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World egg |
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Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2007) |
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It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Cosmic egg. (Discuss) |
A world egg or cosmic egg is a mythological motif found in the creation myths of many cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by "hatching" from the egg.
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The earliest ideas of "Egg-shaped Cosmos" comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (Brahm means 'Cosmos' or 'expanding', Anda means 'Egg'). Certain Puranas such as the Brahmanda Purana speak of this in detail.
Another similar concept is Hiranyagarbha, 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 floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (Heaven) and Prithvi (Earth). The Rig Veda also has a similar coded description of cosmogenesis 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.
In the myth of Pangu, developed by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg. A god 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.
In the original myth concerning the Ogdoad, the Milky Way arose from the waters as a mound of dirt, which was deified as Hathor. 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 (it is not explained where the goose originates). However, after the rise of the cult of Thoth, the egg was said to have been a gift from Thoth and laid by an ibis, the bird with which he was associated.
In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a diving duck on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:
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