Hindu Mythology

The Delphic Oracle told the famous demigod, Lydian that “no one, not even the God’s, can escape his appointed fate.” The ancient Greek’s viewed the Earth as a flat disk floating on the river of Ocean. In Plato’s Timeous, the world is treated as a living thing, with a body and soul. The primary source for the ancient Greek creation myth is Hesiod’s Theogony. According to this account, four divide beings first came into existence: Chaos, the Abyss, Earth (Gaea) and Love (Eros).

The Greek story has a few versions to it, and I will be going with Hesiod’s, the eighth-century poet, version, and is probably most standard of Greek creation myths (Power of Myth and Symbol). Hesiod’s version of the Greek creation story started in the beginning when there was only Chaos, an amorphous, gaping void encompassing the entire universe (Elliott). From Chaos, there were Gaia (the earth), Tartarus (the abyss), Erebos (the gloom of the underworld), Nyx (night, the gloom of the earth), and Eros (desire) (Power of Myth and Symbol). This was how the world started for the Greeks.

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. He separated the light from the darkness he called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” God called the vault “sky.” God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their

It is said that in the beginning, there was Chaos, the silent and dark abyss. Out of Chaos, all things came into existence. According to the Theogony of Hesiod, Chaos created the

Mythology is the study of the language used to express experiences with and understandings of the “absolute reality.” There are four main functions that make up and are the foundation of mythology: Each of these functions plays a major role in categorizing the ideas and characters in their respective groups or section. To name these four functions there is the Mystical function which is also known as the sacred or universal function. The next function is the cosmological function or metaphor (character) function. Then comes the social or profane (personal function) which is one of the main functions that is involved in the idea of mythology. The last of the four functions is the pedagogical function or the moral function of

In the beginning there was nothing, except God. God made everything out of nothing. He made the heavens, earth, and all things. It took him 6 days and on the seventh day he rested.

Origin myths explain the mysteries of the world and answer the question of how the earth was created and humans purpose on earth. Each culture has a different myth; in these myths, generally, the gods or the god created mankind, earth, animal, and heaven. Many of these stories present the gods with a paternalistic attitude toward the human species. The gods care for humans and provide them with essential items needed for survival. Also, the gods castigate mankind when the human race was mischievous.

Creation myths tell a variety of different stories about how the world began and how people came first to inhabit it. Mayan and Shintoism are two well-known primal religions that describe many creation myths throughout the years. The creation myths in both of these primal religions show how the world and people formed. Though the creation myths of the Mayan and Shintoism people are from parts around the world, they are very different in their essential elements.

1. According to Hesiod, in the beginning there were four primordial beings. Chaos was the first entity to exist, then came Earth (Gaea), Tartarus and Eros . Chaos produced two offspring, Erebus and Night who made love and bore Aether and Day . Earth then gave birth to her son Heaven who would later become her partner. Gaea then through parthenogenesis bore the Mountains and the Sea. Gaea then along with Heaven created the Oceans, Cyclopes and the deities known as the Titans . Heaven fearing for himself after hearing of a prophecy in which his own son would usurp his position among the Gods kept his offspring trapped in the womb of Gaea . This act made Gaea extremely angry and so in order to free her children she crafted a silver sickle, which

Vishnu, to his worshipers, is all-powerful and supreme. He is believed to be to god from whose navel a lotus sprang giving birth to Brahma, the creator. Vishnu created the universe by separating the heavens and the earth and has rescued it on a number of occasions. As Hopfe and Woodward state “Vishnu is known as a god of love, benevolence, and forgiveness (Hinduism 94).” “ In some incarnations, he has come as a man.” (94). The third popular god is Brahma, the creator of the world.

The Hindu creation myths also provide significantly more amount of detail regarding the creation and the rebirth of the world and the cosmos. This story posits the notion that the earth has a finite amount of time with which to exist, known as the maha yuga. After four ages of the maha yuga, in which Brahma’s presence and the moral efficaciousness it produces becomes less and less to correlate with a shorter and shorter length of time of the age, the creator of the world becomes its destroyer, sweeping it away with floods and an unrelenting, scorching sun.

Based on the beliefs of Greek mythology there once lived a god named Chaos. His life consisted of a vast, almost never-ending emptiness, darkness, and silence. Eventually, Chaos had two children; Night and Erebus. After years upon years of the depressing blackness then emerged love. With this newly born factor the origins of structure and light began to materialize. Then the creation of Earth came, which occurred naturally due to the appearance of love and

In the beginning, there was only a mass of Chaos but over time this mass begin to separate. The lighter more translucent parts ascending to form the heavens while the heavier parts sank to become the Earth. Heaven was given life and form while earth was still liquid and barren. The primordial gods were not pleased, so they gave Izanagi no Mikoto and Izanami no Mikoto the task of giving Earth life and form. The two accepted and were given a jeweled spear, Amenonuhoko, to assist them with their tasks. The gods crossed the bridge between Heaven and Earth. Once on Earth, they churned the sea with the bejeweled spear and created Japan's first Island, Onogoro from the salt water still remaining on the blade. The gods built their home there

This course introduces students to many of the key mythical narratives of the ancient Greeks and Romans through a close reading of primary texts in English translation. Together we will explore the mythical worlds of the ancient Greeks and

in the beginning was no time, no god and no people but where the sea met the land a white mare made of sea foam was born and called Eiocha. Eventually she gave birth to the god Cernunnos, and together they then created more gods, Maponos the god of youth, Tauranis the god of thunder, Teutates the protector and the fertility goddesses Epona. But when the gods of the goddesses were grown up, Eiocha left the land to return to her life as a sea mare and became known as Tethra goddesses of the deep. The god and goddesses then created a man, a woman and the animals from bark from the oak tree that grew on the land. But this provoked the sea giants who fought war with the gods. The paradise they had created was destroyed but eventually the sea giants