Read the beginning here.
Flood - the border between civilizations
The flood - that's what in all legends is a kind of demarcation line between some past humanity and people now living. A description of the flood is found in almost all peoples of the world: the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, East and South Asia, the western coast of Africa and the Polynesians, etc. Ancient Jews, Egyptians, Greeks and Chinese spoke of it as a watershed (a strange allegory!) Between different humanity, and they all noted that after the flood "everything became different", some other people came or another humanity was born.
Although each description carries some national features, they are strikingly stereotyped: a great calamity that covers everything around in waves, general death, a handful of survivors, usually close relatives (father and daughters, brother and sister, husband and wife). And then the rebirth and the preservation of the memory of the great ancestors that disappeared in the waves of the flood.
Despite the fact that in the legends it is about the flood, the flood itself, obviously, was caused by some kind of global cataclysms (and here). Today, there are many assumptions about what caused such floods and floods (most likely, we are talking not about one, but many disasters in different parts of the world and at different times). Perhaps it was a change in the axis of rotation of the earth due to a collision with another cosmic body, the most powerful eruptions of underwater volcanoes, like off the coast of Indonesia at the end of 2004, when several hundred thousand people died. But what is important for us here is not the cause of such catastrophes, but the fact that they led to a periodic change of humanity. Some groups turned out to be so small that they began to decline, while others took their place in the vacant ecological niche. And then everything was repeated again. And memories of these "renewals" of humanity have been preserved in many legends.
The story of the biblical flood is well known, and therefore we will not dwell on it in detail. Legends about Asian floods are much less known: in China, in Southeast Asia. And they also testify to the fact that once upon a time there was a kind of "antediluvian humanity" on earth, which was washed away by the waves. And after him new people appeared on earth.
The description of the flood in Asian sources is broadly similar to the descriptions of the water disaster in the Bible and even in a number of Australian legends, but still contains one very remarkable detail.
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The Chinese legend tells the story of that time in this way. One day after a great drought, there was a great flood. One of the great first emperors Yao ruled at that time. The flood swept the whole of China and lasted for about twenty years. The animals came out of the forests and began to attack people, while people fled to the hills, fleeing the advancing waters. "Those who lived in the valleys began to build nests, those who lived in the mountains climbed into caves." Finally, Yao summoned the appanage prince Gun from the Chun area, in the modern province of Shaanxi, who came in a straight line from the "Yellow Ruler" - Huang Di. Gun tried to build dams, but they were also destroyed by the rolling waves, and the angry ruler ordered the execution of the loser. Gun's body was placed on a high mountain, but it was so wonderful that it did not even decay. Supreme Lord,Frightened by this and fearing that Gun would turn into a werewolf, he ordered to chop the body into pieces, but as soon as the sword made the first cut, a dragon emerged from Gun’s belly. It was Yu, who then took on a human form.
There is another version of Yu's birth. During the flood, Gun, who undertook to pacify the waters, stole somewhere (in later legends - precisely in heaven) a sizhan-lump of sacred land, which had the miraculous ability to grow indefinitely, in order to add it to the material of dams and block the path of the flood. Upon learning of this, the ruler of Shang-di (the supreme spirit) became angry and decided to punish Gun. Gun was put to death. However, Gun's body miraculously survived for three years, and then suddenly "revealed" and gave birth to Yu. It was he who, with the help of dragons, managed to drain rivers, build dams and save people. Yu undertook to continue his father's work, but he did not build dams, but drainage canals, received help from deities and spirits, worked so that "the hairs on his legs were wiped off."
The famous historian Sima Qian in the Historical Notes (1st century BC) - the "Bible" of Chinese antiquity - claims that the great Yu "lived out of the house for thirteen years, and passing by his gates, he did not even dare to to enter them. " Finally the flood was pacified.
The people were infinitely grateful to Yu. And the ruler Shun, who replaced Yao, who was considered the Heavenly ruler in the legends (we note this detail for ourselves), decided to cede the throne to the earthly man Yu. So the legend says.
But where did the legend of Yui's strange birth - from the womb of the deceased Gun come from? And why could Gun even be put to death?
