Andean Chakana — Three Pacha (Worlds)
Andean Chakana — Three Pacha (Worlds) is a Andean / Indigenous Quechua-Aymara body system as transmitted through the lineage Three-pacha cosmology (uku-pacha / kay-pacha / hanan-pacha) attested in colonial-era Andean chronicles (Garcilaso de la Vega, Guaman Poma de Ayala, Juan de Betanzos, late 16th–early 17th c.); the body-projection of the three pacha is preserved and elaborated in modern paqo lineages of the Q'ero and Cusco regions.. This page lists every point in the system with sourced placements and links to cross-tradition correspondences curated for The Body Spiritual.
Open in interactive explorerPrimary sources
- Garcilaso de la Vega ('El Inca'), Comentarios Reales de los Incas (Lisbon, 1609; Eng. trans. Harold V. Livermore as Royal Commentaries of the Incas (Univ. of Texas Press, 1966)) — Mestizo chronicler born of an Inca princess and Spanish captain; the principal source for pre-Conquest Andean cosmology written from within the indigenous tradition.
- Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, El Primer Nueva Corónica y Buen Gobierno (c. 1615 manuscript, Royal Library of Denmark MS GKS 2232 4°; ed. Rolena Adorno and John V. Murra (Siglo XXI, 1980)) — Indigenous-authored illustrated chronicle; the iconographic record of three-pacha cosmology and the Chakana cross-form.
- Juan de Betanzos, Suma y Narración de los Incas (1551 manuscript; Eng. trans. Roland Hamilton and Dana Buchanan, Narrative of the Incas (Univ. of Texas Press, 1996)) — The earliest substantial Spanish-language compilation of Inca oral tradition; Betanzos married into the royal panaca and worked from native informants.
- R. Tom Zuidema, The Ceque System of Cuzco (Brill, 1964) — Foundational ethnohistorical study of the spatial cosmology of Cuzco; not a body-projection text but the academic anchor for three-pacha topology.
- Catherine J. Allen, The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1988; 2nd ed. 2002) — Modern ethnography of a Quechua community; documents living three-pacha categories.
- Joan Parisi Wilcox, Masters of the Living Energy: The Mystical World of the Q'ero (Inner Traditions, 2004) — Contemporary popular synthesis based on interviews with Q'ero paqos; the principal English-language source for the body-projection of the pacha. Frame as recent transmission, not pre-Conquest.
Known lineage variants
- The body-projection of the three pacha is most strongly attested in modern paqo lineage transmission (Q'ero, Cusco) than in colonial-era chronicles, which describe the cosmology spatially and ritually but do not consistently project it onto the human form.
- The Chakana stepped-cross is iconic in Andean material culture (Tiwanaku stonework, Inca textiles, the Cusco coricancha plan) but its precise body-mapping is a modern interpretive overlay, not pre-Conquest canon.
- Some lineages add ñawpa-pacha (ancestral past-time) as a fourth dimension orthogonal to the three pacha; not adopted here.
- New-Age 'Andean shamanism' treatments (Alberto Villoldo, Four Winds Society) often graft chakra-style energy centers onto the three-pacha scheme; this importation is not classical Andean and is rejected.
- Aymara cosmology preserves a closely-related but distinct three-realm scheme (alax-pacha / aka-pacha / manqha-pacha); compatible with the Quechua framing but with its own technical vocabulary.
Related systems
No other systems share this tradition label.
Points
- Uku-pacha — Lower world / inner-earth
- Kay-pacha — This world / present time
- Hanan-pacha — Upper world / cosmos
Frequently asked
What is Uku-pacha?
Uku-pacha — the inner / lower world. Spatially it is the realm beneath the surface of the earth: the abode of the dead, of seeds, of waters that emerge from springs, and of the unborn. Symbolically associated with the serpent (amaru) and with the yana (black) end of the dark-light continuum. In the body-projection preserved by paqo lineages of the Q'ero, uku-pacha is anchored in the lower abdomen and pelvic region — the body's own underworld of root and seed. The qosqo (energy-belly), located near the navel-pelvic interval, is described in this transmission as the threshold where uku-pacha opens into kay-pacha.
What is Kay-pacha?
Kay-pacha — 'this world', the realm of human and animal life unfolding in present time. The Quechua noun pacha simultaneously signifies space, time, and the world; kay-pacha names the lived now of embodied beings, mediated by reciprocity (ayni) with the other two realms. In the body-projection it is anchored at the heart-belly midpoint, the seat of present-tense feeling and ordinary action. Symbolically associated with the puma and with the day-side of the cosmos.
What is Hanan-pacha?
Hanan-pacha — the upper world: the celestial realm of the sun (Inti), the moon (Mama Killa), the stars and the apus (mountain-spirits) that mediate between the human and the cosmic. It is the seat of the most refined and luminous (illa) order of being. In the body-projection it anchors at the upper chest and head — the breath-region and the crown — the body's own sky. Symbolically associated with the condor (kuntur) and with the qhana (bright) end of the dark-light continuum.