas like Punjab and Kashmir in the northwest of India.  And King Chandragupta Maurya was a jain rather than a hindu, and he was still king of all India (north and south) decades after Alexander's bones had gone to rest in a crypt in Alexandria, Egypt.

  Incidentally, the jain records indicate that the first tirthankira, or founding sage of jainism, was of immense size in that he was a giant much taller than average men.  Seeing that giants do exist now as well as then and they were much more widespread in the third millenium BC when the Bible as well as ancient records speak of them, there is know reason to doubt the authenticity of this fact.  I myself am not a jain and view it as a cult.  It makes  perfect sense to me that a false religion would trace its history back to the son of a fallen angel (which is what a giant is, according to Genesis).

  As to jain cosmology, I will summarize it briefly:

  Jains believe the entire cosmos consists in the form of the 'cosmic man.'  The shape of the cosmic man is that of three pyramids.  The bottom pyramid representing the region of the legs is taller than the top two pyramids and sits on its base, and it has a flattened top.  The middle pyramid also has a flattend top, but it is inverted so that its top rests on the top of the bottom pyramid.  The top pyramid is right side up, and its base rests on the base of the middle pyramid, and it also has a flattened top.  The top two pyramids represent the waist to the head of the cosmic man with his elbows outward.  These three pyramids consists of different levels within them called rajjus.  The upper rajjus are the heavens, and the lower rajjus are the hells.  The flat earth in which people live is in the middle of the structure near the waist of the cosmic man.  They believe the central continent is a flat circle surrounded by an ocean.  Outside of this is a ring of land surrounded by another ocean which is surrounded by another ring of land and another ocean.  They also believe that there are two suns and two moons.  The flat circle of earth is a cosmological trait shared by all ancient civilizations.  Of the greatest importance is the existence in the middle of this circle of a mountain of tremendous height (it extends into the heavenly rajjus) named meru, which is also included in the ancient cosmologies of all other countries from the norse to the chinese.  One of the principle ancient books containing the jain cosmology is the 'Tattvarttha Sutra.'  I bought a copy of this in hindi at the Digambara jain temple book store across the street from Red Fort in Delhi.  This has fold out maps of all these things, and explanations are provided in english books explaining the jain geography and astronomy which are sold there also.  Another more expensive but excellent book entitled 'Jain Cosmology' by Ravi Kumar is also available in more upscale stores.  I was able to meet with the author of this book and we discussed cosmology at the cafe of the India International Centre in Delhi.  

  The following link is a brief description of Kumar's book on Jain cosmology which he co-wrote with the knowledgeable French professor Mrs. Collette Caillat:

http://www.artmediaresources.com/item.cfm/100069

  Besides the cosmic man or triple pyramid, another cosmological symbol very basic to jainism (as well brahminism) is the swastika.  I will post some on-line descriptions of its cosmological significance as I find them.  So far the best I have come across in books are descriptions of this symbol by Rene Guenon.  The following is a Jain symbols page with hand and swastika symbols on the cover.  These same two symbols are on the cover of my own hindi language copy of the tattvartha sutra:

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/jainclip.html

  tattvartha sutra - I want to add concerning the tattvartha sutra that it is considered the best one volume summary of Jainism in existence (this is the opinion of everyone from ancient Jains to modern scholars).  I am certainly not endorsing the jain religion despite the fact i have some agreement with elements of its scienmtific cosmology, but the only individual whorevied the book described it as so mindblowing that it transformed him from an agnostic into a religious with the reaing of this single book.  The following link is to an english translation of the 'Tattvartha Sutra' which includes a description of the flat earth cosmos.  I will post a link to an on-line edition as soon as I come across one:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761989935/103-1714954-7505420?v=glance&n=283155

  The following site is an encyclopedia concerning Jainism in general:

http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/jainhlinks.html

Polynesian Cosmography

  The belief of Polynesians that the world is flat and that the Dome of Heaven rests upon certain Pillars in the form of mountains is documented with reference in 'The History of the Warfare Between Science and Theology in Christendom' by Andrew D. White:
http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/andrew_white/Andrew_White.html

Taoist Cosmography

Yin-Yang Cosmologists

  The robes of Chinese Emperors had a symbolic design.  Both Taoist and Confucian philosophers explained that since they held their Emperor to be the representative of Heaven on the Earth, his garments were rounded from head to waist as the Heavens are a dome, and his garments were squared from his mid-section to the ground because the Earth is square.

