Hinduism Mythology
kevang.net/blog/a-hindu-creation-story
Creation
India has many ancient creation myths. They are can be found in the Vedas, Brahamanas, Upanishadas, and epics of the Hindus. They contain many familiar motifs: the creator god, creation by spilling of the creators god seed, the sacrifice of a single being into two, the cosmic egg, the cosmic eye, the primal waters and many others. But major theme is there were nothing in the beginning.
First version:
1. Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In Whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
2. Then there were neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then torch of night and day.
the one breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
there was that One then, and there was no other.
3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
4. In the begging desire descended on it-
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is, is kin to that which is not.
5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertility might forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.
6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?
7. Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he didn't,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows-or maybe even does not know.
(Myrcea Eliade , Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation (New York, 1974), p. 110)
Second version: other sources says that at first the Universe has been shipped in darkness. The seed wandering at space ocean has generated gold egg: "In this egg Brahma has spent year, then by force of thought has halved egg". From one half he has created the sky, divine sphere, from another — the earth, material sphere, and between them has placed air space; further there were five elements — water, fire, the earth, air, an aether — then thought, gods, stars, time, mountains, plains, the seas, the rivers, people, speech, passion, anger etc. At last, from egg there was god Brahma and was divided on two parts — female and male. These beings have generated all the rest.
Under third version, Brahma left egg in a kind of Purushi. It had one thousand feet, one thousand foot, one thousand hands, one thousand eyes, one thousand persons and one thousand goals. Parusha been sacrificed in order to create the Universe.
India has many ancient creation myths. They are can be found in the Vedas, Brahamanas, Upanishadas, and epics of the Hindus. They contain many familiar motifs: the creator god, creation by spilling of the creators god seed, the sacrifice of a single being into two, the cosmic egg, the cosmic eye, the primal waters and many others. But major theme is there were nothing in the beginning.
First version:
1. Then even nothingness was not, nor existence.
There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it.
What covered it? Where was it? In Whose keeping?
Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed?
2. Then there were neither death nor immortality,
nor was there then torch of night and day.
the one breathed windlessly and self-sustaining.
there was that One then, and there was no other.
3. At first there was only darkness wrapped in darkness.
All this was only unillumined water.
That One which came to be, enclosed in nothing,
arose at last, born of the power of heat.
4. In the begging desire descended on it-
that was the primal seed, born of the mind.
The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom
know that which is, is kin to that which is not.
5. And they have stretched their cord across the void,
and know what was above, and what below.
Seminal powers made fertility might forces.
Below was strength, and over it was impulse.
6. But, after all, who knows, and who can say
whence it all came, and how creation happened?
The gods themselves are later than creation,
so who knows truly whence it has arisen?
7. Whence all creation had its origin,
he, whether he fashioned it or whether he didn't,
he, who surveys it all from highest heaven,
he knows-or maybe even does not know.
(Myrcea Eliade , Gods, Goddesses, and Myths of Creation (New York, 1974), p. 110)
Second version: other sources says that at first the Universe has been shipped in darkness. The seed wandering at space ocean has generated gold egg: "In this egg Brahma has spent year, then by force of thought has halved egg". From one half he has created the sky, divine sphere, from another — the earth, material sphere, and between them has placed air space; further there were five elements — water, fire, the earth, air, an aether — then thought, gods, stars, time, mountains, plains, the seas, the rivers, people, speech, passion, anger etc. At last, from egg there was god Brahma and was divided on two parts — female and male. These beings have generated all the rest.
Under third version, Brahma left egg in a kind of Purushi. It had one thousand feet, one thousand foot, one thousand hands, one thousand eyes, one thousand persons and one thousand goals. Parusha been sacrificed in order to create the Universe.