First of all, let us pay attention to the fact that Gun, communicating with higher spirits and thus, being entered into the halls of the ancestral spirits, brings from there a certain object - a piece of clay. Only initiated shamans could travel to the world of spirits and ancestors, and Gun turns out to be one of them. It is well known from the legends of many peoples of the world that nothing can be brought from the world of the dead or the world of spirits to the world of the living, for there is no way back, and otherwise both worlds will "get mixed up." Gun violated this prohibition, for which he paid with his life - in reality, he may have really been killed for violating the ritual or died in a moment of ecstatic trance, which often happens among shamans and mediums. Yu became his successor in the mission of transmitting the decrees of the spirits on earth.
Gun's death to a certain extent resembles the biblical tradition: after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, a mystical break in the connection between God and man took place. They not only violate the prohibition of God, but steal what belongs only to God - a kind of higher Knowledge ("they have tasted the fruit of the tree of Knowledge"). This is not only a violation of the prohibition, it is also an attempt to receive what can only belong to the highest, to become like it. Man was expelled from Eden, where he could communicate directly with God. And the way for him there is now forbidden.
In Greek myths, this disaster is known as the Deucalion Flood. The reason for this flood is in many ways similar to the biblical one: violation of divine codes by people. After Prometheus stole fire from the Olympian gods and passed it on to people, Zeus decided to punish not only Prometheus himself, but the entire human race. First, by order of Zeus, Hephaestus mixed earth with water and created a woman out of it, beautiful as a goddess. The gods endowed her with passion, charm and sent her to people. This was Pandora. She lifted the lid of the pithos jug, from where all the troubles of the world escaped. And people who previously lived without suffering and war, now were plunged into a series of troubles and conflicts. They began to suffer, ache and indulge in destructive passions, exhausting themselves.
But even after that Zeus did not calm down and decided to finally wipe people off the face of the earth. He unleashed a monstrous deluge on them. Only one Prometheus learned about the plans of Zeus and warned his son Deucalion. Deucalion, together with his wife Pyrrha (by the way, the daughter of Pandora) built an ark, loaded not everything they needed, and locked themselves inside. At that moment, a storm and waves flew in, rivers overflowed the banks, flooding the entire land. In the end, they stuck to the sacred mountain Parnassus (according to other versions, to Athos, Etna or Orphis), after which they sacrificed to Zeus and then gave birth to a new generation of people.
The sequence of events in the biblical and Greek myths is strikingly similar: people stealing some sacred, divine knowledge (in the Greek myth, Prometheus gave people not only fire, but also part of the wisdom of Athena), numerous sins and, in the end, complete destruction, as it were “zeroing of the old mankind. And then a start is given to a new humanity, a new cycle of existence of the earthly race.
The Chinese flood lore is essentially about a similar theme. But it speaks not only of man's struggle with the elements. There is also a kind of "intertwined" plot: about the breaking of the direct connection between spirits and people. Gun was entering the halls of spirits, and all the rulers before him, for example Yao, Shun, Fuxi, although they appear in legends as people, are endowed with the function of higher spirits. Most likely, they were all initiated magicians and tribal leaders who were really able to hear the "dictates of heaven". But he steals the "sacred ball".
It would seem that the spirits should welcome this - after all, it was with his help that Gun wanted to help people and build dams. But no, the essence of this act is different: it steals what can only belong to those who have left the human world. But what?
In later legends, this story is repeated, but in a slightly different interpretation: a certain “fruit of immortality” (usually a peach) or a pumpkin with the elixir of eternal life is stolen from the sky. This is where the key is: immortality can only be possessed by the highest initiates who have taken the form of spirits, that is, the spirits of the ancestors themselves! Gun claims that he can never belong to him by status. Doesn't this account of the biblical story remind us?
And now the direct, non-mediated connection with the spirit world is being broken. The new ruler Yu, although he defeats the flood, acts as a man - the founder of the first dynasty (in fact, a tribal union) Xia. Yu continues to possess magical abilities, but from now on there has already been a division into the spiritual and mundane worlds, into the upper and lower ones.
Another thing is also important: after the catastrophe a certain new stage of human development begins. A new era begins for people and the time of life on earth changes.
