Hindu and Judeo-Christian Myths - Research Paper Example

? Brandi McBride English 1020 College Composition II Davis 2 May Hindu and Judeo-Christian Myths Basic Creation Story             Creation myths, in general, different religions attempt to explain how something came from nothing (Leaming et al, 95). The five basic ways that creation occurs, in different religions, is 1) through nothingness or chaos; 2) from a cosmic egg or a primal maternal mound; 3) from separated world parents; 4) from a process of earth diving; 5) from emergence from other worlds. In all of the creation myths, there is the birth of the world and the birth of humans. In many of the creation stories, there is also a deluge – this means that the creator thinks that He or She made a mistake in creating the humans, so sent them back to the chaos of the Flood. The waters of the flood may also be a source of new birth. The archetypal characters who may appear in the creationism myths include the creator, who makes order out of chaos, sometimes by using his own bodily fluids, sometimes by conjoining with an equal and opposite natural power; the trickster, who is the negative force; the first man and first woman; and the flood hero, who looks for a new beginning after the great flood (97). The Hindu myths and the Christian myths diverge significantly, however, in how creation began. How are the two creation stories from different regions of the world inter-related? Hindu Myths             Hinduism is an extension of Veda, which is the source of many Hindu rites and speculation (Renou, 105). Since this religion, which essentially “fed” Hinduism, is the source of mythology, this is a religion which may be explored to determine the creationist myths of Hinduism. In Veda, there are gods which function as represented, much like in Greek mythology. Among the gods worshiped by the Vedas, was Arya, who was the god of war; Agni, the god of fire; and Soma, the god of plant and liquor (105).             One of the myths for how the world began, according to the Veda, is the creation of the world from the soul (Renou, 107). In this myth, there was a soul that was in the form of the person. Because this soul was alone, he desired a second, and his self was split into two pieces – a  husband and a wife. From this husband and wife’s copulation, humans were reproduced. She then became a cow, and he a bull, and they reproduced. She became a mare, he a stallion, who reproduced. And so forth, on down to the ants. Whatever was moist in the world was created from semen, and was called Soma. He created his superiors, the gods. Therefore, according to this myth, the world was populated from one soul.             The Rg Veda has another telling of how life was created, and that was through primeval incest. In this story, which may be simply an anthropomorphic retelling of the earlier myth about the One who creates a Second, which is the myth told above, a father impregnates his daughter. According to this story, when the father shed his seed in his daughter, his seed was spilled upon the earth (Doniger O'Flaherty, 167). Doniger O’Flaherty states that the Brahmanas also had a version of creation, as did the Upanisads. In this version of creation, there is also incest. The incestuous father’s name in this myth is Prajapati. In this story, Prajapati approached his daughter, who was alternatively the sky or the dawn. She was in the form of a doe, he as a stag. The others did not approve of this, and Prajapati was pierced, and flew upward as a deer. The arrow was in three parts, and was known as the tripartite arrow. Prajapati also had a chance to spill his seed, and his seed spillage became a lake. Cattle sprang up from the seeds when the Marutttsss blew upon it. Doniger O’Flaherty states that this is one version, and other versions have the sons of Prajpati committing the incestuous act with their own sister. In these other versions, the Rudra is born from the seed, and, in some versions, the Rudra has a thousand eyes and feet (168).             In another story involving Prajapati, Prajapati practiced aesceticism, and he became heated, giving  birth to five – Fire, Wind, Sun, Moon and the Dawn. Dawn took the form of a celestial nymph, and the others poured out their seed upon seeing her. Prajapati took the seed and collected it in a golden bowl. In yet another story involving Prajapati, Prajapati generated Agni from his mouth, and Agni became an eater of food. Prajapati made different offerings, which were fire sacrifices, and produced progeny, thus saving himself from the Agni, who was to devour him. From them on, it was believed that those who place themselves in fire are reborn from the fire, for the fire only consumes his body (Donier O’Flaherty, 175).             According to the YouTube video produced by Steve Hornkohl, entitled Creation, the Hindu story of creation closely follows that of the Veda. According to the narrator of this clip, there was, in the beginning, nothingness, and, in the middle of the nothingness, was a soul that was alone. The soul desired to create. The world was created with one word – “Om.” From the word “Om,” the five elements sprang forth. The first of these elements was space. From space came air. Fire came from air. Water came from fire. Earth came from the water. Truth came out of all of this. Time came out of the universal ocean. The creator then created the sun and the heavens. Mountains and rivers immediately were formed. The earth and the sky, the seas, etc., were immediately formed. The sun, the moon and desert sands were able to spring up out of nothing. The sky, the heavens, the earth and the waters were all created by the creator soul. The beasts and the birds were formed to prove the existence of the creator. Mankind and all the powers that are possessed by the beasts and man are also testaments to the powers of the creator. Brahma is in all the creatures of the world, large and small. Consciousness is at the essence of all creatures of the world. Consciousness