Parallel Myths Vs. Greek Myth

All religions have stories past down from generation to generation that explain the many wonders of the world that we live in, from why we are here to the way things work and from the creation of this world to what is to become of it. However, many of these stories and explanations draw many similarities to those of other religions. In the readings from Parallel Myths, similarities can be seen between the Hindu stories of “The Thoughts of Brahma,” “Brahma is Lonely,” “Savitri,” and “How Ruda Destroys the Universe” and the Biblical stories of creation and the apocalypse, as well as the Greek Mythological stories of the birth of the Athena, and Orpheus and Eurydice. The first story, “The Thoughts of Brahma,” explains the creation of the current

The first commonality is seen at the start of the story when it states, “In the beginning there was nothing but the Great Self, Brahman.” A nearly exact line is seen in the Christian Bible in the Book of John chapter 1: verse 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” These two stories show the approach to the divine’s creation of the universe and how there was nothing before either God in Christianity or Brahman in Hinduism. Further reading shows that Brahman transforms into Brahma, the creator god, as to have company for himself, creates man and woman, who then create the creatures of the Earth. While not chronologically similar, the Book of Genesis also tells the story of how God created man, woman, and the creature of the earth; however, the creatures were created first, and man and woman were God’s last

In Hindu the story “How Ruda Destroys the Universe” depicts the death of this world and how it will end. This is similar to the Book of Revelation in the fact that it is a premonition of what is to come and the stages that the “End” will happen in. However, the Hindu story tells of how the world ends, but then is how it is to be reborn. This is more closely related to the story of Noah and the Ark in Genesis chapters six through nine. The way these stories are related is that in “How Ruda Destroys the Universe” the world is flooded by Vishnu, the restorer in the form of the storm god, Ruda, in order purge the world in order for a new world to be created. In the story of Noah’s Ark, God floods the earth to wipe out the human race because of their wickedness, but He favored Noah and had Noah build an Ark to save two of every animal, as well as him and his wife, sons, and sons’ wives. Noah and his family we saved and repopulated the earth. The similarities are seen not only in the fact of a large-scale, earth-swallowing flood, but also in what the flood represents, an “eraser” of sorts so that the world can be made