Which were the main gods of the Indus valley civilization?

[sayak83]

This more recent study http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...owing-light-origins-indian-caste-system-38232 suggests there was mixing as early as 40 000 years ago, and that it (mixing) involved 5 groups of DNA, not just 2.

The news article falsely reports that the mixing between the groups started 40,000 years ago. The paper (which is linked below) says none of these things. The 2009 paper looked only at Indo-European and Dravidian speaking groups and explicitly said that they have left out Afro-Asiatic speaking and Tibeto-Burmese speaking groups for their analysis. This paper complements the original paper by adding them in. (The 5th group are the Jarwa, and is not studied here). The conclusions remain the same. The Mixing starts at around 2000 BCE and stops at around 200-400 CE (though it continues in the tribal people till 1000 CE). Its clearly written there.
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/6/1594.full.pdf

Here is a more informed article from Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/sc...ft-imprints-on-genes-study/article8155444.ece

The starting of the admixture was still around 2000-1800 BCE as in the 2013 study(which the article confirms).

 

[Vinayaka]

You can believe what you wish. Nobody is stopping you. Yes there is mixing. But it in no way proves an invasion or immigration or migration or whatever you want to call it. The Out of India theory is equally as plausible. Did you even bother to read the scholarly paper I linked to?

If you google on Aryan Invasion Myth you will get a ton of hits. I've done a ton of reading on this, and have come to my own conclusions based on recent research and common sense, and reading what scholars and genetic researchers have had to say. (I trust scientists.) If at some point in time actual evidence is provided to the contrary, I will gladly change my mind. But to date that hasn't happened.

Here's more: http://archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/genetics-aryan-debate

 

[Aupmanyav]

To sum up theories of supernatural beings they conceived of

alternative theory of this yoga figure: Mhasoba or Mahishaasura or a water god version of proto-Varuna

Varuna/Ouranos is much older. I discount the theory of Mahishasura. If it was not 'Pashupati' Shiva then it was Varuna/Ouranos. Even today, Sindhis have a God which came out of the River Indus and has a fish as his mount.

Jhule Lal: Same song by four different famous singers of the Sub-Continent.

'Damadam Mast Kalandar' by noted Pakistani folk singer, Reshma.

'Damadam Mast Kalandar' by Bangadeshi singer, Runa Laila

'Damadam Mast Kalandar' by noted Pakistani Sufi singer, Abida Parveen.

'Damadam Mast Kalandar' by noted Indian singer, Jagjit Singh.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Consider that Maruts are not bulls, I think. So they needed to get a humanoid gene from someplace. In nature, mating between humans and animals doesn't happen, but with ancient ideas, those kinds of things can.

Well, in mythology, cows can easily give birth to humans. Even River Ganges married Kuru King Shantanu to beget Grand-pa Bhishma of the Mahabharata.

Mixing stops probably due to caste based endogamy.

The mixing did not stop because the mixing was already pervasive. The Indo-European DNA had already reached the tribal population in far-off corners of India.

This more recent study http://www.thenewsminute.com/articl...owing-light-origins-indian-caste-system-38232 suggests there was mixing as early as 40 000 years ago, and that it (mixing) involved 5 groups of DNA, not just 2.

That probably was the first influx of Indo-Europeans - now known as Dravidians.

Yes there is mixing. But it in no way proves an invasion or immigration or migration or whatever you want to call it. The Out of India theory is equally as plausible. Did you even bother to read the scholarly paper I linked to?

Vinayaka, how would there be a mixing without an invasion, immigration or migration. Out of India theory will mean 'no mixing' within India. Drop your chauvinistic opposition to migration, it is not scientific. We all, everywhere, are migrants from East/South Africa, but later there have been migrants even to East/South Africa. The world itself is a melting pot.

 

[sayak83]

You can believe what you wish. Nobody is stopping you. Yes there is mixing. But it in no way proves an invasion or immigration or migration or whatever you want to call it. The Out of India theory is equally as plausible. Did you even bother to read the scholarly paper I linked to?

If you google on Aryan Invasion Myth you will get a ton of hits. I've done a ton of reading on this, and have come to my own conclusions based on recent research and common sense, and reading what scholars and genetic researchers have had to say. (I trust scientists.) If at some point in time actual evidence is provided to the contrary, I will gladly change my mind. But to date that hasn't happened.