The flood is not only tradition
The flood, which appears in the legends of almost all the peoples of the world, is a vivid example of the global catastrophe through which our planet passes from time to time. Naturally, one should not assume that all the flood stories testify to the same event - this, of course, is not the case. Most likely, they reflect not only not the same event, but also with different reasons. After all, the flood is only a visible part of some very complex geological or cosmic processes. It can be caused by an underwater earthquake, an eruption of underwater volcanoes, the fall of large meteorites, etc. But people see only the consequences of all these processes - giant waves that literally devour the land, capturing everything around, washing away fields, dwellings, people.
Let's imagine how the story of the monstrous tsunami that swept the shores of South Asia and, above all, Indonesia in December 2004, could be told in legends. It seems that the brilliance and drama of the description would be in no way inferior to the biblical or devkalin floods.
A hurricane and waves that destroyed all of humanity … After all, for someone who sees in front of him only a raging water element without shores, it seems that the flood has a universal scale and no one, except a handful of exhausted and tortured people, survived. Civilization is over, we have to start all over again … After all, according to incomplete estimates, about 300 thousand people died from the oncoming wave in South Asia in 2004, and the tragic consequences caused by this “biblical deluge of our time” have not yet been fully calculated. In addition to direct victims literally washed into the sea, many people died from diseases that inevitably spread in such places.
Floods wash away civilizations, at whatever level of development they are. If even today, when there is a developed network of organizations to help victims around the world, each country has its own rapid response forces, there is an international community represented by the UN and its structures, it is still impossible to fully prevent the consequences of such disasters, then what to say about civilizations that existed thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago?..
After such a catastrophe, only a small group of people remain, who, in fact, have to start all over again, as it was, for sure, thousands of years ago. If other cultures and civilizations not affected by the catastrophe have not survived nearby, then the situation may be even worse. The affected civilization has nowhere else to get nourishment, and this applies to both the demographic revival of the people and the restoration of the cultural component.
The arrival of post-Flood humanity
humanity. All legends speak, of course, about the universal nature of this catastrophe, about the "worldwide flood." Of course, every nation in that era (we should probably talk about the middle of the 2nd millennium BC) considered itself as the central part of the whole world, and therefore the flooding of even a small territory on a planetary scale was perceived as something global, universal.
The flood washes away one civilization and gives rise to another renewed, but no longer sacred. This is how the biblical tradition, the legend of Atlantis, Greek myths, and many Chinese stories are presented.
Gustav Dore. Noah releases a dove from the ark to the ground. XIX century.
In China, for example, the flood is the borderline between the era of the great and wise rulers - the "five holy emperors", and the transition of government into the hands of ordinary people. For a long time, no one believed at all in the existence of the Five Holy Emperors, arguing that Fuxi, Shennong, who brought people knowledge of farming, Huang Di, Yao and Shun are nothing more than myths. Most likely, Yu and his struggle with the flood did not exist either. But since the beginning of the 50s. XX century. On the territory of Henan, unusual settlements were discovered, confirming what used to be only a legend - on the territory of China existed approximately from the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. the proto-state of Xia, in the reality of which few believed before.
The further discovery is also interesting: Sima Qian, in his "Historical Notes", from where we still get information about Chinese antiquity, even cites the family tree of the rulers of Xia. Yu comes first. At the same time, the genealogies of the rulers of all later eras, presented by Sima Qian, were fully confirmed on the basis of epigraphic monuments. Most likely, Yu really was the first ruler of a small formation of Xia, while power did not inherit him, but was transferred for merits. And this means that the old leaders and rulers voluntarily gave way, which is actually not very typical for early history, however, as well as for later periods.
It seems that a new period of the existence of civilization began on the Central Chinese plain, and the former, possibly very high in spiritual aspects culture, was buried under the waters. It is no coincidence that in many regions of the world the legend of the flood is accompanied by the idea of interrupting some cultural stage and the birth of a qualitatively different type of civilization of the new humanity. All this is consistent with the well-known theory that the birthplace of modern humans went under water, and humanity seemed to be revived again.
