Hanan Pacha
18'' x 24''

In Incan mythology, the cosmos was divided into three realms or pachas: Hanan Pacha, Kay Pacha and Uku Pacha.

These realms shared a similar structure to Catholic notions of earth, heaven, hell, helping Spanish missionaries advance their own religious notions in the New World while simultaneously allowing the Incas to preserve aspects of their own mythology within that of Catholicism (beliefs that remain part of Andean myth and religion today).

The three pachas represented three distinct planes of existence, interconnected and bridged by both physical and spiritual/mythological elements. Together, the three realms shaped Inca religion, the concept of the Inca cosmos and the day-to-day worldview of both the Inca nobility and the common man.