Here's more: http://archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/genetics-aryan-debate

I will get to this. Meanwhile the Aryan Invasion of Europe has been conclusively confirmed!! That one has now been dated conclusively to 5000 years with the onset of Indo-European speaking Yamnaya people from the Caucasus.

http://geogenetics.ku.dk/latest-news/modern-european/
http://www.nature.com/news/dna-data-explosion-lights-up-the-bronze-age-1.17723

This was done by whole genome sequencing of dead Europeans and Central Asians from well preserved graves spanning 3000 BCE and 700 CE, and using the data of these actual ancestors to trace the migration patterns.

The sequences allowed the team to tackle questions that have vexed archaeologists for decades, says Allentoft. For example, researchers have disagreed over whether the cultural changes of the Bronze Age were the result of migration or simply the spread of ideas. Allentoft and his colleagues found evidence for migration, in the form of a massive shift in the genetic make-up of northern and central Europeans at the start of the Bronze Age. Before 3000 bc, their genomes resembled those of early farmers from the Middle East and even earlier European hunter-gatherers. By 2000 bc, their genomes looked more like those of people from the Yamnaya culture, which arose on the steppe around 2900 bc.

The findings echo those of a team that sequenced 69 ancient Europeans3. Both groups speculate that the Yamnaya migration was at least partly responsible for the spread of the Indo-European languages into Western Europe.

Allentoft’s team found genetic traces of the Yamnaya in people who lived near the Altai Mountains in central Russia from 2900 bc to 2500 bc, potentially explaining why Indo-European languages are spoken so far into Asia.

I will note two things:-
1) First, the North Indian genetic group is strongly related with this Caucasian gene pool and is utterly different from the South Indian genetic group.
2) Second we know from the series of papers I linked that there began an admixture of North Indian and South Indian genetic groups between 2000 BCE - 500 CE period. Before this the two groups were distinct and after this also mixture ceased. These facts are now accepted by Kivisild himself (whose earlier work your article quoted)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929711004885

Here we report data for more than 600,000 SNP markers genotyped in 142 samples from 30 ethnic groups in India. Combining our results with other available genome-wide data, we show that Indian populations are characterized by two major ancestry components, one of which is spread at comparable frequency and haplotype diversity in populations of South and West Asia and the Caucasus. The second component is more restricted to South Asia and accounts for more than 50% of the ancestry in Indian populations.

What he does not accept is that the group related to the Indo-European Caucasians migrated into India after the fall of the Indus Valley

Modeling of the observed haplotype diversities suggests that both Indian ancestry components are older than the purported Indo-Aryan invasion 3,500 YBP. Consistent with the results of pairwise genetic distances among world regions, Indians share more ancestry signals with West than with East Eurasians.

3) This leaves us with the extremely hard to understand situation where two distinct genetic groups, one Indo-European and one Dravidian, coexisted in India from 1200 BCE to 2000 BCE without ANY intermingling and then suddenly mixed together from 2000 BCE to 500 CE and then stopped!

4) However note that Kivisild's genomic analysis of Europeans failed to predict the vast migration into Europe by the Yamnaya Aryans in 3000 BCE as well, that has been validated beyond question now through joint analysis of modern and ancestral genomes.

5) What this shows , for me, is that modern genomic analysis cannot predict Bronze age migrations unless they also have data from ancestral remains of that period. So, whether a migration of Indo-Europeans actually happened 2000 BCE ago or not can only be determined by analyzing the DNA of the Indus Valley and ancient remains in India spanning the period from 2000 BCE-500 CE.

 

[Rakovsky]

Just a reminder, discussions on when the R1A Indo-European DNA came to Hindustan should be discussed on another thread. Thank you.

 

[Aupmanyav]

While fair enough if their arguments hold water for you, please don't take them at their word when they say things like 'AMT is as outmoded as Flat Earth' - they do remain a fringe within these circles (albeit not quite to the extent of the ideas of Mr Tilak!).

