“The Story of God” – A Buddhist
Perspective on Creation
April 20,
2016 by Justin
Whitaker Patheos
This week’s episode
(airing Sunday the 24th), brings us face to face with the question
of creation. As Morgan Freeman
muses at the beginning, walking through his own history in
Mississippi, “You can’t understand me without understanding where I
was created.”
“Every religion has
a creation story,” he continues.
But is that
true?
The episode doesn’t
cover my area of specialization, Buddhism, but it does cover
Hinduism. And the other religious stories of creation, including
those of Islam, Australian Aboriginals, Catholics, and Mayans, all
tend to inspire at least some sense of awe in this modern skeptical
Buddhist. The fact that so many people looked in wonder at the
stars in humanity’s past, deriving from these stars and their
experiences of them such incredible and intricate tales brings, I
hope, a sense of connectedness and humility to the modern
viewer.
In Hinduism we find
the Rig Veda, in which there are numerous hymns of creation.
AsWendy Doniger
writes:
The Rig Veda
refers glancingly to many different theories of creation. Several
of these regard creation as the result – often apparently a
mere by-product – of a cosmic battle, such as those mentioned in
the hymns to Indra, or as a result of the apparently
unmotivated act of separating heaven and earth, an act attributed
to several different gods. These aspects of creation are woven
in and out of the hymns in the older parts of the Rig Veda, books 2
through 9. But in the subsequent tenth book we encounter for
the first time hymns that are entirely devoted to speculations on
the origins of the cosmos.
Some of
these hymns seek the origins of the existence of existence itself
(10.129) or of the creator himself (10.121). Others speculate
upon the sacrifice as the origin of the earth and the people in it
(10.90), or upon the origins of the sacrifice (10.130,
10.190). Sacrifice is central to many concepts of creation,
particularly to those explicitly linked to sacrificial gods or
instruments, but it also appears as a supplement to other forms of
creation such as sculpture (10.81-2) or anthropomorphic birth
(10.72).
The most famous
hymn is probably 10.129, which reads (emphasis added):
1 There
was neither non-existence nor existence then; there was neither the
realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred?
Where? In whose protection? Was there water, bottomlessly
deep?
2 There
was neither death nor immortality then. There was no distinguishing
sign of night nor of day. That one breathed, windless, by its
own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond.
3
Darkness was hidden by darkness in the beginning; with no
distinguishing sign, all this was water. The life force
that was covered with emptiness, that one arose through the
power of heat.
4
Desire came upon that one in the beginning ; that was the first
seed of mind. Poets seeking in their heart with wisdom found
the bond of existence in non-existence.
5 Their
cord was extended across. Was there below? Was there above? There
were seed-placers; there were powers. There was impulse
beneath; there was giving-forth above.
6 Who
really knows? Who will here proclaim it? Whence was it produced?
Whence is this creation? The gods came afterwards, with the
creation of this universe. Who then knows whence it has
arisen?
7 Whence
this creation has arisen – perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it
did not – the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven,
only he knows – or perhaps he does not
know.
Perhaps creation
created itself, perhaps it didn’t. Perhaps God knows. Eh, maybe
not.
Buddhism has it’s
own sort
of creation
story, the Aggañña sutta, or “Discourse on the
Origins.”
However, the
Aggañña sutta follows Hinduisms use of creation myths to tell
moral stories; though this time not around themes of sacrifice or
intellectual humility, but instead about the dangers of
greed. The Discourse has all of the ingredients of a creation
myth though, and no doubt many Buddhists over history have
interpreted it as simply this. It begins with a world-contraction;
apparently out of a vast, ethereal state in which beings were
mind-made, feeding on joy, self-radiant, etc.
Eventually this
contraction leads to a watery, dark mass, in which there is no moon
or sun and beings without gender. However, a sweet substance coats
the water and the beings take a taste of this
substance. Craving
arises.
Craving
(or thirst
– Pali: taṇhā)
is the first of the three roots of immorality in Buddhism, along
with aversion and ignorance.
Out of this new
activity, day and night begin, as well as the seasons; and beings’
bodies become coarser and individuated – there is beauty and
ugliness and with them pride and arrogance.
The story continues
until beings resemble us, with
all of our negative traits including our societies and social
structures meant to curb or at least direct cravings and aversions.
All beings fall into place, all caught up in ignorance
and needing the education and eventual awakening offered only
by a Buddha.
The story contrasts
the beings of and in society, right up to the secular king, to the
Awakened one himself, setting his awakened wisdom above that of
even the greatest king. As I wrote in my Ph.D. thesis,
“The sutta is
a morality tale wrapped in a cosmogony.”
Yes, it’s a
creation myth. But it’s really something bigger than that. I’m sure
this is true of other religious myths as well. There is always the
“kid” level of interpretation, then the “teenager” level, the
“adult” level, and finally something a bit beyond that, something a
little esoteric, perhaps mystical, something, as Stanley Tambiah
wrote of this sutta, “larger in scope and superior” to all that has
come before.