Reference:  'The Empty Vessel - A Journal of Taoist Philosophy'
www.abodetao.com/mainsite/shop.cgi/SID=1166712117.18200/page=v_sub_backorder.html

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China (Kathay) Located West of India

Alexandre the Great conquered China according to the 'Ethiopian Book of Alexandre' yet he did not conquer Patliputra (Patna), the capitol of India under Chandragupta Maurya (the Jain Emperor of India at the time of Alexandre's conquest).  This is because Patliputra is further East than Xi'an as ancient World maps attest.  In fact, all maps prior to the sixteenth century maps of renaissance Europe indicate that India is located East of China.

Chinese are descendents of Japhet.

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Alexandre the Great in China

  Yeti exist in Tibet.  There is an Ethiopian history of Alexandre the Great which records that he subdued all of Asia including China.  According to this book, his armies came to the gates of Xi'an where he went in disguise as a messenger to the Chinese Emperor who acknowledged Alexandre's military superiority and agreed to pay him tribute but refused to allow him to keep a standing army in China as he said the Chinese would rather die fighting than be slaves in their own country to which Alexandre agreed.  Ancient histories indicate that an Alexandropoulis (city) exists in Tibet.  The Ethiopian Book of Alexandre has been reprinted by AMS Press in New York.

Alexandre the Great in Tibet

  Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ (of Constantinople circa A.D. 1000) was revealed a prophecy connected to Alexandre's visit to China.  He said that Alexandre's army encountered a race of half men and half beasts in the mountains of Tibet in the depths of Asia.  Alexandre prayed to God to help him in the warfare, and two distant mountains moved very close together with the army of the monster race in between the mountains.  Alexandre then had his army contruct a large wall and roof between the mountains which penned the monsters inside the large cave.  Saint Andrew the Fool's prophecy says that during the time of the Apocalypse at the end of the World, one of the plagues sent to the Earth will be that these monsters which Alexandre penned up in Tibet will be released from that confinement and spread across the World killing men by physically eating their hearts.  This information is contained in the life and miracles of Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ's sake in Migne's Patrologiae Graece.  
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/saints/andrew_foolish.htm
http://www.worldcatlibraries.org/wcpa/ow/f561520778fb95efa19afeb4da09e526.html
www.lorencoleman.com/bigfoot.html

Sibyl Prophetesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibyl

The Sibylline Oracles
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/sib00.htm

  The Sibyls were prophetesses of different lands and different times, but they all hail from the ancient pre-Christian world.  These Holy Women were all virgins from widely differing pagan civilizations who lived hermetic lives and whom God chose to prophesy truths as they are acknowledged and honoured by the Church Fathers who hold them in the greatest esteem and respect and reguard them as wellsprings of the knowledge of God.  They are outstanding examples of the knowledge of God among Gentiles from the pre-Christian world (only one of them was Hebrew).  As with the Church Fathers, these Holy Women of God knew no other cosmology than that consistent with Flat Earth cosmography.

Hellenic Philosophers

  The idea that most Greek pagan philosophers believed the world is globular in the days of Aristotle or even as late as Claudius Ptolemy is a false hood.  This false idea is the result of wishful thinking on the part of modern heliocentrists so eager to find their counterparts or predecessors in the past that they overlook the truth in order to find them.  

  To begin with, the heliocentrism contemplated by Aristarchus was an obscurity.  It never received any significant attention until writers like Nicolas of Cusa and his follower Nicolas Copernicus promoted it well into the renaissance.  

  As far as the ancient pre-Christian Greek philosophers are concerned, the majority of them held flat earth cosmological beliefs and perspective of the cosmos.  This is true of all pre-Socratic Greek philosophers without exception (before 500 BC).
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Hesiod

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theogony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesiod
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/theogony.htm

  Hesiod who lived in the ninth century BC wrote the "Theogony" which describes the classic ancient Greek flat earth cosmography.  Hesiod's 'Theogony' also contains the old western pagan doctrine of the four ages of world civilization which proceeds from initially glorious to gradually lesser and inferior quality:  the golden age, the silver age, the bronze age, and the iron age.  Interestingly, this doctrine corresponds with that of the Vedas which also describe four ages known to Brahmins as the four yugas, the fourth of which is the kali yuga meaning the dark age which corresponds with the ancient greek pagan concept of the iron age.  According to the vedic books of ancient india and their doctrine of cyclical time, the kali yuga or dark age is the age in which the world is currently passing through.
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Homer