Tilak's theory may at first glance seem outlandish, but kindly realize that Arctic Homeland is not in opposition to Kurgan hypothesis. We have no problem with that. Passing through Eurasian steppes is a must if the Aryans were to come from anywhere in the Arctic region to Iran and India. As also the distance is not too large to be traveled in mellemiums, just about 3,000 kms. Greek, Mongol and Hun armies covered a much larger distance in a very short period of time. Then, there are no insurmountable geographic hurdles, no Himalayas. The Hindukush come only towards the end of the journey.

Tilak's question is from where they came to the Eurasian steppes? Why does Zoroastrian books mention a deluge by ice? Why do Vedas mention a dawn extending for a month, and a long night (Ati-Ratri, greater night) extending up to a hundred days? Whey priests (Navagwahas and Dashagwahas) completed their sacrficial cycle in nine or ten months? Why does RigVeda mention seven sons of Aditi and the eighth born unformed, why not twelve as in temperate regions? Why was the old Roman calender only of ten months? Why the Irish, Celtic, Greek, Iranian and Indian mythology mention an yearly fight between light and darkness? Why were the cows stolen in Indian as well as in Greek mythology? Why must Verethragna or Indra must fight the demons every year and destroy the blocks for spring and water to come back? The answer to all these problems lies in an Arctic Homeland.

वि सूर्यो मध्ये अमुचद रथं दिवो विदद दासाय प्रतिमानमार्यः l
दृळानि पिप्रोरसुरस्य मायिन इन्द्रो व्यास्यच्चक्र्वान रजिश्वना ll
vi sūryo madhye amuchada rathaṃ divo vidada dāsāya pratimānamāryaḥ l
dṛiḷāni piprorasurasya māyina indro vyāsyacchakṛvān ṛajiśhvanā ll
In the mid-way of heaven the Sun unyoked his car, the Ārya found a match to meet his Dam foe.
Associate with Ṛajiśhvan Indra overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, the conjuring Asura.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv10138.htm

Don't you find this strange? The sun unyokes his car in the midst of heaven, does not move, stops his journey? Can this happen anywhere else other than in the Arctic Circle?
Read here 10,000 BC in the Arctic Circle. That the Vedas date from 1,500 BC is complete bull. Vedas are living history.

 

[Aupmanyav]

HYMN CXXXVIII. Indra. (the complete hymn - Ralph Griffith's translation)
1. Allied with thee in friendship, Indra, these, thy priests, remembering Holy Law, rent Vṛtra limb from limb,
When they bestowed the Dawns and let the waters flow, and when thou didst chastise dragons at Kutsa's call.
2 Thou sentest forth productive powers, clavest the hills, thou dravest forth the kine, thou drankest pleasant meath.
Thou gavest increase through this Tree's surpassing might. The Sun shone by the hymn that sprang from Holy Law.
3 In the mid-way of heaven the Sun unyoked his car: the Ārya found a match to meet his Dam foe.
Associate with Ṛjiśvan Indra overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, the conjuring Asura.
4 He boldly cast down forts which none had e’er assailed: unwearied he destroycd the godless treasure-stores.
Like Sun and Moon he took the stronghold's wealth away, and, praised in song, demolished foes with flashing dart.
5 Armed with resistless weapons, with vast power to cleave, the Vṛtra-slayer whets his darts and deals forth wounds.
Bright Uṣas was afraid of Indra's slaughtering bolt: she went upon her way and left her chariot there.
6 These are thy famous exploits, only thine, when thou alone hast left the other reft of sacrifice.
Thou in the heavens hast set the ordering of the Moons: the Father bears the felly portioned out by thee.

 

[Rakovsky]

Swasti is welfare. It is a sign of well-being/prosperity/fortune for Hindus. Rituals, account books of traders, exercise copies of students, marriage cards, all begin with a Swastika.

Thanks for sharing. Are there other fundamental, widespread, or ancient meanings? For example, is it associated with the sun or another concept or being?

I tend to agree with Dubyanski. It could be Varuna or the Ouranos of the Europeans. Water ways and trade were important for the Harappans and Mohanjodarians. But that will mean that the Aryans were already there.