is brahma. The knowledge of the creator was placed in the beasts that were created. Man was an animal until divine knowledge was placed in his mind. Liberation may only be obtained through the divine knowledge that is imparted from the creator. The themes of the Hindu religion, with regards to creationism, is that the soul created the universe, and the creation story is less centered around a deity than Christianity. The soul is the symbol of creation, as is the word “Om.” And the relevance to the cultural group that practices Hinduism, which mainly consists of Indians, is that they have a special appeal to the psychological development of reform Hindus, and that the followers of the Hindu religion do not outgrow Gods and demons. This assuming that there is a literalistic interpretation of the texts (Williams, 13). Christian Creationism             The story of the Christian creation was told, according to Every (158), in Genesis 2.4-25. In this story, God created the earth and the heavens. He also created fruit trees, with man set to the be the gardener of the fruit trees. In the earlier versions of the story, the animals and birds had not yet been created, and would come later. The animals and birds were brought to man, one by one, but could not help with the gardening. Man was free to eat of any tree but one. Then, when mankind angered God by eating from the forbidden fruit, God tried to destroy the world with a flood. However, Noah and his wife were warned of the flood, and they took two of every living creature, and built an ark to transport them, and himself and his wife, when God flooded the world. This would be how the oceans were formed. This is the second creation story.             The first creation story was much more sophisticated than the second creation story (Every, 165). In this story, which can be traced from the fifth century BC, the creatures were created before man. God made light, then he made the heaven and earth, then he made the land and the sea, then the plants and the trees, then the sun and the moon, then the fishes and the birds, then the beasts and the reptiles, then man and woman. In this story, the serpent who tempts Eve to eat from the forbidden tree of knowledge is an intelligent animal, not Satan, who wants to be God. He tempts Eve with eating the fruit by telling her that God doesn’t want her to eat the fruit, because this would give her the knowledge to be like God, and would give her the knowledge to distinguish between good and evil. When Eve eats the forbidden fruit, God calls them out, and Eve was punished by experiencing pain in childbirth, and Adam was punished by having to toil in the fields. They also became embarrassed about their bodies. They experience a sense of shame that they never experienced before because of this act.             There is another story of creation of man, as told in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch,  which was pre-Christianity (Every, 167).  In this story, man was made from seven substances – his flesh was made from the earth, his blood was made from the dew, his bones were made from the stones of the earth, his thoughts were made from the angels and the clouds, his veins and his hair were made from the grass, his spirit was made from the wind and the Spirit of God. In this version of the story, man was a rule of the earth and a second angel, who was given free will. In this version of the story, the man sinned because he was ignorant of his own nature, and God was angry, but still made him a wife. Through his wife, death came. Every (167) further states that there were three views of man’s original condition in Genesis. One was that man was immortal and impeccable. A second view is that he had a moral frailty that caused him to decay, sin and err. A third view was that God gave man an imagination that had both good and evil, and that man had the power to choose between good and evil. Every (172) further distinguished between the first story of creation and the second story of creation by stating that, in the first story of creation, man is made in male and female forms. In the second story, man is divided in his sleep into these two forms. There are also two special trees in Eden – the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The second tree was the poisonous tree that would cause death and a fall from grace.             There is another way of reading the story of sin, according ot Every (173), and, in this reading, there is an echo is the thought, put forth by Merrihew Adams (53), that we owe our existence to evil. This thought is that the disobedience of Adam was sexual, and that, if Adam never disobeyed God, he never would have been interested in sex and would have remained immortal. Of course, if this were true, humankind never would have existed. Merrihew Adams (53) states something similar. He states that for those that complain that God should have replaced Adam and Eve when they sinned, so that the stain of their sin would not be transmitted throughout the generations, the problem with this is that, if God would have done that, we would have a very different world. Therefore, the very people who complain that God should have replaced Adam and Eve would never have existed if God would have done what these people wanted. Their very existence is due to Adam and Eve sinning and the toleration of these sins.             