Creation Myth: Vishnu PuranaBy: Kimberly, Alison, Lucas, Anna, Ani

Creation Myths: A Primordial Sign SystemPrimordial sign systems evolved before writing and tell stories through the oral tradition and visual arts that convey or evoke an emotion. They have a permanent impact on the interpretation and creation of all subsequent narratives.

- Cave paintings: Sulawesi in Indonesia 30K-28K year old that like mufasa illustrate the circle of life.- Myths: unique sign system that convey through sign, signifier, and signified cultural meaning.- Megalithic monuments and carvings: Gobekli Tepe 13k-11k 3 dimensional astrological carvings.

Creation myths :tell a cosmogony which literally means “the birth of order,” (32).- A presupposition that refers to the organizing principles of the physical universe. - The sociopolitical meta-narrative that orients a cultures morcal calculous.

A. A creation myth is the narrativization of realityB. It anthropomorphizes the fundamental causes of our reason for being here.

Commonalities Between Different Creation Myths: - Most creation myths are narrative dramas.

A. They depict a divine entity bringing reality into existence McClure articulates “Creation myths are more or less, birth narratives,” (32). B. Most if not every creation myth deals with a entity in a place doing a thing. Entity in the sense that a divine being exists with independent consciousness and takes action to order the disordered chaos of the universe. Examples of commonalities:

- Chaos precedes Gaia in existence, and then Gaia gives birth to the life that causally fills the universe with beings. Her “expansive lap is the ever-safe foundation of the immortal gods” (63).

- Genesis God building the universe over seven days beginning with “God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters,” (86).

- Vishnu Purana tells a story of the divine Brahma who acknowledges the “waters (void universe) are called Nara, because they were the offspring of Nara,” (81).

MaitreyaThe God of future earth.

Comes to teach the new laws of the future earth.

ParasaraCreator of the Vishnu Purana

PrithiviGoddess of the Earth

“Mother Nature”

The YoginsThe worshippers of the Gods and stars

Creation Myth : Vishnu PuranaThis myth contains 5 main parts :

1.) A Cosmogony2.) The cycle creation and the destruction of the universe3.) The genealogy of Gods and Patriarchs4.) The reigns of Manus

a.) The creators and lawmakers when a new world is created

5.) History of solar and lunar races along with their family line through to modern times

Exercise- Start by getting into your myth groups, create somewhat of a circle so that

there is space in the middle of all members of the group.- Create your own myth using 2-3 sentences. - Once you’re finished, crumble up or fold your sheet of paper and toss it in the

middle of the group. - After all members have tossed their myth, take turns selecting one of the

myths thrown at the center. If you pick up your own put it back and select another.

- Once you have one of your group members myths, create your own myth using one detail from the myth you selected.

- Repeat this until there are a total of 3 myths on each sheet of paper.

Questions...

1. What did you find most challenging about this exercise?

2. Did this exercise supplement your understanding of creation

myths? If so, how?

Why did we do this exercise?

You have just created your own Hindu-style creation myths. You created characters and a world, then destroyed it and let it be re-created in another group’s universe.

We see this endless cycle of creation and death, of rebirth and destruction, again and again in Hindu creation myths.

In Conclusion

★ The whole universe is one entity - the Brahman○ No distinction between the “I” and the “not-I”

★ “Hindu metaphysics assumes that the universe is continuously made and destroyed over vast cycles of time” (p. 81)

★ Each destruction cycle is called a kalpa (lasting approximately 4,320,000,000 years)

★ The current kalpa will end in the great apocalypse - the Mahapralya

★ Reaching Enlightenment and escaping this never-ending cycle of death and rebirth involves fully actualizing this “Oneness”