07 September, 2010

The Dawn of Life.

I found some extraordinarily interesting creation myths;

Creation Myths:


Finnish

Ancient Finns believed that the world was formed from an egg that was broken.

A bird was flying above the sea, seeking a place to make a nest and lay her eggs. She searched everywhere, but found nothing but water. Then she noticed the first dry place. In some stories it was an island, in other stories it was a boat and in other stories it was a body part of a floating being, like the wizard Väinämöinen. The place was too unstable for a nest: a big wave came and broke the eggs, spreading their parts all over. However the eggs were not wasted: the upper part of egg covers formed the sky, yolk became the sun, and lower parts of egg formed the mother earth. The first human was Väinämöinen, he was born from the maiden of air Ilmatar that was made pregnant by the sea. Väinämöinen ordered forests to be planted, and started human culture.

Norse and Germanic

The Voluspa opens with the Norse account of the creation of the present universe:

Old tales I remember | of men long ago. I remember yet | the giants of lore [...] Of old was the age | when Ymir lived; No Sea nor cool waves | nor sand there were; Earth had not been, | nor heaven above, Only a yawning gap, | and grass nowhere.

In the beginning there was nothing except for the ice of Niflheim, to the north, and the fire of Muspelheim, to the south. Between them was a yawning gap [[the phrase is sometimes left untranslated as a proper name: Ginnungagap]], and in this gap a few pieces of ice met a few sparks of fire. The ice melted to form Eiter, which formed the bodies of the hermaphrodite giant Ymir and the cow Auðumbla, whose milk fed Ymir. Auðumbla fed by licking the rime ice, and slowly she uncovered a man's hair. After a day, she had uncovered his face. After another day, she had uncovered him completely: Búri.

Ymir fathered Thrudgelmir, as well as two humans, one man and one woman. Búri fathered Borr. Borr had three sons, Vili, Ve, and Odin, who killed the giant Ymir. In the vast flood of Ymir's blood, Þrúðgelmir was also drowned, although not before he had fathered Bergelmir. Bergelmir and his wife hid in a hollow tree trunk and survived. Odin and his brothers used Ymir's body to create the universe : they ground his flesh into dirt, and the maggots that appeared in his flesh became the dwarves that live under the earth. His bones became the mountains, and Odin strewed his brains into the sky to create the clouds. The universe comprises nine worlds, of which this earth (Midgard) is central.

They placed four dwarves: Norðri (North), Suðri (South), Austri (East), and Vestri (West) to hold up Ymir's skull and create the heavens. Then using sparks from Muspelheim, the gods created the sun, moon and stars. As Odin and two others (differing between the Poetic Edda and Prose Edda) walked along the beach, they found two pieces of driftwood. From these, they created the first human beings: Ask and Embla. Ymir's eyebrows were used to create a place where the human race could live in; a place called Midgard.

The gods regulated the passage of the days and nights, as well as the seasons. Sól is the personified sun, a daughter of Mundilfari, and wife of Glen. Every day, she rides through the sky on her chariot, pulled by two horses named Árvakr and Alsviðr. Sól is chased during the day by Sköll, a wolf that wants to devour her. It is foretold that Sköll will eventually catch Sól and eat her during Ragnarök; however, she will first give birth to a daughter as fair as she. Sól's brother Máni, the personified moon, is chased by Hati Hróðvitnisson, another wolf. The earth is protected from the full heat of the sun by the shield Svalinn, which is placed before Sól.

Hindu

In Hindu philosophy, the existence of the universe is governed by the Trimurti of Brahma [[the Creator]], Vishnu [[the Sustainer]] and Shiva (the Destroyer). The sequence of Avatars of Vishnu - the Dasavatara (Sanskrit: Dasa—ten, Avatara—divine descents) is generally accepted by most Hindus today as correlating well with Darwin's theory of evolution i.e. the first Avatar generating from the environment of water. Hindus believe that the universe was created from the Word (Aum/OM : ॐ) - the sacred sound uttered by every human being at the time of birth. The first five great elements or Panchamahabhuta (Sanskrit: Pancha—five + Maha—great + Bhuta—elements) are: Akasha, Vayu, Agni, Ap, and Prithvi.

