Egyptian Creation Myths - Ragini Ramanathan

Egyptian Creation Stories

I am Ain and I am a farmer from Egypt. The year is 3051 B.C and I’m going to tell you about how the universe was created.

Before life was born there was the wondrous and terrifying river Nile. It brought forth chaos of bubbling water called Nu. It was out of Nu that everything began. When Nu receded, the first hill top came into being and so did the first sun rise. The sun was one of our first Gods of creation. He rose as Khepri, the great Scarab beetle, as Ra, great and strong as it climbed mid day and set as, Atum, the old man. Seth, the lunar God, was the god of darkness, in constant battle with the God of light. The sky Goddess, Nut, stood as a cow over the earth, her eyes being the sun and the moon. She gave birth to the daily Sun. Shu, the God of air and wind, kept her from falling to the earth. Then as evening fell, Nut swallowed the sun. Beneath her stretched the ocean in the centre of which lay her husband Geb, the earth - god. These gods together create life. They are just, fair and powerful gods. I pray to them, and my fields thrive, my family is healthy and happy. As much as I worship them, I also fear them. Many have suffered at the wrath of the gods and so must always be respected.

I am Ragini Ramanathan and I am a third year student at Srishti. I’ve always been fascinated with Egyptian mythology and their myths of creation are incredibly intriguing. As a story, it sets off your imagination and I was personally blown away by the imagery. The idea of the different phases of the sun as a scarab beetle, a young strong man and an old man gives us a perspective of the Sun as an actual personified being. They are also very accurate as well as poetic descriptions of its physical appearance. The Sun and moon as the eyes of Nut pulled me back to my own childhood when I also believed the moon was an eye. Obviously I wasn’t imaginative enough to believe I was staring at a cow but I probably would have believed it if someone told me about it. Personification is a natural way for humans to identify with the different forces of life and respect them.

In its essence this myth isn’t very far from the truth. These gods all represent elements that support life. This story in fact seems logical considering its setting. The Nile brought life as well as destruction therefore it’s a force to be reckoned with. The sun appeared out of the river, so the river must’ve given birth to it. The sun and moon constantly battle for a place in the sky.

Some of the more scientific ideas of creation again aren’t very far from these stories. There are theories that do in fact state that life began from the ocean, and that we all originated from stars. This shows that imagination can play an important role in discovering more about the cosmos.

More than that, these stories attempt to describe the experience and magic of life.