Cosmogonic myths are those that They tell us how the world was created. Every culture has its own myths, its own gods, but many cosmogonies are similar and have some relationship, as we will see in this article.
If you are interested gods, myths and diverse cultures, stay to discover how the world begins for some of them.
Cosmogonic myths
We have as many cosmogonic myths as there are ancient cultures. However, today we are going to talk about several ancient cultures specifically: Hindu, Greek and Egyptian. For a long time certain important phenomena such as the creation of the world were issues that could not be explained objectively. For this reason, human beings resorted to legends, myths and stories with gods, heroes and fantastic characters.
These stories or legends nourish the striking mythology of different cultures of the world. Cosmogonic myths helped us understand the creation of the world from a perspective that ensured tranquility for the collective consciousness. You can explore more about myths and legends in various cultures through our website.
Hindu cosmogony
In Hindu mythology, we find various myths relating to the creation of the world, but the most important one concerns the god Vishnu. According to this myth, Vishnu is the force that persists in chaos, in nothingness, in an ocean of primeval waters where he is lying on a snake and floating along with his wife Lakshmi. Of the Vishú's navel emerges a lotus flower and from it arises Brahma, the creative deity that with his mind he would shape the world.
Greek cosmogony. The Theogony of Hesiod.
Hesiod in his theogony tells us what creation is like for the Greeks. He says that at the beginning of time Only chaos existed, from it the Earth (Gea) emerges, Tartarus in the depths of the earth, and Eros. From Chaos Erebus and Night are born, from them Ether and Day. From Earth arises Heaven (Uranus).
The Titans are born from Uranus and Gaea but due to Uranus' fear of being dethroned by one of his children, he locks them inside the Earth. Gaia gathers her children asking them for help to fight Uranus, but it would be only one of them, Cronus, who would help her. One night, when Uranus approached Gaea with the idea of fathering another child, Cronus cut off her testicles. Of the blood that fell to the ground The Furies, the Nymphs and the Giants were born. Aphrodite would be born from the testicles that Uranus threw into the sea.
Cronus would replace his father and marry Rhea, but an oracle predicts that one of his children will steal his throne, so Cronus decides to eat his children. Rhea, advised by her mother Gaea, hides Zeus on an island and instead gives Cronus a stone that he devours, thinking it was her son. When Zeus grew up he would face his father in a fight of more than 10 years that would lead to the triumph of the Olympian gods.
Egyptian cosmogony
According to Egyptian myth, there were only immense masses of murky waters covered in darkness, albeit darkness, an infinite ocean known as the primordial ocean Nun. Nun contained all the elements of the cosmos even though they had not been created. Nothing existed, not even death, until one day the spirit of the world becomes conscious and calls itself, that is when Ra is born, God of the sun.
Ra was alone and He decides to create Shu (the wind) with his breath, and Tefnut (moisture) with his saliva. Then he made a dry space emerge where he could rest and which he called land and he called that land Egypt. As he emerged from the waters, he would live thanks to them, so he made the waters be on the earth and the Nile River was born.
Ra I create vegetation and living beings from Nun. Shu and Tefnut had two children Geb (god of the earth) and Nut (goddess of the sky). They married, and the sky lay upon the earth like that. Shu, jealous of their union, cursed them to be separated and held the sky above his head, filling the space between earth and sky with air. Yet Nut had daughters (the stars).
Ra sent one of his eyes to see what had happened to Geb and Nut, and upon returning, the eye realized that another had taken its place and began to cry until Ra placed it on his forehead and created the Sun. From the tears that fell to the land of Egypt the first men and women were born.
Other cosmogonic myths
- The Polpol Vuh, sacred book of the Mayans where it tells of its creation.
- The Roman myth of creation.
- Japanese cosmogony.
- Mesopotamia where man was born as a plant.
- The Incas, where they started from a single god and evolved into polytheism. You can learn more about the Inca gods.
- The Nahuatl cosmogony, a single god who had four children who would originate the world.
- The origin of the Celtic world starts from Manred, a first substance.
- The Tibetan myth starts from Dorje Gyatram.
- The Aztec cosmogony.
- The creation of the world in Scandinavia, worship of the Sun and the Moon.
- Creation for the Yoruba, where the sky god requested the creation of a new kingdom.
- The Judeo-Christian creation myth, present in Genesis.
- In the Chinese myth, creation is a distribution of the parts of P'an-Ku's organism.
And we still have many more myths to learn, because as we said, each culture has its own answer to how the world was created.
Relationship between cosmogonic myths
As we have been able to see, All myths start from nothing, from nonexistence, but they speak of an existing matter, of gods who are there and from which creation arises. The fundamental idea underlying these myths is "chaos," a situation where there was no world. They also speak of a creator of the world, a god or force that causes what is necessary to create life to emerge, and from there other gods, rivers, mountains, animals, and human beings emerge.
