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This article is about the universe. For the word, see Ea (verb), and for the games developer see EA.

(pronounced [ˈe.a]), the Created World,[1] is the Quenya name for the universe, as a realization of the vision of the Ainur. Thus, Eä is the World that Is, as distinguished from the Timeless Halls of Ilúvatar and the Void, that have no material form.

Ea was conceived in the Music of the Ainur and then visualized in the beautiful Vision that Ilúvatar showed to the Ainur to see for themselves what they sang. The Vision showed a World sustained inside the Void, but without being part of it, and developing life on its own. The Ainur desired all this was real, and Ilúvatar brought this into actuality by saying and He sent His Flame Imperishable into the Void to burn at the heart of the World.

From the Timeless Halls, Ea is described as being of "vast halls and spaces" burning with "wheeling fires" and histories unfolding amidst the "Deeps of Time", such as the waking of the Children of Ilúvatar and the Dominion of Men.[2] However its shape, duration, extent and size are not described. Of all Ea, only Arda, the world inhabited by the Children, is known.

Ea is separated from the Void by the Walls of the World.[3] At the end of the First Age, the Valar threw Melkor to the Void through the Door of Night.[4]

Etymology

is the Quenya verb "to be", and was the word spoken by Eru Ilúvatar by which he created the universe.

Other versions of the Legendarium

In earlier works, the Qenya word Ilu is translated as "world"[5] in the sense of the "universe", from the root ILU "all, the whole".[6]

In the 1930s Ambarkanta, the World is described as a globe of air enclosed in Vaiya and the Ilurambar, the Walls of the World that separate Vaiya from nothingness and the Void.[7] The Ambarkanta maps schematics are labelled as "ILU".[8][9]

As the word Ilu doesn't make a distinction between the concepts of "Arda" and "Eä" of the later Silmarillion, therefore the two are mostly equated; all universe (at least in that context) consists only of Ambar and the airs around it.

In the later Round World version of the Silmarillion, the text mentions that Eä is vast beyond measure with the stars are other and remoter parts. In the Beginning, the innumerable Ainur shaped Eä and labored amid remote stars and worlds but we could know only of those who chose to shape Arda, which is of central importance of the Great Tale of Eä.[10]

References

Middle-earth Cosmology
 Constellations  Anarríma · Durin's Crown · Menelmacar · Remmirath · Soronúmë · Telumendil · Valacirca · Wilwarin
Stars  Alcarinquë · Borgil · Carnil · Elemmírë · Helluin · Luinil · Lumbar · Morwinyon · Nénar · Star of Eärendil · Til 
The Airs  Aiwenórë · Fanyamar · Ilmen · Menel · Vaiya · Veil of Arda · Vista
Narsilion  Arien · Moon (Isil, Ithil, Rána) · Sun (Anar, Anor, Vása) · Tilion
See also  Abyss · Arda · Circles of the World · · Timeless Halls · Two Lamps · Two Trees · Void