Dubyansky is disagreeing that the figure is Ouranos or that the Aryans were already there.
The Russian scholar he is getting his information from is saying that Perun is not a water god, but that instead the Indus were worshiping some water-related god. They propose that the Aryans came after the height of the Indus civilization and then merged the Indus gods into and with their own pantheon. So a non-water god like Perun got merged with a leading Indus water god and became a Hindu god called Varuna who was now associated closely with water.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether the Indus were worshiping some water god. It's a big, curious question for me. Asko Parpola fleshes out this theory at length in his essay that starts by investigating whether a crocodile cult was central to the Indus society:
https://www.harappa.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Parpola_Asko_2011._Crocodile_in_the_Indu.pdf

Once he establishes this theory he goes on to expand it.

 

[Rakovsky]

Well the only thing we can link the so called "deities", of the Harappan Civilization is when we refer to the Vedas, we have to link the Veda with the Harrapan civilization to find clues as to what these seals and artifacts means.

The problem is when we have already have a pre-assumption that the Veda is Aryan and Harappan is Dravidian we tend to miss this connection.

Dear Satya,
Other links can be made than to the Vedas. For example, if we find that crocodile cults are a part of Dravidian or local Gujarati society, then we can potentially link inscriptions of crocodiles to those cults regardless of whether we find crocodile myths in the Vedas.

However, in this thread, I am open to using the Vedas as a secondary source to help explain our direct, primary findings from the Indus society.

What many scholars like Asko Parpola say is that even though the Indus Valley society was not Aryan or Indo European, there were features of Indus religion that got brought into the new religion, Hinduism, that came out of combining the Aryan and Indus religions.

All subsequent theories are based on the Aryan myth, therefore the conclusions are not unbiased.

The oldest site of the Harappan is newly discovered, I am not sure if you are aware of this:


I suggest you also do a bit of reading on the actual origins of the Aryan and Dravidian myths.

I welcome you to come to the new thread I opened on when the IndoEuropeans came to the Indus valley:
http://www.religiousforums.com/thre...ndusvalley-civilization-at-its-climax.191056/

I think that only DNA tests will clear this up for everyone.

 

[Rakovsky]

recent study that searched for West Eurasian groups most closely related to the ANI ancestors of Indians failed to find any evidence for shared ancestry between the ANI and groups in West Eurasia within the past 12,500 years3 (although it is possible that with further sampling and new methods such relatedness might be detected). "

That sounds like a not very good study.

I welcome you to come to the new thread I opened (see my last message)

 

[Rakovsky]

Varuna/Ouranos is much older. I discount the theory of Mahishasura. If it was not 'Pashupati' Shiva then it was Varuna/Ouranos.

One issue though is that Varuna and Shiva don't have bull or water buffalo horns in Hinduism.

Mahisha ashura is literally Water Buffalo Ashura. On the other hand, Indus seals show a bull-killing cult, which brings to mind the ritual of killing Mahisha Ashura, so maybe you are right that it's not Mahisha Ashura.

Here is another candidate:

Mhasoba, pronounced "MUH-SO-BAA", is a horned buffalo deity of pastoral tribes in Western and Southern India.[1][2][3] In Maharashtra, many Gawlis (tribes making their living cow-herding and by selling milk and milk products) have been worshipping this deity for hundreds of years. [4]

Mhasoba is sometime connected with Shiva,[2] who may have been a pre-Hindu deity adopted by Hindu culture. In the Mhasoba cult of Maharashtra, Mhasoba (Mahisha/Mahesha, which is another name for Shiva/Shankar) is worshipped with his wife Jogubai (Durga).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mhasoba

That sounds like a reasonable candidate.

Even today, Sindhis have a God which came out of the River Indus and has a fish as his mount.

Not sure this is related:

Jhulelal

He lived around the 10th Century A.D.(950).
...
The name also refers to Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a Sufi saint.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhulelal

That looks kind of like a dead squashed fish in the picture.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The Russian scholar he is getting his information from is saying that Perun is not a water god, but that instead the Indus were worshiping some water-related god.

Yes, Perun (Parjanya in Vedas) was not a water God. He was the equivalent/another name for Indra.
That is why I said the Indus valley God is likely to be Varuna (Ouranos), who is a God of Seas even today among Hindus and was so among the Greek as well.
At one time, Varuna was the law-giver and chief God of Aryans, but later Indra displaced him, just in the way as Chronos was replaced by Zeus.

