Cosmic ocean

The concept of a watery chaos also underlies the widespread motif of the worldwide flood that took place in early times.

In ancient creation texts, the primordial waters are often represented as having filled the entire universe and are the first source of the gods.

"[5] The idea of the primacy of the ocean as an element, from the bowels of which the Earth arises or is created, is universally prevalent.

[7] A diving bird, catching a lump of earth from the primordial ocean, often appears in the mythologies of the Native Americans and Siberian peoples.

In Japanese mythology, the islands of Japan arose from dirty foam raised by mixing the waters of the ocean with a spear of gods (Izanagi and Izanami).

In the mythologies of the Mongolian peoples, the role of the compactor of the ocean waters is played by the wind, which creates a special milky substance out of them, which then becomes the earth's firmament.

[3] The motif of the cosmogonic struggle with the serpent and its killing is widespread in terms of suppressing water chaos.

Marduk defeats and kills the progenitors Tiamat and Apsu before resurrecting them back together, the deities of the dark waters of chaos, who has taken the form of snakes.

Yu the Great's heroic struggle with the cosmic flood ends with the killing of the insidious owner of the water Gungun and his "close associate" – the nine-headed Xiangliu.

The transition from the formless water element to land is the most important act necessary for the transformation of chaos into space.

But it was precisely the repetition of the act – first down, and then up – that led to the allocation of three spheres – earthly, heavenly and underground, which represents the transition from binary division to trinity.

Earth and sky are almost universally represented as feminine and masculine, a married couple standing at the beginning of a theogonic or theocosmogonic process.

At the same time, the feminine and masculine principles are associated with the element of water and with chaos; usually they are conceived on the side of "nature" rather than "culture."

So, in Scandinavian mythology, frost giants precede time, and in space they are located on the outskirts of the Earth's circle, in cold places, near the oceans.

[8] The universe was enrapt by a vast mass of primordial waters, and the Benben, a pyramid mound, emerged amid this primal chaos.

[11][12] In Heliopolis, the creation was attributed to Atum, a form of the sun god Ra, who was said to have existed in the waters of Nu as an inert potential being.

Water chaos is opposed by the first earthly mound protruding from it, with which Ra is associated in Heliopolis, and in Memphis and Thebes, Ptah with Sekhmet and Amun with Amunet as the creator deities there respectively.

In Theogony 282, Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή - pēgē 'spring, well', referring to "the Pegai of Oceanus, where he was born" for a divine winged mythical horse of that name in Greaco-Roman mythology.

[3] In Hindu mythology, there is an idea of darkness and the abyss, but also of the primary waters generated by night or chaos.

In the tenth mandala of the Rigveda, the original state of the universe is presented as the absence of existing and non-existent, airspace and sky above it, death and birth, day and night, but the presence of water and disorderly movement.

In the waters of the eternal ocean, there was a life-giving principle generated by the power of heat and giving birth to everything else.

As a result of the rapid rotation, a whorl lights up – Mount Mandara, but trees and grasses emit their juices into the drying ocean.

The motif of the struggle of water and fire in connection with the theme of the world ocean is also present in other traditions.

[4] Kurma, also known as the Turtle, is the second avatara of Vishnu in the Dashavatara who is depicted as churning the cosmic ocean during Samudra Manthana.

[16] Vishnu takes the form of a turtle to help hold the stick used to churn the cosmic ocean during this event in Hindu mythology.

[16] According to the biblical account of the creation of the world in Book of Genesis, the upper oceans (Hebrew: המים העליונים, romanized: HaMaim HaElionim) refers to the waters located above the firmament.

[19] In the myth of Noah's Ark, for forty days and nights of rain, the cosmic ocean floods the Earth before receding away back into their original place.

[19] In Sumerian mythology, there was an image of the original sea abyss – Apsu, on the site of which the most active of the gods Enki, representing the earth, fresh water and agriculture on irrigated lands, made his home.

In the Babylonian version, in the endless primordial Ocean there was nothing but two monsters – the forefather Apsu and foremother Tiamat.

[20] At the center of the Vourukasha also grows the Gaokerena or "White Haoma", considered to be the "king of healing plants".