Don't Know Much About Mythology - Kenneth C. Davis [160]
MYTHIC VOICES
In the beginning a lotus bloomed. Within sat Brahma. He opened his eyes and realized he was all alone. Afraid, he sought the origin of the lotus he sat on. It emerged from the navel of Vishnu, who slept in the coils of the serpent Ananta-Sesha on the surface of a boundless ocean of milk. Having been formed by Vishnu, Brahma set about creating living beings.
—VISHNU PURANA
There was neither being nor nonbeing then, neither atmosphere nor the sky above. What stirred? Where? Under whose protection?
There was neither death nor immortality then. Day was not separate from night. Only the One breathed, without an alien breath, of Himself—and there was nothing other than He.
Was there below? Was there above?
Who really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced? Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards with the creation of the universe. Who knows then whence it has arisen?
Whence has this creation arisen—perhaps it formed itself or perhaps it did not? He whose eye watched over it from the summit of heaven, He alone knows. Or perhaps even He doesn’t know.
—Rig-Veda 10:129
If it’s all an endless cycle of birth and destruction, where does the Hindu Creation begin?
Maybe the “One” knows. Maybe the “One” doesn’t know. It all depends.
If these kinds of cosmic conundrums hurt your hair, welcome to the world of Eastern thinking. In Hindu tradition, as in other civilizations, explanations can run the gamut from the sublime to the profound to the profoundly enigmatic, and everything in between. Step up to the buffet table of Hindu Creation stories.
For starters, try the “cosmic egg” variety of Creation tales, of which there are several popular variations. In one ancient folkloric version, a supreme goddess lays three eggs in a lotus, and from them emerge three worlds and three gods—Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. When the first two of these gods refuse to make love to their “mother,” she reduces them to ashes with her scorching gaze. But Shiva agrees to do the deed in exchange for the goddess’s fiery third eye. Once he has received it, Shiva shows no mercy—he uses the third eye to incinerate his mother and revive his two sibling gods. Deciding to populate the world, the godly trio realizes that they need wives. So, they divide the remains of the cremated goddess into three ash heaps and, using the power of the third eye, create three goddesses. Together, these three gods and three goddesses populate the cosmos.
In another cosmic-egg story, a golden egg floats in the primordial waters. The golden egg is broken in half by the god Brahma in his role as the creator. The two halves of the egg shell then form heaven and earth. The mountains, clouds, and mists originate from the egg’s membranes, the rivers from its veins, and the ocean from the egg’s fluid.
There are at least two other cosmic-egg accounts of Creation. In one of these, all of Creation is simply contained within the unbroken egg. In the other, which is included in one of the Puranas, the Creation begins when the god Shiva appears in an androgynous form, and deposits his fiery seed in his female half. A cosmic egg is born of this union.
Unscrambling all of these eggs is tricky. So, set aside the divine hatchery and move to another popular vision of Creation, drawn from the Mahabharata, and frequently depicted in Indian art. In this tale, the god Vishnu lies resting on a many-hooded serpent—often a mythic symbol of regeneration, since it sheds its skin—whose numerous coils symbolize the endless cycles of time. When Vishnu assumes the form of an all-consuming fire that destroys the universe, rain clouds appear and extinguish the flames, leaving behind a great sea. Lying on the serpent floating in this immense sea, Vishnu falls into a deep sleep. A lotus sprouts from his navel, and within the lotus is Brahma, the creative force that sets in motion the process of regeneration once more.
Finally, in one Hindu version of Creation, man appears. Manu is the first man, son of Brahma and Sarasvati, and his story has clear parallels