 

[Rakovsky]

Yes, Perun (Parjanya in Vedas) was not a water God. He was the equivalent/another name for Indra.
That is why I said the Indus valley God is likely to be Varuna (Ouranos), who is a God of Seas even today among Hindus and was so among the Greek as well.
At one time, Varuna was the law-giver and chief God of Aryans, but later Indra displaced him, just in the way as Chronos was replaced by Zeus.

Uranos was rather the god of the sky, including the sky-waters. A theory is that it comes from the Greek root word meaning to urinate. That is, there is a mist in the air or rain that comes down like stream from the sky.
This is different from the waters of the seas, which crocodiles inhabit.

But maybe I am missing something. i don't have a strong opinion on the Varun - water monster - praying Shiva tablet issue.

 

[Aupmanyav]

That looks kind of like a dead squashed fish in the picture.

If a God sits on a fish, that should perhaps be expected. However, Jhulelal is the chief God of Hindu Sindhis, at one time worshiped by Muslim Sindhis also, as the sufi song in his praise indicated. They equated him with Ali. The lyrics: Damadm mast kalandar, Ali da pehla number' (Care free is the ascetic, Ali is the first - song modified in British times).

 

[Aupmanyav]

Mhasoba, pronounced "MUH-SO-BAA", is a horned buffalo deity of pastoral tribes in Western and Southern India. In Maharashtra, many Gawlis (tribes making their living cow-herding and by selling milk and milk products) have been worshipping this deity for hundreds of years.

Mhasoba is sometime connected with Shiva, who may have been a pre-Hindu deity adopted by Hindu culture. In the Mhasoba cult of Maharashtra, Mhasoba (Mahisha/Mahesha, which is another name for Shiva/Shankar) is worshipped with his wife Jogubai (Durga).

""Sometimes one finds primitive altars where one sees the Mother Goddess doing in the demon buffalo Mhasoba and then four hundred meters further along one finds her married to the same Mhasoba, whose name is only slightly modified."

Durga's Mosque: Cosmology, Conversion and Community in Central Javanese Islam (Stephen Headley quoting D. D. Kosambi) https://books.google.co.in/books?id=9B7ty0uerK8C&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259&dq=Kosambi+mhasoba&source=bl&ots=gIoaxuadGy&sig=QzI0IuYWBsxpXgX5QGakM-TSb58&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlk42G_avPAhVEMI8KHVmbB_QQ6AEIKTAC#v=onepage&q=Kosambi mhasoba&f=false

The two Mhasobas are different, indicated by Kosambi's comment "whose name is slightly modified". Though he has not indicated in what way they are different. In my view, what happened is that Durga killed the local pre-Hindu God of the aboriginal tribals, turned into a demon Mhasoba (Mahishasura), and four hundred meters further along, married the other pre-Aryan Hindu God Mhasoba (Mahesh). It shows the replacement of an aboriginal belief by a Hindu belief. Of course, at the time this happened, Aryans and Hindus had already merged into one. Aryan brahmins had become Hindu brahmins, just like my family. I think this happened after movement of Aryans south of Vindhyas. I would date this to happen sometime between 2,000 BC and 1,000 BC. 'Jogu bai' is just another name of an undefined form of Mother Goddess which Hindus know as 'Yoga Maya'. It may all seem strange to you, but to us Hindus, it is as clear as a crystal.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Uranos was rather the god of the sky, including the sky-waters. .. This is different from the waters of the seas, which crocodiles inhabit. But maybe I am missing something. I don't have a strong opinion on the Varun - water monster - praying Shiva tablet issue.

Varuna was/is not a water monster, he was the chief God and law-giver of Aryans, as you say 'God of the sky, including the sky-waters'. Actually all waters, in the sky as well as in the nether-world. But after being displaced by Indra as the chief God controlling the sky waters, he had nowhere else to go other than nether-world waters.

 

[Madhuri]

MOD POST

Thread moved from Dharmic DIR to Interfaith Dicussions​

 

[Rakovsky]

Aupmanyev,

In Egypt, the word for God and for deity doubled as a word for a cleansing embalming effervescing purifying agent, Nitre. The gods were effervescing, enlivening, pure.

