Creation Myth Essay

At the core of almost every sophisticated culture is a creation myth: a story of how that culture came to be, a tale that attempts to put in universal context the place that society has in the world. From these creation myths, it is possible to draw far-reaching conclusions about the structure and functioning of these societies. The universality of the creation myth and the similar themes that bind these myths together in diverse cultures around the world points to the importance these myths hold in the cultures they define. They manage to convey identity, often serve as a model for daily life or as a template for important values, and they provide a concrete reason for the existence of that culture - they are crucial in supplying a context

Since myths are a culture’s way of explaining their role in the larger world , looking at how a culture perceives this world to have begun is crucial. There are several broad categories into which myths are placed, based on these important beginning circumstances. These categories are seen to inform the remainder of the myth, and thus to inform the development of the culture . Most commonly seen is the archetype of emerging from original chaos, famously crystallized in the Babylonian creation myth. The idea of humans emerging from this primal beginning, almost fully formed, is evident in the rather individualistic, struggling-to-survive tendencies observed in Babylonian culture. The assumption that the inception of the world was rooted in chaos and turmoil seemed natural to the Babylonians, whose daily lives, too, were characterized with uncertainty and difficulty. In addition, the humans of the Babylonian creation myth were given life by the divine through blood sacrifice, pointing to the prevalence of violence and bloodshed in early Babylonian society . On the other hand, a large number of the main Chinese creation myths focus on ordering and balance . While the lack of pervasive, organized religion in China stymied the existence of one single creation myth that was known across

The clearest example of this is the ancient Indian creation myth, which states that man was created from various body parts of Purusa, an exalted being. The priestly Brahmin class sprung from his head, the warrior Kshatryia class from his hands, the merchant Vaishya class from his thighs, and the peasant Sudra class from his feet . The hierarchy outlined in this creation myth - the Brahmin class at the top and the Sudra class at the bottom - was rigidly followed in Indian culture, and formed the basis for the caste system that still exists in India today. Thus, the stratification of Indian society sprung from the clear divisions between groups of people that were outlined in the Indian creation