Hindus believe that the cycle of creation, preservation, and destruction has no beginning, Anadi. Hindus thus do not see much conflict between creation and evolution. Another reason for this could also be the Hindu concept of cyclic time, such as yugas, or days of Brahma. A Day of Brahma lasts 4.32 billion years and the night of Brahma also lasts for 4.32 billion years. Days and nights follow in cycles (unlike the concept of linear time in many other religions). In fact, time is represented as Kālá Chakra, the wheel of time.

In earlier Vedic thinking, the universe emanated from a cosmic egg, Hiranyagarbha (literally, 'the golden embryo'). Prajapati was born from the Hiranyagarbha world egg. Prajapati was later identified in the Puranas with the Demiurge Brahma. Various devas are credited with certain acts of the process of creation, as personified entities representing the laws governing the universe. For instance, the act of propping apart the Sky and the Earth suggests early ideas of an expanding universe. The Purusha Sukta hymn of Rig Veda further personifies and describes the story of the creation of the universe from the remains of a gigantic primaeval Cosmic Man, Purusha,or Viswakarma sacrificed at the Purushamedha yajna.

In Hinduism, nature and all of God's creations are manifestations of him and he pervades and observes the entire universe. Hence all animals and humans have a divine element in them that is obscured by avidya - ignorance from illusions of material, mundane existence.

Several scholars have attempted breaking the code of cosmogenesis of the Rig Veda. According to Rig Veda, creation happened gradually. The universe in its primitive form was made up of Ishwar Tattva, which primarily spread homogeneously throughout the universe. The complete equilibrium and homogeneity, when broke, arose an inhomogenous state of the primordial fluid, Ap. With the transformation of undifferentiated primordial fluid into differentiated fluid through polarization of opposites, the universe moved from a homogenous to inhomogenous state when particles were formed first.
Babylonian

The Babylonian creation myth is recounted in the 'Epic of Creation' also known as the Enûma Elish. The Mesopotamian 'Epic of Creation' dates to the late second millennium B.C.E.

In the poem, the god Marduk (or Assur in the Assyrian versions of the poem) is created to defend the divine beings from an attack plotted by the ocean goddess Tiamat. The hero Marduk offers to save the gods only if he is appointed their supreme unquestioned leader and is allowed to remain so even after the threat passes. The gods agree to Marduk's terms. Marduk challenges Tiamat to combat and destroys her. He then rips her corpse into two halves with which he fashions the earth and the skies. Marduk then creates the calendar, organizes the planets, stars and regulates the moon, sun, and weather. The gods pledge their allegiance to Marduk and he creates Babylon as the terrestrial counterpart to the realm of the gods. Marduk then destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu using his blood to create humankind so that they can do the work of the gods.

Egyptian

There were at least three separate cosmogenies in Egyptian mythology, corresponding to at least three separate groups of worshippers.

    - The Ennead, in which Atum arose from the primordial waters (Neith), and masturbated to relieve his loneliness. His vomitus and saliva became Tefnut (moisture) and Shu (dryness), respectively. From Shu and Tefnut, were born Geb (earth), and Nut (sky), who were born in a state of permanent copulation. Shu separated them, and their children were Ausare (Osiris; death), Set (desert), Aset (Isis; life), and Nebet Het (Nephthys; fertile land). Osiris and Isis were a couple, as were Nepthys and Set.
    - The Ogdoad, in which Ra arose, either in an egg, or a blue lotus, as a result of the creative interaction between the primordial forces of Nu/Naunet (water), Amun/Amunet (air), Kuk/Kauket (darkness), and Huh/Hauhet (eternity). Ra then created Hathor, his wife, with whom they had a son, Hor (Horus; in the form known as Horus the Elder), who was married to Isis. This cosmogeny also includes Anupu (Anubis) as lord of the dead, amongst others.
    - The third group, for whom Ptah was eternal and everlasting, and he spake the world and all the gods into existence, in a similar manner to Judaeo-Christian belief about their concept of God.

Over time, the rival groups gradually merged, Ra and Atum were identified as the same god, making Atum's mysterious creation actually due to the Ogdoad, and Ra having the children Shu and Tefnut, etc. In consequence, Anubis was identified as a son of Osiris, as was Horus. Amun's role was later thought much greater, and for a time, he became chief god, although he eventually became considered a manifestation of Ra.