Homer lived at the same time as Hesiod around 850 BC according to the historian Herodotus.  As can be discerned from various verses relating to cosmology in the 'Iliad' as well as the 'Odyssey' Homer also naturally believed the flat earth cosmogony which contemporary writers like Hesiod wrote about in more detail.
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Anaximander (610-546 B.C.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaximander

Credited by many with constructing the first map of the World, Anaximander's map depicted a flat rather than a globular Earth.
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Hecataeus of Miletus (550-476 B.C.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecataeus
www.livius.org/he-hg/hecataeus/hecataeus.htm

The Hellenic geographer and historian Hecataeus also produced a World map based upon Anaximander's flat Earth geography.
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Socrates, Plato, and Timaeus

Plato and the men of his time knew that the Earth is flat as demonstrated by the writer Ananda Coomaraswamy:

  In the second appendix of 'The Guardians of the Sun Door' entitled 'The Rotation of the Earth' (on page 146 of the Fons Vitae edition) author Ananda Coomaraswamy quotes several translations of a verse from the 'Timaeus' of Plato which apparently describes the earth as circular or globular.  Well versed in Greek, Coomaraswamy first states that "All these versions reflect a doubt."  

  Coomaraswamy then stated "Plato could no more have thought of the Earth as a planet than of the Sky as a planet;  the Earth is the floor, and the Sky the roof of the cosmic house.  The orbits of the planets lie in the space between these limits."

  "Sky and Earth correspond to one another like the roof and floor of a house."

  "Sky and Earth are at once held apart and connected by an (invisible) pillar, whether of fire or smoke or resonant or luminous or pneumatic, the Trunk of the Tree of Life, and only pathway up and down these worlds;  this pillar extending from Nadir to Zenith penetrates the naves of all the world-wheels and is the Axis."

  "At the foot of this axial pillar, with which the pillar of the sacrifice is also identified, at the "navel of the Earth," burns the "central Fire," and at its summit the solar Eagle nests, and from this eyrie he surveys all things in the worlds below him.  The Sun is not merely, however, the capital of the pillar, but the sky-supporting pillar itself, and so the "single nave" on which all turn.  These worlds are collectively his vehicle."

  "The Earth on which the whole is supported floats like a flower on the primordial Waters, and is thought of as their consolidated foam.  It is from these Waters that the Sun rises in the East, and to them that he returns from the West;  it is because he passes behind the Earth from West to East at night that the Earth can be called the maker of day and night."

  "Like the Sun, the Earth is central because it is from the central axis that the quarters radiate;  just as the capital of a kingdom is traditionally its centre, surrounded by four provinces.  The planets other than the Sun are only "excentric" in that they are bodies "wandering" on the peripheries of their orbits;  and by analogy, whoever on Earth lives far away from its centre, whoever in any land does not sacrifice, whoever in his own person lives "superficially" and not at the centre of his being, is likewise "excentric."

  'The Guardians of the Sun Door' by Ananda Coomaraswamy is published by Fons Vitae:
http://www.fonsvitae.com/coomaraswamysundoor.html

  The on-line edition of 'Timaeus' by Plato which is actually Plato's record of a discussion between Socrates and Timaeus concerning cosmology:
http://www.hermetic.com/texts/plato/timaeus.html

  As a warning to any who might wrongly think from reading the above the translation that Plato actually believed the Earth to be rounded, the link above to the 1871 translation by Benjamin Jowett is the very first translation Coomaraswamy cites as reflecting doubt:
"For eillomenen in Timaeus 40 B Jowett has "clinging round," with a footnote, "or 'circling'";  Bury has "which is globed around";  and Cornford "as she winds round.""

  One should be wary of modern translations of ancient texts lest the translators have forced modern ideas into the translation to which the original authors never subscribed.  The English translations of 'Timaeus' are an outstanding example.
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Aristotle

  As Plato was Aristotle's teacher, it follows that Aristotle likewise believed the Earth was flat, especially as this fact was common knowledge at the time.  Shy of any forthcoming evidence to the contrary, Aristotle's flat Earth belief is a forgone conclusion.  This is significant in light of all the influence that Aristotle has had throughout history including but not limited to Alexandre the Great and Hellenes of all generations since that time, Arab and Islamic philosophy and science as well as late medieval Latin philosophy science.
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Alexandre the Great

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Plutarch (Anno Domini 46-127)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutarch

In AD 150, all Christians believed the Earth is flat and the novel idea that the Earth is a globe was only popular with certain educated pagans like the Egyptian Claudius Ptolemy.  The Greek pagan philosopher and historian Plutarch was Ptolemy's contemporary and senior.

