A creation story is a theory that is made to explain the origin of humankind and other naturally existing things. All existing cultures own a creation story that was passed to them through writings, verbally, or artistic objects. Creation stories date back to many centuries ago. Most creation stories relate to one another in one way or another. Most of them are comprised of a supreme being creating everything in mysterious ways. However, they are unique in one way or another, as some of them will be discussed in this paper.
Some Chinese people embrace the Pan Gu theory of creation. The theory states that the first man originated from chaos, an egg that had two tusks, two horns, and a body that was covered with hair. He separated heaven and earth and placed the entire solar system in place. According to Leontovich (2015), he then put the moon in its place. He carved the earth out chiseling valleys and heaping up mountains and divided the four seas. He accomplished all creations through his knowledge of yiyang, the inevitable code of dichotomy in all things. Another legend consisting of the same character, Pan Gu, states that the entire universe came from his gigantic corpse. His eyes developed to the moon and sun, his blood formed rivers, and his body turned into soil. Humankind came from pests from Pan Gu’s body. Artistic descriptions of Pan Gu display him as a dwarf dressed in leaves.
Mongolians also have a couple of creation stories. In one of them, the creative works were conducted by a lama known as Udan. He created everything that exists in the world. While at the age of five hundred years, earth, heaven, and everything else had not yet appeared. According to Rachewiltz (2015), he separated heaven and earth while at a thousand years of age. He created a nine-story earth and a nine-story heaven. He also created nine rivers and placed them on earth. He finalized his creation by creating man and woman out of clay. They became husband and wife and had children. All the races of the world descended from them.
The creation story that I believe is the one that is described in the Bible. It states that a superior being, God, created the entire universe. According to the Bible (2015), everything was created within six days in an orderly manner, starting from day and night on the first day and concluding with human beings on the sixth day. He rested on the seventh day. There is also another version of the creation story in the Bible, which states that man was created first and everything else created after him to please him. Woman was created last out of the man’s rib to make him happy since other creations did not make him happy.
All creation stories mainly point out that creation was done by a superior being who existed before the beginning of time. Some of them portray humans as special creations that were to be superior to all other creations. However, some of them, such as the second legend of Pan Gu’s creation theory, display humans as parasites that were living in his body. The creation stories that I have reviewed above, apart from the biblical one, fail to capture the origin of other creations. The origin of other animals apart from humans is not captured. The Biblical version is also deficient in that there are two theories. The world could not have been created twice.
Creation stories are only meant to explain where the world and everything on it originated. Most of them raise questions that cannot be answered. However, they still remain relevant since their differences show the properties of the different cultures.