For a time, Ra and Horus were identified as one another, and when the Aten monotheism was unsuccessfully introduced, it was Ra-Horus who was thought of as the Aten, and the consequent cosmogony this inspired. Later, Osiris' cult became more popular, and he became the main god, being identified as a form of Ptah. Eventually, all the gods were thought of as aspects of Osiris, Isis, Horus, or Set (who was by now a villain), indeed, Horus and Osiris had started to become thought of as the same god. Ptah eventually was identified as Osiris.

A late version of the narrative has it that the Supreme Being (God) was Atum-Raa and he uttered the words of creation to create the Primordial water of Nu (The celestial Ocean) Naunet. Naunet contained everything in embrionic form. From this, Atum-Raa uttered the words of creation to bring life into the world. This life took the form of an egg. From this egg came Raa, the light of God who caused all life to come into existence. Raa was represented by the Egyptian solar disk (also symbolised in Nordic, Germanic, Greek & Vedic tradition by a Sun chariot as well as referenced by biblical texts Elijah (prophet)). Ra, the light of God in nature, later became manifest on earth through the disc of the sun (eten) and appeared in the form of Dosher - the sunrise at the beginning of life on earth.
Aztec

The Aztec narrative describing creation proceeds with an Earth mother, 'Coatlique', the Lady of the Skirt of Snakes. She was decorated with skulls, snakes, and lacerated hands. At first she was whole without cracks in her body—a perfect monolith (a totality of intensity and self-containment, yet her features were square and decapitated). Coatlique was first impregnated by an obsidian knife and gave birth to Coyolxauhqui, goddess of the moon, and to a group of male offspring, who became the stars.

Then one day Coatlique found a ball of feathers, which she tucked into her bosom. When she looked for it later, it was gone, at which time she realized that she was again pregnant. Her children, the moon and stars did not believe her story. Ashamed of their mother, they resolved to kill her. A goddess can only give birth to a litter of divinity once. During the time that they were plotting her demise, Coatlique gave birth to the fiery god of war, Huitzilopochtli. With the help of a fire serpent, he destroyed his brothers and sister, murdering them in a rage. He beheaded Coyolxauhqui and threw her body into a deep gorge in a mountain, where it lies dismembered forever.

This precipitated a great civil war in heaven which crumbled to pieces. Coatlique fell and was fertilized, while her children were torn apart by fratricide and them scattered and disjointed throughout the universe. Who remained were Ometecutli and his wife Omecihuatl that created life. Their children were: Xipe Totec the god of spring, Huitzilopochtli the Sun god, Quetzalcoatl the 'light one' and 'plumed serpent', and Tezcatlipoca, the 'dark one' and god of night and sorcery.

Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca saw that whatever they created was eaten by Coatlique who floated in the abyss eating everything with her many mouths. To stop her, they changed into two serpents and descended into the water. One grabbed the goddess by the arms while the other grabbed her by the legs, and before she could resist they pulled her apart into different pieces. Her head and shoulders became the earth and the lower part of her body the sky.

The other deities were angry at what the two had done and decided, as compensation for her dismemberment, to allow her to provide the necessities for people to survive; so from her hair they created trees, grass, and flowers; caves, fountains, and wells from her eyes; rivers from her mouth; hills and valleys from her nose; and mountains from her shoulders.

Still the goddess was often unhappy and the people could hear her crying in the night. They knew she wept because of her thirst for human blood, and that she would not provide food from the soil until she drank. So the gift of human hearts is given her. She who provides sustenance for human lives demands human lives for her own sustenance.
Mayan

The Maya of Mesoamerica creation story is recounted in the book 'Popol Vuh'. Tepeu and Gucamatz came together to create the world. Whatever was thought of by Tepeu and Gucamatz came into being. Next for creation are the creatures of the forest: birds, deer, jaguars and snakes. They are told to multiply and scatter, and then to speak and 'pray to us'. But the animals just squawk and howl. So Tepeu and Gucumatz try to make some respectful creatures from mud. But the results are not great, and they allow the new race to be washed away. They call upon their grandparents, who suggest wood as an appropriate medium. But the wooden people are just mindless robots, so Tepeu and Gucumatz set about the destruction of this new race by means of a rain-storm. This causes the animals to turn against the wooden people; even their pots and querns rebel, and crush the peoples' faces. The wooden people escape to the forests and are turned into monkeys. Heart-of-Sky then make yet another attempt at creating a suitably respectful race, and finally succeed by fashioning humans out of maize-corn dough.

Discuss.

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