Whether or  not the Christian stories of creationism, and the Christian stories in general, are literally true is the subject of much controversy. Jackson (114) states that the Bible Creation story is not a myth, showing lines of evidence that show this. One of his lines of evidence is that the story of Genesis was described in the same prose style as the rest of the book. In other words, Adam and Eve were described as actual people, much like Abraham and Sarah. He also states that the the days that God made the earth were days, not symbolic of millions of years, and this was shown by Exodus 20:11, which regards the creation days in the same literal sense as the Sabbath. Further, he states as proof that the Biblical account of Genesis is literally true by stating that Jesus believed in the account. To state that the Genesis account is not literally true would be essentially castigating Jesus. On the other hand, McGrath states that The Bible was written by men, not by God, and that no man was witness to the actual creation of the world. He states that The Bible was written for a different audience than exists today, and that this is a fact that must be taken into account. He also states that the plain meaining of the text is subjective, differing from one reader to the next, and one culture to the next. He argues that there is simply no way to read the text as the ancient Hebrews read it, but the creationists who attempt to state that Genesis was literal are attempting to do just that, and this is why they are wrong. Dupuy concurs with this. She flat out states that the creationism story is as real as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. Because of this, she objects to teaching creationism in school. To teach creationism is to deny science and evidence. Creationism therefore harms schools and eduction, because it means that basic science is not being taught. The debate about whether creationism is something that should be taught in public schools in a different way, according to Carter. He states that the parents who want creationism taught in schools are much like the people who do not want creationism taught in schools  - both sets are fearful that their children would be indoctrinated by opposing forces. The liberal view is that creationism does not have a place in public schools because this would mean that the state would be preferring one religion over the others. Therefore, they believe that not teaching creationism would be an example of state neutrality on the issue. The religious parents, however, do not see neutrality in this position at all. They feel that the state is indoctrinating their children to believe a version of reality that they themselves do not believe and that they themselves do not want to have their children believe. They feel that the state is effectively encroaching on their rights to teach their children the religious beliefs that they want them to learn. What the schools are offering, according to the religious parents, is not neutrality, but information that will hold their children up to ridicule for their cherished religious beliefs. Comparison Between the Two Cultures Christianity thus has different themes and symbols than does the Hindu religion. The themes are much more centered around a deity that created the world, and the early themes were with regards to sin and the consequences of sin. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, so they were tarnished with the original sin. God was angry about the sin, so he flooded the world. At the same time, free will is another theme. Sin was represented symbolically by the eating of the forbidden fruit, and the forbidden fruit itself has come to symbolize sin. The specific relevance to the cultural groups that practice Christianity, however, is similar to the specific relevance to those that practice Hinduism – that a literalistic interpretation is what drives Christian followers to practice the tenets in The Bible, and there is arguably the same type of psychological process for Christian followers as Hindu followers. There is also, arguably, a different view of good and evil in the two religions. According to the Hindu religion, the creation story itself was a perpetuation of what might be thought of in the Christian society as an evil – incest between a father and daughter. This is how the world came to be. The evil in the Christian religion is much more subtle - there was the implication that the first man and woman was not to have knowledge, at least the same knowledge that the creator had. This was the ultimate in sin, and this was the sin that was passed along the generations. Really, however, it is more of a disobedience issue than an issue about knowledge itself. Adam and Eve were supposed to be completely obedient to God, and, because they were not, they were punished, as were all the people who came after them. This is that, in both religions, there is a psychological component to them. The believers of the religion have something that tells them that this life is not all that there is. It gives great comfort to the followers of these religions. Thus, even though each religion has a rather fantastical explanation for the beginning of life, and rather fantastical information about God in general, people can derive comfort in looking forward to the after-life. This is a major reason why parents want creationism taught in public schools. They do not want their children learning something that might contradict the teachings at home, because this would mean that the children might disown religion, in general. This, in turn, would mean that the children would be deprived of the comfort that this religion would impart. There is another similarity between the religions, and it has to do with separation. In Christianity, man was made from seven substances – his flesh was made from the earth, his blood was made from the dew, his bones were made from the stones of the earth, his thoughts were made from the angels and the clouds, his veins and his hair were made from the grass, his spirit was made from the wind and the Spirit of God. This was one of the stories regarding creation. In the Hindu religion, there is a similar story regarding creation - Prajapati practiced aesceticism, and he became heated, giving  birth to five – Fire, Wind, Sun, Moon and the Dawn. Dawn took the form of a celestial nymph, and the others poured out their seed upon seeing her. Prajapati took the seed and collected it in a golden bowl. In another version of the Hindu explanation for creationism, there was a soul that was in the form of the person. Because this soul was alone, he