The world over, creation myths have used the motif of the universe emerging from an egg. In India too, there are several that talk of how the sky and the earth have come to be seen as two halves of an egg or the sun is believed to be the yolk of an egg and of course, there is the golden egg motif (Hiranyagarbha) which is said to have held the universe within itself. The following myth is part of the tribal folklore of the hills of Himachal Pradesh.
In the beginning there was only the Nirankar Guru. He was alone and got bored (like Prajapati in the cosmic waters and the Egyptian Atum in the primeval waters). He rubbed his armpits in which sweat had gathered. From the right armpit he created a female vulture and a male vulture from his left armpit. He wanted to further create so he placed the female vulture over the male vulture but there was no progeny. The male vulture then flew to the east and the north and he came back to the female vulture and said: “Let us marry”. But she said: “How? We were brother and sister.”
At the words of the female, the male vulture wept and the tears that fell were drunk up by the female vulture. She became pregnant and produced eggs. But the question was where to place the eggs, for there was no earth. They were placed in the wings of the vulture but one of them fell down and broke. From one portion was created the sky, and from the other, the earth.
Story collected by: Arundhuti Dasgupta
Source: S A Dange, Tribal and other accounts, Myths of creation (Papers read at a seminar on March 17, 1989/Department of Sanskrit)
Location: Himachal Pradesh
