“At first within the darkness veiled in darkness,
Chaos unknowable, the All lay hid.
Till straightway from the formless void made manifest
By the great power of heat was born the germ”
-Rig Veda
One day, I was reading a book about the story of science and a chapter of the book was about the myths of creation. The myths of creation are the best stories about how the world began which were orally passed down and became a part of our heritage. Each culture has a different myth of creation; making it fascinating. When I got to the part where the Indian myth of creation was written, I was sure it would be something about Brahma (the Hindu god of creation) but I was stumped. There was a whole different story written.
In the above quote, it is said that us beings were germinated from nothing. As in, a being comes from non-being. This aroused a doubt by the poet ‘Who would be able to tell how beings first originated?’ It was actually believed that gods had come later and did not see the creation of the world. Now you might be wondering that if Brahma is the God of creation and had created the world then how would he not know about the creation of the world. According to the Vedic scriptures, Brahma did not actually ‘create’ the world. He simply made all the creatures aware of it leading to the discovery of the world. Discovery was interpreted as creation.
There is another version about the origin of humans written about by Indian poets. They wrote about a tree emerging from the centre of the Earth called the ‘World tree’. It grew tall enough to reach heaven connecting the worlds of gods and humans and preventing them from separating. God Brahma understood the intentions of this tree and punished it for being proud (ironically reflecting the personality of god Brahma more than that of the tree). As a punishment, he cut off the branches of the tree and threw it in different parts of the Earth and it is believed that in each part where a branch of the tree was thrown, a new language and culture grew. This is a myth about the origin of languages.
You might have noticed that I mentioned ‘heaven’ earlier. In Hinduism, the concept of heaven and hell does not exist as we believe in rebirth. Although, in the Mahabharata, heaven and hell are mentioned. Why is that? In reality, the concept of eternal heaven and hell does not exist in Hinduism but, heaven and hell is thought of as a temporary stay. When you die, an average of your bad deeds and good deeds determines how long you will stay in either heaven or hell. As a mathematical calculation, 'a' being the number of good deeds and 'b' being the number of bad deeds, your outcome = a - b. After you have served your allotted time in heaven or hell, you go back to Earth and are reborn, or during your stay in heaven, you become one of the gods by obtaining 'Moksha' (freedom from the cycle of birth and death).
Coming back to the World Tree, it is the centre of the world in two forms. One form is the vertical cen
tre of the Earth binding heaven and Earth called the ‘Tree of Knowledge’. The other form is the horizontal centre of the Earth which is the source of life on Earth hence earning the name ‘Tree of life’.
All of the above are answers to the questions our ancestors had when our knowledge of the world was little. These answers were provided by storytellers and priests who created these fanciful myths. Curiosity helped them, it is currently helping us and will continue to be helpful in the near future too. Therefore, never hesitate to be curious. Curiosity may be what kills the cat but ignorance is what kills the soul.
Bibliography:
n.a. “Hindu Cycle Of The Universe - The Circle of Brahma and Saraswati” IndianYug. n.d. Web. 11th Mar, 2022. <https://indianyug.com/hindu-cycle-universe-science-brahma-saraswati/>
Alpha Translations. “Three Myths about the Origin of Language - Alpha Omega Translations” Alpha Omega Translations. n.d. Web. 11th Mar, 2022. <https://alphaomegatranslations.com/foreign-language/three-myths-about-the-origin-of-language/>
n.a. “World tree | religion” Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. Web. 11th Mar, 2022. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/world-tree>
n.a. “Indian Myth and Legend: Chapter VI. Mysteries of Creation, the World's Ages, and Soul Wandering” Sacred-texts.com. n.d. Web. 11th Mar, 2022. <https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/iml/iml11.htm>
n.a. “Is there a concept of heaven and hell in Hinduism?” Quora. n.d. Web. 11th Mar, 2022. <https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-concept-of-heaven-and-hell-in-Hinduism>
Hakim, Joy. “Aristotle leads the way” Washington, D.C. National Science Teachers
Association. 2004. Print.
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