desired a second, and his self was split into two pieces – a  husband and a wife. From this husband and wife’s copulation, humans were reproduced. She then became a cow, and he a bull, and they reproduced. She became a mare, he a stallion, who reproduced. And so forth, on down to the ants. Whatever was moist in the world was created from semen, and was called Soma. He created his superiors, the gods. Therefore, according to this myth, the world was populated from one soul. What all these versions have in common – the Christian myth and the Hindu myths – is a splitting. Whether it is the soul that split to make husband and wife, or a single person splitting into the fire, wind, sun, moon and dawn, there is splitting in the Hindu creation myths. In Christianity, there is a similar splitting, as the single man is able to split into many different elements, which, came together to make the man. Conclusion In conclusion, there is a basic difference between the Christian story of creation and the Hindu story of creation, and that is that the Hindu story believes that man himself was the creator of all, as opposed to a deity. Specifically, it is man's soul that is what created mankind. The soul was lonely so it created the rest of the world. Alternatively, there was incest involved, as the seed that was spilled into the daughter was the seed that populated the world. The Hindu religion does not have as much of a straightforward interpretation, either. Its explanation for creation is much more mystical and abstract than the Christian version of creation. In the Christian version, there is a deity, and he created the earth and all that is on it. He created the oceans when he was angered and decided to flood the world. Evil was created because his children disobeyed him by eating from the tree of knowledge. There is one interpretation that sexuality itself was the original sin, and, if Adam and Even never sinned, they never would have populated the world, because they wouldn't have been interested in sex. There appears to be controversy about the teaching of Genesis to students, much moreso than there is controversy regarding the teaching of the Hindu version of creationism to Indian children, judging from the amount of articles that are on both of these topics. Perhaps it is because the Hindu belief does not necessarily involve the divine, so this is less controversial. And, in America and other Western countries, there generally is a separation of church and state, so teaching creationism is a violation of this principle. Works Cited Carter, Stephen. “Evolutionism, Creationism, and Treating Religion as a Hobby.” Duke Law Journal, 6 (1987): 977-996. Web. Christian Legends. Ed. George Every. New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1987. Print. Dupuy, Tina. “Save Our Schools from Creationism.” The Herald Sun. 16 April 2013. Web. Every, George. Christian Mythology. New York: The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1970. Encyclopedia of Creation Myths. Ed. David Leemings. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1994. Print. Jackson, Wayne. “Is the Bible Creation Account a Myth?” n.d. Web. 17 April 2013. Hindu Myths. Ed. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty. New York: Penguin Books, 1975. Print. Hornkohl, Steve. “Creation.” YouTube. 6 Feb. 2008. Web. 17 April 2013. McGrath, James. “Young Earth Creationism vs. the Plain Meaning of the Creation Stories.” n.d. Web. 17 April 2013. Merrihew Adams, Robert. “Existence, Self-Interest and the Problem of Evil.” Nous, 13.1 (1979): 53-65. Web. Renou, Louis. Hinduism. New York: George Braziller, 1962. I. Basic Creation Story a. Creation myths, in general, different religions attempt to explain how something came from nothing. b. Five things – list them. II. Hindu Myths a. Hinduism is an extension of Veda, which is the source of many Hindu rites and speculation. b. One of the myths for how the world began, according to the Veda, is the creation of the world from the soul. c. The Rg Veda has another telling of how life was created, and that was through primeval incest. d. The Brahmanas also had a version of creation, as did the Upanisads. e. In another story involving Prajapati, Prajapati practiced aesceticism, and he became heated, giving  birth to five – Fire, Wind, Sun, Moon and the Dawn. f. According to the YouTube video produced by Steve Hornkohl, entitled Creation, the Hindu story of creation closely follows that of the Veda. III. Christian Myths a. The story of the Christian creation was told, according to Every (1970), in Genesis 2.4-25. b. The first creation story was much more sophisticated than the second creation story. c. There is another story of creation of man, as told in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch,  which was pre-Christianity.  d. There is another way of reading the story of sin, according ot Every (1987), and, in this reading, there is an echo is the thought, put forth by Merrihew Adams (1979), that we owe our existence to evil. e. Whether or  not the Christian stories of creationism, and the Christian stories in general, are literally true is the subject of much controversy. f. On the other hand, McGrath (2013) states that The Bible was written by men, not by God, and that no man was witness to the actual creation of the world. g. The debate about whether creationism is something that should be taught in public schools in a different way. IV. Comparison Between the Two Religions a. Christianity thus has different themes and symbols than does the Hindu religion. b. There is also, arguably, a different view of good and evil in the two religions. c. There is one thing that the two religions have in common. d. There is another similarity between the religions, and it has to do with separation. V. Conclusion a. There is a basic difference between the Christian story of creation and the Hindu story of creation, and that is that the Hindu story believes that man himself was the creator of all, as opposed to a deity. Read More