W3: The Mythological origin of water

 THE MYTHOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF WATER

  "Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to hurt, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble." 

-Yehuda Berg

The Creation (c. 1896–1902) painting by James Tissot

 Mythology originally means story of the people. In a basic sense the genuineness of the myths is a dark question. It seems it is true, it tickles the mind to believe that it is the ultimate truth but and we have traveled very far from the middle ages to the modern world we have to think about it.

Basically this article is a derivative of the stories of creation. It may sometimes go out of our topic. Hold the rope tight to tickle your minds. After reading this you will know why it seems true and why we have to question it.

The concept of cosmic sea

The concept of cosmic sea is found in many cultures and civilization. The concept says that the whole world is enveloped by the water create ate the beginning of time. It is believed that the water was the god source of cosmic through which all the life was created and from the act of creation the inhabitable space was separated from the cosmic water. 

This cosmic sea has its own version in different civilization and mythology. Some of them will be discussed. 

Cosmic sea by Angelo Ventura 

https://www.deviantart.com/angeloventura/art/Cosmic-sea-745035995

Primordial waters

Primordial means something that is existing from the beginning of time, So primordial waters or ocean is water existing from the beginning from time. Primordialis in Latin means "first of all". This myth of primordial waters is a very common and similar myth in many cultures.

For the Babylonians, as it is on the seven tablets resits the Babylonian creation myth the Enuma Elish. Nothing existed in the beginning but Apsu and Tiamat, the masculine and feminine avatar of the chaotic and formless primordial waters. 

For the Egyptians to this watery chaos of pre-creation as ‘nu’ or ‘ nun,’ a state of unlimited potential out of which the first primeval mound of solid earth would eventually arise.

Nun, the embodiment of the primordial waters, lifts the barque of the sun god Ra into the sky at the moment of creation.

In Hindu mythology, the Dānavas were a race descending from Dakṣa(In Hinduism, Daksha means  "able, dexterous, or honest one" is one of the Prajapati, the agents of creation, as well as a divine king rishi. He is also a Manasputra, mind created son of the creator god Brahma). They were the sons of Danu, the daughter of Dakṣa. Danu is connected with the waters of the heavens and is likely associated with the formless, primordial waters that existed prior to creation. Under the leadership of Bali and others, the Dānavas revolted against the Devas(supernatural beings who were generally good in nature). Despite initial successes, the Dānavas were defeated by the god Vāmana (fifth incarnation of Lord Vishnu) who came in front of Bali for three steps of land. Bali, a honest and  generous king, said yes to his wish. But, after King Bali's yes, Vamana took enormous form, so big that the entire earth was his first step, the second step covered entire heaven and hell. Now there was no place to put the third step.Vamana being pleased by his devotion, gave him a boon before placing in Pathala, that once in a year, he will be allowed to see his subjects.

The Cosmic Ocean Reveals Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (opaque watercolor and gold on paper, San Diego Museum, 1835)

From biblical and Islamic theology. the spoken word that is the key divine tool used to calm the waters and initiate creation. In Genesis, God “moved upon the face of the waters,” the biblical version of the formless and void primeval waters (GEN 1:2). In the begin of creation, God speaks his first command—“Let there be Light” (GEN 1:3)—and at this point begins the process of bringing order to the earth and its waters through the power of the spoken word(GEN 1:6). The Quran relates that Allah “made from water every living thing,” (21:30) and that to begin creation, Allah spoke to the earth and sky, commanding them to “come together, willingly or unwillingly” (41:11). In simple words,the word of god created the primeval waters.

By John Sanidopoulos

https://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2013/01/did-god-create-water.html

Why Primordial water is chosen, why not air or any other element? 

This can be seen from the nature of water, we know water exist in the three basic states of matter. Water-liquid; Ice-solid; Water vapor-gas;. Next it has two building block of the life Hydrogen for external energy and Oxygen for internal energy. Amazingly water can be ordered, partially ordered and can also be disordered.  

What is the origin of primordial waters?

So from all the above information, the convincing origin of water would be "The word of God". The spoken word is the creation mechanism.Further study would reveal that the creative power of the spoken word found its way into traditional religious and social practices of the cultures, from the vocalized spells or ‘utterances’ found in the Pyramid Texts to the spoken curses and blessings of Celtic poetry, revealing a wide-ranging belief that the spoken word could continue to change the physical world as it had done during the process of creation. 

Conclusion

At the first we did not had a idea about how the water was created. It was from existing water before pre creation the chaos and disorder made into order by many ways in different myths. Then finally we have a convincing  and the only way account of the creation of water from the myth is the spoken word of the creator or creators.The spoken word can be considered as the primary power by which the creator or creators set order to the roiling waters of the first time.  

https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMINBig.ASP?size=big&IllID=60211

Hope this article was useful and I hope you learnt something from it.

If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.