In Sumer, the word for "god"/deity doubled as a word for heaven, where god lived, and the sign was written as a star. This was also the sign for the fatherly main heavens god.

Asko Parpola's theory is that in Dravidian, the word for fish doubles as a word for star, "meena / mina". In Hinduism, planets/stars were equated with certain gods. Parpola's theory is that the fish sign was used to write god/"deity". But I don't get the connection with fish. Is there any reason other than homophony with star that fish should be the symbol to write "god"/deity?

Deciphering the Indus Script
https://www.harappa.com/script/parpola0.html

Do the 'fish' signs denote dieties?
https://www.harappa.com/script/parpola5.html

You'll have to see his later sections too.

 

[Native]

Hello Rakovsky,
Thanks for this interesting topic

The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the world's oldest, lasting from prehistory to 1500 BC. It had a huge population spread along the Indus river and neighboring regions in modern Pakistan and northwest India. Scholars tend to think it was basically Dravidian in its main language and that it basically preceded the coming of IndoEuropeans, who arrived as Arians. Yet scholars are hardly unanimous on these points. Nor have they agreed on a decipherment of its alphabet, although a few have claimed success in their own efforts, which is disputed.
They do agree that Hinduism is at least a version of continuation of Indus religion. Can we establish what any of their deities were?

This and other discussions of ancient myths and the cultural origin and connections can be found all over the places. In my opnion, we have to dig deeper into the myths and especially into the Myths of Creation and the cultural comparisons in order to get it right.

To sum up theories of supernatural beings they conceived of:

• Mother goddess symbolizing fertility;
  
• horned proto-Shiva as Lord of Animals doing yoga; maybe father god
  
• alternative theory of this yoga figure: Mhasoba or Mahishaasura or a water god version of proto-Varuna
  
• a guardian spirit fighting an evil tiger (Aupmanyev is skeptical that the tiger is evil)
  
• a guardian spirit as bull, snake, goat;
  
• fertility symbols of round stones and pierced ones - proto Sivalinga,
  
• swastika with Brahman

I agree in your primary goddess and god in the different cultural desriptions of their myths. I also agree in the the mytho-cosmological principles of creative forces. There is one force which creates, one which dissolves and one which holds the elementary basics constant, thus described in the Hindu mythology with Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma.

The numerous cultural Stories of Creation of course speaks of the factual creation of the ancient known part of the Universe, namely our Milky Way. Our mIlky Way is a barred galaxy which has been symbolized with the Swastika symbol which even is showed as "turning both ways".

The Creation Story is of course the same for all people and cultures all over the world. The visible observation of the Sun in the seasons and Moon, the stars and star constellations and of the outlook of the Milky Way contours and all the celestial motions in the Sky, have give origen to the almost similar mytho-cosmological stories all over the world.

The prime Mother Goddess resembles the grey-white contours of the Milky Way on the southern hemisphere. "She" is very important as this countour contains the center of the Milky Way in the star constelaltion of Sagittarius, which is positioned in the "womb area" on the female looking Milky Way figure as can be seen here - http://www.native-science.net/MilkyWay.MotherGoddess.htm - Read also about the Egyptian Milky Way goddess Hathor here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hathor

It is from this Milky Way center everything is created and to where everything returns in the circuit of life and creation. This cosmic Mother Goddess is of course a very important mythical and cosmologcal archetype, which is why the Mother Goddess is the earliest and most primary goal of worshipping in many cultures.

The Mother Goddess has its complementary counterpart on the northern hemisphere where the Milky Way contours here is imagined as "a great man in the Sky" as illustrated here - http://www.native-science.net/MilkyWay.GreatestGod.htm - and a mythical description of a"Father God" here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(mythology) (NOT planet Saturn but the Milky Way god Saturnus)

The mytho-cosmological telling of these prime deities, is much the same in all cultures - and THIS is why it can be difficult to descide from where and when one culture have been affected by other cultures. In fact. most ancient cultures had/have the very same mythical telling in themselves.

This is why the method of Comparative Mythology is and excellent tool and method to use. It confirms the very same story told all over the world if focusing on their Story of Creation.

Regards
Ivar Nielsen
Natural Philosopher