Jainism (from jina, “victor”) rejects both scripture and divine revelation and, although it admits of a hierarchy of gods residing in various heavens, considers them inferior to the Tirthamkaras and thus denies them relevance and genuine divinity; for this reason, Jainism is usually considered atheistic. Essentially, it is Jainism’s goal to free the innately immaterial soul from the karmic matter that accrues to it by involvement with and attachment to the world. Asceticism, both internal and external, is the method adopted for this purpose, and if it is complete the individual jiva (soul) is released from the cycle of rebirth to a state of isolated, eternal, and omniscient inactivity.
The Jains hold that no god created the universe, that it is in fact uncreated and indestructible, maintained and changing according to natural principles. This selection from the Mahapurana (The Great Legend) was written by the teacher Jinasena in the ninth century A.D. and is modeled on the passages and philosophical discourses of the Hindu Puranas.
SOME FOOLISH MEN declare that Creator made the world.
The doctrine that the world was created is ill-advised, and should be rejected.
If God created the world, where was he before creation?
If you say he was transcendent then, and needed no support, where is he now?
No single being had the skill to make this world—
For how can an immaterial god create that which is material?
How could God have made the world without any raw material?
If you say he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression.
If you declare that this raw material arose naturally you fall into another fallacy,
For the whole universe might thus have been its own creator, and have arisen equally naturally.
If God created the world by an act of his own will, without any raw material,
Then it is just his will and nothing else—and who will believe this silly stuff?
If he is ever perfect and complete, how could the will to create have arisen in him?
If, on the other hand, he is not perfect, he could no more create the universe than a potter could.
If he is formless, actionless, and all-embracing, how could he have created the world?
Such a soul, devoid of all modality, would have no desire to create anything.
If he is perfect, he does not strive for the three aims of man,
So what advantage would he gain by creating the universe?
If you say that he created to no purpose, because it was his nature to do so, then God is pointless.
If he created in some kind of sport, it was the sport of a foolish child, leading to trouble.
If he created because of the karma of embodied beings [acquired in a previous creation]
He is not the Almighty Lord, but subordinate to something else….
If out of love for living things and need of them he made the world,
Why did he not make creation wholly blissful, free from misfortune?
If he were transcendent he would not create, for he would be free;
Nor if involved in transmigration, for then he would not be almighty.
Thus the doctrine that the world was created by God
Makes no sense at all.
And God commits great sin in slaying the children whom he himself created.
If you say that he slays only to destroy evil beings, why did he create such beings in the first place?…
Good men should combat the believer in divine creation, maddened by an evil doctrine.
Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is, without beginning and end,
And is based on the principles, life and the rest.
Uncreated and indestructible, it endures under the compulsion of its own nature, Divided into three sections—hell, earth, and heaven.
—W. Theodore de Bary (ed.). Sources of Indian Tradition. Vol. 1 New York: Columbia University Press, 1966, pp. 76–78.
A BUDDHIST MYTH
The Buddha: How the World Evolved Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha or “enlightened one,” lived in the sixth century B.C. (c. 566–486 B.C.) and preached a salvational doctrine called The Middle Way. Analyzing the human condition and its causes, Buddhism posits a means whereby people can become “awakened” to the absolute and can escape the otherwise inevitable round of rebirth, suffering, and mortality—their lot in the relative world.
The Buddha was essentially uninterested in the question of the origin of the universe, declaring “Inconceivable, O Monks, is this Samsara [wheel of rebirth]; not to be discovered is any first beginnings of beings.” Further, he rejected any idea of a personal creator god, claiming that the world goes through successive periods of expansion and contraction, unaffected by the activities of the gods.
In this excerpt from the third book of the Digha Niyaka (3.28ff.)—part of the Discourse Collection of the Theravada Buddhist Canon the Buddha argues against the teachings of the Hindu Brahmanas. He envisions beings rising up into the World of Radiance or descending into this world of matter depending on the weight of their acquired karma and mistakenly thinking, as they enter one world or the other, that they are its creators. By this illustration, he asserts the inaccuracy of the Hindu cosmology.
THERE ARE some monks and brahmans who declare as a doctrine received from their teachers that the beginning of all things was the work of the god Brahma. I have gone and asked them whether it was true that they maintained such a doctrine, and they have replied that it was; but when I have asked them to explain just how the beginning of things was the work of the god Brahma they have not been able to answer, and have returned the question to me. Then I have explained it to them thus:
There comes a time, my friends, sooner or later,…when the world is dissolved and beings are mostly reborn in the World of Radiance. There they dwell, made of the stuff of mind, feeding on joy, shining in their own light, flying through middle space, firm in their bliss for a long, long time.
Now there comes a time when this world begins to evolve, and then the World of Brahma appears, but it is empty. And some being, whether because his allotted span is past or because his merit is exhausted, quits his body in the World of Radiance and is born in the empty World of Brahma, where he dwells for a long, long time. Now because he has been so long alone he begins to feel dissatisfaction and longing, and wishes that other beings might come and live with him. And indeed soon other beings quit their bodies in the World of Radiance and come to keep him company in the World of Brahma.