There are dozens of different versions of Yu's miraculous feat, many of which are very colorful, but obviously of a relatively late character. But they are based on some earlier legends. Let's see if they can shed more light on the China flood mystery.
Judging not only by the ancient legends that are widespread in China, Taiwan, Java, India, Japan, Korea, but also by the analysis of silt deposits in different layers of the earth, the flood is indeed a historical fact. And not just like a prolonged rain, but a real global flooding of a part of the land.
All the legends of Southeast Asia, surprisingly equally, convey not only the fact of the flood, but also what happened after it - a cardinal renewal of mankind. Usually, according to legends, only two remain alive - a brother and a sister or a mother and a son, who, after trials, enter into an intimate relationship with each other, and from them the entire human race comes from.
Here is just one legend. According to the legends of the Luzon people, once in ancient times there was a river that carried its waters from the sea. The river was watched over by a woman who cleared the debris, giving free flow to the waters. But one day she fell asleep, the mud filled the channel, the waters overflowed and flooded the whole land. All people drowned, only a brother and a sister escaped, who climbed into the box. They suffered for a long time without food, but finally an earthquake happened, the waters melted, and a brother and sister, having got married, laid the foundation for a family of people.
Exactly the same plot was repeated thousands of kilometers from Asia in Greece. After the flood that Zeus sent to people, only the son of Prometheus Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha survived. When their ark landed on Mount Parnassus, it turned out that none of the people were left alive. And then Deucalion and Pyrrha prayed to Zeus with a request to allow them to re-create the human race. Zeus heeded their prayers. He told the spouses to cover their faces and ordered them to throw stones over their shoulders without turning around. The stones thrown by Deucalion turned into men, and those thrown by Pyrrha turned into women. Their firstborn son was called Ellen, and he became the ancestor of the Greeks.
In essence, proceeding from the myth, Ellen is the ancestor of all people, since in the mythological consciousness, “people” usually mean only fellow tribesmen, people who speak your own language and live by your customs. As we see, in the Greek legend, after the flood, a new humanity is born.
The strange story about the birth of people, as well as the no less strange relationship between brother and sister, and in other cases son and mother, mentioned with enviable persistence in the legends about the renewal of humanity, is far from accidental, and we will still have the opportunity to discuss this story. For now, let's pay attention to something else.
Even an endangered species does not disappear immediately; this process can take tens of thousands of years. The final blow to the remains of the once mighty species was probably delivered by the flood. Sadly, but it is precisely the technocratic civilization that is destined to survive, while the spiritual experience, intuitive perception of the world and openness to the world here, alas, cannot help in any way. The flood washed away the remains of one of the species of Homo sapiens, while another species, maybe with a much less developed mentality, but well-versed in the manufacture of objects, including boats, adapted to various types of hunting, fishing and bee-keeping, survived.
It is noteworthy that the Great Flood in China falls precisely on the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, and it is after this event that the history of the direct ancestors of the modern Chinese begins. The mighty giants of antiquity probably remained in extremely small numbers, but the critical threshold, after which the irreversible extinction of the species begins, has been crossed. The sages disappeared, leaving behind great teachings, considerable spiritual experience, which was not fully perceived by anyone. Actually, it cannot be perceived, it belongs to other beings.
Could these two species have common offspring? Most likely not, since there are interspecific prohibitions, and even under favorable circumstances, this offspring, in turn, could not produce children ***. Although in many countries of the world we will meet legends about how the fallen angels came into contact with earthly women …
For example, there is a legend that the new great ruler of China Yu was given knowledge about the "map of the world" - a description of the lands not only of China, but also of other countries, for example, Mexico, Peru, Chile and even Africa. In part, it was set forth in the surviving treatise "The Canon of Mountains and the Sea" ("Shanhai Jing"). Some spirits (lin, shen) told the great Yu about this, which in Chinese can be understood not only as "wonderful", "unusual", "spiritualized beings", but also "spirits of ancestors." That is, perhaps, we are not talking about some transcendental "spirits", but about quite specific human beings, people noticeably different in their level of knowledge from the Chinese of that time. It is no coincidence that a peculiar attitude towards spirits has developed in China and Japan. They can not only pray and worship, but they can be offended and even punished.