  PLUTARCH DEMONSTRATED THAT CLAUDIUS PTOLEMY'S BELIEF THAT THE WORLD IS SPHERICAL WAS NOT BY ANY MEANS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MAJORITY OF PAGAN SCHOLARS OF HIS TIME.  

  In his essay 'On the Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon' written partly in opposition to the globularist doctrine of Claudius Ptolemy, Plutarch blatantly states that the Earth is flat and not globular:
http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Moon.html

from where does the cold come from?

To answer this question at long last...

...according to both the 'Book of Courses of the Heavenly Luminaries' which is contained within the 'Book of Enoch' and 'A Cosmological Tract' ascribed to the first century Christian Dionysios the Areopagite, the "cold" ultimately issues from twelve storehouses of the winds
located along the four edges of the world.   The 'Book of Enoch' is common to both esoteric Jewish and Christian tradition.

'A Cosmological Tract'
By Dionysios the Areopagite
(mentioned by name in the Book of Acts 17:34)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/1917-07.htm

'The Book of Enoch'
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/

SUFISM

Sufism is perhaps the deepest and most intriguing aspect of Islam.  In many Sufi Tariqas (religious orders), members are not required to be muslim.  Islamic texts expressly state that the mystical Sufi orders have an historical continuity to an origin more ancient than Mohammed and the Islamic religion itself. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariqah

Sufism's benign character is one of the reasons for the famed toleration of the Ottoman empire which itself survived many centuries with harmonious Christian and muslim subjects because the empire adopted the principles of Eastern Roman civilization as its own which facilitated its survival until it abandoned those principles during the Tanzimat westernization of the nineteenth century.  Sufism has a reputation for peace, intellectualism, and mysticism that sharply differs with the shallow, fanatic branch of Islam known as Wahhabism of which the Taliban and the Saudi dynasty are adepts. 

Several Sufi spiritual practices and customs have been inherited from Eastern Christian traditions including specific kinds of prayer and clothing.  Another example is Zhikr, or Islamic mystical music, especially when it is focused on the Name of God, which is derived from Eastern Christian hesychast tradition - more specifically the Jesus prayer.  Zikr is more deeply entrenched with Shiites than with Sunnis because it is often communal and cultural with Shiites and not relegated to a merely private individual practice as with Sunnis.

Eastern Christian Hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasm

Zikr
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhikr

ABANDONMENT OF CHRISTIAN TRADITION BY THE MEDIEVAL WEST

The early Christian patristic tradition of hesychasm was actually abandoned by medieval europe because of the scholasticism associated with Thomas Acquinas.  In the cold spirit of the agnosticism and deism of Kant and Voltaire that directly flowed from it, papist scholasticism also viewed God as unknowable.  Scholasticism artificially separated intellectual knowledge from the heart and placed pagan greek philosophy higher than spirituality or traditional patristic Christian theology.  This is the origin of europe's degeneration into an abnormal culture of aggressive individualism, thoughtlessness, and hypocrisy that contrasted sharply with simpler but more genuine peoples of the world whom it exploited for centuries.  Thus Sufi Islam inherited and preserved a significant degree of genuine original Christian traditions that western europe neglected, forgot, and even physically attacked from the fourth crusade onwards. 

In the colonial spirit of crusaders, the 14th century Italian heretic Barlaam of Calabria represented europe's and scholasticism's aggressive attitude against traditional Christian hesychasm which continued unbroken in the east in spite of europe's apostasy. 

Barlaam of Calabria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barlaam_of_Seminara

Gregory Palamas
http://orthodoxwiki.org/Gregory_Palamas

SUFI COSMOGRAPHY

In his 1929 book about sacred geography entitled 'The King of the World', Sufi writer Abdal Wahid Yahya (Rene Guenon) cites the Sufi belief in an unapproachable mountain located in the far northern ocean that serves as an axis around which the sun and stars revolve.
http://www.sophiaperennis.com/books/eschatology/the-king-of-the-world/