Then the being who was born first there thinks: “I am Brahma, the mighty Brahma, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-seeing, the Lord, the Maker, the Creator, the Supreme Chief, the Disposer, the Controller, the Father of all that is or is to be. I have created all these beings, for I merely wished that they might be and they have come here!” And the other beings…think the same, because he was born first and they later. And the being who was born first lived longer and was more handsome and powerful than the others.
And it might well be that some being would quit his body there and be reborn in this world. He might then give up his home for the homeless life [of an ascetic]; and in his ardor, striving, intentness, earnestness, and keenness of thought, he might attain such a stage of meditation that with the collected mind he might recall his former birth, but not what went before. Thus he might think: “We were created by Brahma, eternal, firm everlasting, and unchanging, who will remain so for ever and ever, while we who were created by the Lord Brahma…are transient, unstable, short-lived, and destined to pass away.”
That is how your traditional doctrine comes about that the beginning of things was the work of the god Brahma.
—W. Theodore de Bary. Sources of Indian Tradition. Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966, pp. 127–128.
TRIBAL MYTHS
DHAMMAI
Before There Was Earth or Sky One third of India’s vast population belongs to indigenous tribes living outside the soci
al and religious system of Hinduism. One of these groups, the Dhammai come from the northeastern frontier of the country, near Burma and Tibet.
In their creation myth, the Dhammai proclaim the underlying sacrality of the earth and its creatures by recalling the generations of the gods. In a startling evolution, Shuzanghu and Zumiang-Nui conceive the gods of earth and sky, which, after rescue from the primordial worm of chaos, in turn produce divine mountains. The mountains give birth to frogs and finally, in the fifth generation, to human beings still animal-like and hairy.
AT FIRST there was neither earth nor sky, Shuzanghu and his wife Zumiang-Nui lived above. One day Shuzanghu said to his wife, “How long must we live without a place to rest our feet?” Zumiang-Nui said, “What can I say to you’? You always live apart from me and don’t love me. But if you truly love me and will stay with me, I will tell you what to do.” So Shuzanghu went to his wife and she conceived.
In due time Zumiang-Nui gave birth to a baby-girl, Subbu-Khai-Thung, who is the Earth and to a baby-boy, Jongsuli-Young-Jongbu, who is the Sky. But there was no place for them. So they fell down, down to where Phangnalomang the Worm and his wife were living, and the Worm swallowed them both.
Zumiang-Nui tried to find her children and asked her husband, “What has happened to them? Where have they gone?” But he could not tell her. Then she said, “Next time I have a child, make a clear flat place when I can keep him safely and set traps all round it.” Shuzanghu made such a place and when his wife was delivered of her next child, there was somewhere for him to stay. And now when Phangnalomang came to devour the child he was caught in one of the traps. Shuzanghu found him there and split his body open. The two children were still in his belly and the lower part of his body became the Earth and the upper the Sky.
Now Earth and Sky lived together. The Sky went to his wife, the Earth, and she gave birth to a son, Sujang-Gnoi-Rise and a daughter, Jibbi-Jang-Sangne. These were gods but they had the shape of mountains. After they were born Earth and Sky separated and as they were parting Earth gave birth to two other children, a boy, Lujjuphu, and a girl named Jassuju, who had the form of frogs. They mated and from them a boy and a girl in human form, Abugupham-Bumo and Anoi-Diggan-Juje, were born. They were human but were covered with hair. They married each other and in time had three sons, Lubukhanlung, Sangso-Dungso and Kimbu-Sangtung.
—Verrier Elwin. Myths of the North-East Frontier of India. Calcutta: Sree Saraswaty Press, 1958, pp. 13–14.
MINYONG
The Separation of Earth and Sky In this creation myth of the Minyong, a tribal group in northeastern India, the universal problem of the survival of the children under the oppressive weight of the father is dramatized. As in Hesiod’s Theogony and the Polynesian’s Children of Heaven and Earth, the focus here is on the new and younger gods: they conspire and eventually drive the father away, only to produce chaos in the transition period. After prolonged machinations, the creatures of the middle realm the powerful Wiyus, men and animals finally arrange things in sufficient order to permit life and light.
SEDI is the earth; Melo is the Sky. The Earth is a woman, the Sky is a man. These two married, and when they came together, Wiyus, men and animals held a Kebang to consider how they could save themselves from being crushed between them. Sedi-Diyor, one of the greatest of the Wiyus, caught hold of the Sky and beat him so that he fled far up into the heavens leaving the Earth behind. As he went away, the Earth gave birth to two daughters. But she was so sad at losing her husband that she could not bear to look at them. Sedi-Diyor, therefore, found a woman to nurse them.
When the little girls were old enough to walk, light began to shine for them, and day by day the light grew brighter. After a while the nurse died and Sedi-Diyor buried her in the ground. The children wept for her as for their mother: they wept so much that they died, and the light they gave died with them.
