All Topics  
World egg

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

World egg
 
 
  Topics World egg Topic Home

A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological
Mythology

The word mythology refers to a body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity....
 motif found in the creation myths of many culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
s and civilization
Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
s. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
 or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg
Egg (biology)

In most birds and reptiles, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum. To enable incubation the egg is usually kept within a favourable temperature range as it nourishes and protects the growing embryo....
.

Sanskrit scriptures and Vedanta
The earliest ideas of "Egg-shaped Cosmos" comes from some of the Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
 scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (Brahm means 'Cosmos' or 'expanding', Anda means 'Egg').






Discussion
Ask a question about 'World egg'
Start a new discussion about 'World egg'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological
Mythology

The word mythology refers to a body of folklore/myths/legends that a particular culture believes to be true and that often use the supernatural to interpret natural events and to explain the nature of the universe and humanity....
 motif found in the creation myths of many culture
Culture

Culture is difficult to define. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions....
s and civilization
Civilization

A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in towns and city....
s. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe
Universe

The universe is defined as everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and physical constants that govern them....
 or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg
Egg (biology)

In most birds and reptiles, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum. To enable incubation the egg is usually kept within a favourable temperature range as it nourishes and protects the growing embryo....
.

Sanskrit scriptures and Vedanta


The earliest ideas of "Egg-shaped Cosmos" comes from some of the Sanskrit
Sanskrit

Sanskrit is a historical Indo-Aryan language, one of the liturgical languages of Hinduism and Buddhism, and one of the 22 official languages of India....
 scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (Brahm means 'Cosmos' or 'expanding', Anda means 'Egg'). Certain Puranas such as the Brahmanda Purana
Brahmanda Purana

Brahmanda Purana, one of the major eighteen Puranas, a Hindu religious text, is considered as the eighteenth Purana in almost all the lists of the Puranas, and it once contained the Aadhyatma Ramayana....
 speak of this in detail.

Another similar concept is Hiranyagarbha
Hiranyagarbha

Hiranyagarbha is the source of the creation of the Universe or the manifested cosmos in Indian philosophy , it finds mention in one hymn of the Rigveda , known as the Hiranyagarbha sukta and presents an important glimpse of the emerging monism, or even monotheism, in the later Vedic period, along with the Nasadiya sukta suggesting a...
, which literally means the "golden fetus" or "golden womb", in one hymn of the Rig Veda (RV 10.121) is a name for the source of the universe. The Upanishads elaborate that the Hiranyagarbha
Hiranyagarbha

Hiranyagarbha is the source of the creation of the Universe or the manifested cosmos in Indian philosophy , it finds mention in one hymn of the Rigveda , known as the Hiranyagarbha sukta and presents an important glimpse of the emerging monism, or even monotheism, in the later Vedic period, along with the Nasadiya sukta suggesting a...
 floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithvi
Prithvi

Prithvi is the Hinduism earth and mother goddess. According to one tradition, she is the personification of the Earth, and to another its Mother, being Prithivi Tattwa, the essence of the element earth....
 (Earth). The Rig Veda also has a similar coded description of cosmogenesis
Cosmogenesis

Cosmogenesis is the origin and development of the cosmos. This term "Cosmogenesis" was used by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky to describe the content of Volume I of her two-volume The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888; volume II was called "Anthropogenesis" or the origin of humanity....
 on the division of the universe in its early stages. The concept of Heaven and Earth existed in nearly every ancient culture. These ideas were also articulated by the Abrahamic religions
Abrahamic religions

Abrahamic religions are monotheistic faiths which recognize a spiritual tradition identified with Abraham. The term is mostly used to refer collectively to Judaism, Christianity and Islam....
.

Chinese mythology


In the myth of Pangu
Pangu

Pangu was the first living being and the creator of all in Chinese mythology....
, developed by Taoist monk
Monk

A Monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, the unconditioning of mind and body in favor of the realization of one's true nature, and does so living either alone or with any number of like-minded people, whilst always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose....
s hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg. A god
God

God is a deity in theism and deism religions and other belief systems, representing either the sole deity in monotheism, or a principal deity in polytheism....
 named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: the upper half became the sky, while the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally Pangu died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.

Egyptian mythology


In the original myth concerning the Ogdoad
Ogdoad

In Egyptian mythology, the Ogdoad were eight deities worshipped in Hermopolis during what is called the Old Kingdom, the third through sixth dynasties, dated between 2686 to 2134 B.C....
, the Milky Way
Milky Way

The Milky Way, sometimes called simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies....
 arose from the waters as a mound of dirt, which was deified as Hathor
Hathor

In Egyptian mythology, Hathor was originally a personification of the Milky Way, which was seen as the milk that flowed from the udders of a heavenly cow....
. Ra was contained within an egg laid upon this mound by a celestial bird. In the earliest version of this myth, the bird is a goose
Goose

Goose is the English-language name for a considerable number of birds, belonging to the family Anatidae. This family also includes swans, most of which are larger than geese, and ducks, which are smaller....
 (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of Thoth
Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth and laid by an ibis
Ibis

The ibises are a group of long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae. They all have long down curved bills, and usually feed as a group, probing mud for food items, usually crustaceans....
, the bird with which he was associated.

Finnish mythology


In the Kalevala
Kalevala

The Kalevala is a book and Epic poetry which the Elias L?nnrot compiled from Finnish people and Karelian folklore in the nineteenth century....
, the Finnish
Finnish mythology

Finnish mythology is the mythology that went with Finnish paganism which was practised by the Finnish people prior to Christianisation. It has many features shared with fellow Finnic Estonian mythology and its non-Finnic neighbours, the Baltic people and the Scandinavians....
 national epic
National epic

A national epic is an epic poetry or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or Wiktionary:autonomy....
, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a diving duck
Diving duck

The 15 or so living species of diving duck, commonly called pochards or scaups, are part of the diverse and very large duck, goose, and swan family, Anatidae....
 on the knee of Ilmatar
Ilmatar

In Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, Ilmatar was a virgin spirit of the wikt:ilma....
, goddess
Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
 of the air:

One egg's lower half transformed
And became the earth below,
And its upper half transmuted
And became the sky above;
From the yolk the sun was made,
Light of day to shine upon us;
From the white the moon was formed,
Light of night to gleam above us;
All the colored brighter bits
Rose to be the stars of heaven
And the darker crumbs changed into
Clouds and cloudlets in the sky.


See also

  • Hiranyagarbha
    Hiranyagarbha

    Hiranyagarbha is the source of the creation of the Universe or the manifested cosmos in Indian philosophy , it finds mention in one hymn of the Rigveda , known as the Hiranyagarbha sukta and presents an important glimpse of the emerging monism, or even monotheism, in the later Vedic period, along with the Nasadiya sukta suggesting a...
  • Brahmanda
    Brahmanda Purana

    Brahmanda Purana, one of the major eighteen Puranas, a Hindu religious text, is considered as the eighteenth Purana in almost all the lists of the Puranas, and it once contained the Aadhyatma Ramayana....
  • Cosmic egg
    Cosmic egg

    The cosmic egg is an ancient concept resurrected by modern science in the 1930s and explored by theoreticians during the following two decades. The idea comes from a perceived need to reconcile Edwin Hubble's observation of an expanding universe with the notion that the universe must be eternally old....
  • Phanes (mythology)
    Phanes (mythology)

    Phanes from Greek phain? or Protoghenos was the mystic primeval deity of procreation and the generation of new life who was introduced into the Greek mythology by the Orphics; other names for this Classical Greece Orphic concept included Ericapaeus and Metis ....


External links