For previous articles on this follow the following link

W2:https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w2-scientific-exploration-of-origins-of.html

W1:https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html

W2 : A Scientific exploration of the origin of water

 A Scientific exploration of the origin of water

“Water is life’s matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.”

 – Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

In a basic sense water is made up of two important elements. The hydrogen and oxygen. After knowing this I had lots of questions in my head. What is hydrogen and oxygen? How they are mixed to form water by the bottle companies? We have both hydrogen and water in our atmosphere so why cant we make water at home? and more. Yes, these questions are silly but why it is hard to answer them?

Widely speaking hydrogen is the most is the most abundant element in the universe and oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe as far as we know. There are two way to look the answer to our question. First, looking in to the space for answers. Second, looking deep into the earth. i.e. Astrophysical view point and geological view point. So the answers that i am giving are not the theories it is only hypothesis (i.e. we don't have perfect evidence but the concept is convincingly true). Let's get started.

Asteroids could have carried water, locked away in their minerals, to a young Earth, depositing it through impacts during our planet’s early years. But this isn’t the only possible explanation for our watery world.

Ron Miller for Astronomy

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={C1220933-F120-43B7-94A0-63508570B36F}

Astrophysical hypothesis

First we should know why we can't create water just by mixing oxygen and hydrogen.Basically it require a lot of energy to mix two chemical compound, as hydrogen inflammable and the energy required to mix hydrogen and oxygen is very high; this leads us to a big explosion rather than creating water.

During the birth of a star like sun we have a very unique temperature and pressure conditions. usually both temperature and pressure is very high (like 3 million kelvin). So at that conditions the reactions or the mixing of elements can occur very rapidly(say 100th of a second). So during such condition the water may be formed by the reaction of hydrogen with water in gaseous state.

Generally water have a very low condensation (change of water from gaseous state to liquid state) temperature so the water forms a dense gas disc called as portoplanetary disc and starts moving, as it moves away from the star the gas in the atmosphere of the disc cools down in certain temperature and in any one of case it condense to liquid from gas without traping other elements.

Another way of water on a planet is by the comets and trans-Neptune objects in the frost line (we live in habitable zone). Due to a star gravitational for by a big planer these get accelerated and loose its path and travel in space until it hits something like a planet. These objects are from very cool temperatures so the water is contained in a very frost state it generally contain ocean water that contains other elements like sodium. chlorine, magnesium etc. So such objects after hitting a planet will deposit a huge amount of water.

Earth formed from the dust and gas of the nebula that surrounded our infant Sun. This artist’s concept shows the protoplanetary disk of material around a young star. The disk contains the individual components of water — hydrogen and oxygen — and water in both ice and vapor forms.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={797FD6BC-2071-4AA1-BCF8-5A09903F12C8}

Geological hypothesis

Recent measurements of the chemical composition of Moon rocks suggest that Earth was born with its water already present.The isotopic ratios provide a unique "chemical fingerprint" that is used to compare Earth's water with reservoirs elsewhere in the Solar System. One such isotopic ratio, that of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H), is particularly useful in the search for the origin of water on Earth.

Investigating lunar samples carried to Earth by the Apollo 15 and 17 missions found a deuterium-to-hydrogen ratio that matched the isotopic ratio in carbonaceous chondrites ( A type of non modified meteorite). The ratio is also similar to that found in water on Earth which is (1.5576 ± 0.0005) × 10−4. The findings suggest a common source of water for both objects. 

This supports a theory that Jupiter temporarily migrated into the inner Solar System, destabilizing the orbits of water-rich carbonaceous chondrites. As a result, some of the bodies could have fallen inwards and become part of the raw material for making Earth and its neighbors. The discovery of water vapor out-gassing from Ceres (largest object in our asteroid belt) provides related information on water-ice content of the asteroid belt.

Even though it is similar to the astrophysical hypothesis. It is little different, because these meteorites were the building blocks of the earths core. So earth was formed with water by this way.

Astronomers once thought comets, could be the source of Earth’s water. But the amount of heavy water (D2O) these icy bodies carry doesn’t match the amount found on Earth. Researchers then turned to water-rich asteroids, such as the one in this artist’s impression (bottom), as a more likely source of water.

From top: NASA; Mark A. Garlick, space-art.co.uk, University of Warwick

https://astronomy.com/sitefiles/resources/image.aspx?item={76978FB3-1444-4F5A-A545-AA55201CB713}

 Conclusion 

The above stated are not truly real but they are the best fitted answers we have. As I said in prologue it is not my own hypothesis alone rather I have collected the information from many books and articles.

Now it time for us to think how we got the things we have.

  

Hope this article ignited your mind. If you have any theories or questions regarding this you are free to express them in comments or you can chat with me in my Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/phy.sci/?hl=en.

For the previous article click the following link https://jjohnpaul.blogspot.com/2021/05/w1clear-liquid-aka-water.html