Now it was dark again, and Wiyus, men and animals were afraid. The Wiyus thought that the nurse must have stolen something from the children and that it was this that had made them weep so much. So they dug up her body to see what it was. They found that it had rotted away, all except the eyes. They saw the eyes great and shining in the darkness, and their own reflection was mirrored in them. They thought that they saw the dead children in the eyes. They took them to a stream and washed them in the water for five days and five nights, and made them shine more brightly. But they could not remove the images looking back at them from the eyes.
The Wiyus sent for a carpenter and he cut the eyes open with great care and removed the reflections, which turned into living children. They called one girl Sedi-Irkong-Bomong and the other Sedi-Irkong-Bong. They did not let them go out of their house.
But one day, when they were grown up, the elder girl, Bomong, dressed herself in gaily-coloured clothes and many ornaments, and went out in her beauty to wander through the world. As she came out of the house, there was light all round her, and it was day. She went across the hills and did not return.
After a long time, her sister Bong went to look for her, tracing the path for her footsteps. But when she came out, there was so much light that she caused the rocks to break, the trees to wither and men to faint in the heat.
Wiyus, men and animals held yet another Kebang and decided that the only thing to do was to kill one of the sisters. They were afraid to do it and argued for a long time, but at last the frog went to sit by the path and waited, bow in hand, for the girl to come. When Bong came shining and lovely he shot her with an arrow in each side and she died. Then it was not so hot, the light was not so dazzling. The trees revived and men went again about their work.
But the girl’s body lay where it had fallen. Then there came along Kirte, a Wiyu in the form of a rat; he dragged the corpse to Bomong on his back. As he went along, he fell over and ever since the rat’s legs have been crooked. But he got up and took the body to a river where Bomong was due to pass. He showed her sister’s body and she wept for sorrow and fear that she herself would be killed. She took a path that no one knew and sat down, placing a big stone on her head. With the shadow of the stone, the world became dark.
At this, Wiyus, men and animals were afraid and they went to search for light. For a long time they found nothing. Then Nginu-Botte caught a rat, a wild bird and a cock and sent them to find Bomong. The cock went first, but its parts were so heavy that it could not walk. It met Banjibanman and told him its trouble, and he cut off its organ and threw it away. Its testes went into its body. This is why the cock has no parts outside its body.
The cock’s organ turned into the earthworm.
The cock went on and at last found Bomong and begged her to come back. “No”, she said, “they killed my sister and they’ll kill me. Tell them that I will only come if they make my sister alive.” The cock returned and told Nginu-Botte what the girl had said. He found a carpenter who fashioned Bong’s body, making it small and putting life into it. When Bomong heard that her sister was alive again, she threw the stone down from her head and stood up. The day returned and as the light blazed out, the cock cried “Kokoko-kokoko”; the wild bird sang “Pengo-pengo”; the rat squeaked “Taktak-taktak.” For they were glad at the light and heat.
—Verrier Elwin. Myths of the North-East Frontier of India. Calcutta: Sree Saraswaty Press, 1958, pp. 48–50.
FIVE
MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
MYTHS OF CHINA
Creation Out of Chaos Although ancient Chinese cosmological thinking tended to be very abstract and philosophical, preferring treatise over myth for its expression, several early legends of creation did exist. One of these concerns Huang-lao (“The Yellow Emperor”), a god of the Taoist pantheon and mythical emperor of the center of the sacred world. Huang-lao is mentioned as early as 200 B.C.; by 200 A.D. he had become the principal deity of the Yellow Turban sect—their divine guide and teacher.
In this retold myth, only chaos (or “no-thing”) existed in the beginning; from it light, the sky and ea
rth evolved and brought forth all things (the “ten thousand creations”). Inherent within them were yang and yin, essential principles of existence that permeate Taoist thinking. Although they recall the sunny (yang) and dark (yin) sides of a riverbank, yang and yin represent much more profound opposition in Chinese thought. Yang is the principle of brightness, activity, and strength; its most obvious symbols are the sky, the masculine, the high, hard, forceful elements. Yin, on the other hand, is the principle of darkness, passivity and weakness, and it is most often associated with the earth, the female, and with what is low, soft, and tranquil. Yin and yang are thus polar opposites, representatives of respective borders of the whole, related and dependent on each other. Through their interaction, all things come to be and can be understood.
Yin and yang mix here to produce the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) and eventually a divine man. From the primal light of the universe, a ray shoots down to earth (forming an axis mundi, a center pole to heaven), and a golden god appears. This embodiment of divine light names Huang-lao and instructs him in the ways of the world, ultimately explaining to him its fundamental and pervasive structure: everything—microcosmic and macrocosmic—is constructed on the same principles; the individual has within himself the same forces and elements as the universe. “In this way, everything corresponds to the great in the small and the small in the great.”
IN THE BEGINNING there was chaos. Out of it came pure light and built the sky. The heavy dimness, however, moved and formed the earth from itself. Sky and earth brought forth the ten thousand creations, the beginning, having growth and increase, and all of them take the sky and earth as their mode. The roots of Yang and Yin—the male and female principle—also began in sky and earth.
Primal Myths Page 29