Even at the beginning of our century, in the event of an unsuccessful prayer to the spirit for rain, they threw a tablet with the name of the spirit on the ground, trampled on the ground for a long time and angrily, sometimes urinated on it (let the spirit be especially insulting and humiliating!), And then put it in its original place and continued persuasion …
In fact, spirits are treated as people who stand on a higher level of wisdom, but, nevertheless, are somewhat vulnerable and even touchy in their own way. These people could take revenge, but, apparently, not so hard that there was no way to resist their anger. Compare this with the Greek concept of "the wrath of the Olympian gods" or with the usual for us call "not to anger God", which provides for the absolute impossibility of man to resist divine power. Chinese spirits are not so powerful creatures, you can negotiate with them, quarrel and almost always learn from them some kind of knowledge.
Punishment for the sins of incest
Why, following the biblical tradition, was a flood sent to people? Here, it seems, everything is clear - for human sins, for falling away from the commandments. At this point, the ancient tradition is very specific, but also unexpected.
The sixth chapter of the book of Genesis describes in detail the reasons for the judgment of the Lord, sent in the form of a flood. First of all, we are talking about some giants who lived on earth. “At that time there were giants on earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to enter the daughters of men, and they began to give birth to them. These are strong, glorious people since ancient times”(Genesis 6: 4). It is this fact that arouses the wrath of God: “And the Lord saw that the corruption of men on earth was great, and that all the thoughts and thoughts of their hearts were evil at all times” (Genesis 6, 5). So, as follows from the Bible, the anger of God and the punishment that manifested itself in the flood are directly related to the fact that "the sons of God began to enter the daughters of men."
What kind of "sons of God" are we talking about? The very fact of their connection with the "daughters of men" appears in verse 2 of chapter 6 of the Book of Genesis: "When people began to multiply on earth, and their daughters were born. Then the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and took them to their wives, whatever they chose."
The canonical interpretations of the Bible explain this as follows: "the sons of God" are the descendants of the family of Cain, the "daughters of men" are the descendants of Seth. This interpretation does not stand up to criticism. Firstly, both Cain and Seth were children of the same parents, so it is not clear why male descendants are “children of God”, and women are “daughters of men”, in fact, there is no difference between them, since both are “children of God. " Moreover, the anger of the Lord is not understandable, since they have not previously imposed any prohibitions on this kind of communication.
Secondly, the accusation that there was "great corruption of men", and the thoughts of people - "for evil at all times", which should flow from sexual intercourse between "daughters" and "sons", cannot be explained either.
It seems to us that the Bible here continues the theme of the parallel existence of two different groups of human beings. One, which was under the auspices of God - "the sons of God", comes from Adam and, perhaps, chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Genesis describe them. The "daughters of men" represent another group of humanity, and it was probably from among them that Cain took his wife. For example, in Deuteronomy the Israelites are called “sons of the Lord” as opposed to the Canaanites (Deut. 14: 1) and, naturally, there is no talk of any “offspring of Cain” anywhere.
But perhaps the "sons of God" meant completely different creatures, obviously of a human species (hence the possibility of joint offspring), while the "daughters of men" are precisely the descendants of Adam.
The joint offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" are giants, giants. The Greek text of the Bible here uses a term well known from Greek mythology - titans. Legends about the titans, about the fight against them (titanomachy) and about their final extermination are well known not only from Greek mythology, but from the legends of many other peoples of the world, for example, Chinese, Georgian, Armenian and Turkmen, from the folklore of the countries of Southeast Asia.
Egyptian ancestral home of giants
The strange "giants" as another type of humanity were also known in ancient Egypt. Most likely, it was from there that this legend migrated to Greece, giving rise to the famous story of the titans, giants and the struggle of the Olympic gods with them.
Mountains. Ancient Egyptian drawing on papyrus.
But even with the origin of the Egyptians themselves, the issue is far from being as simple as it might seem from reading a school history textbook - it is no coincidence that academic disputes about the origins of this people are still continuing. To begin with, we present a very interesting remark made in the 1st century. AD Roman historian Diodorus Siculus: “The Egyptians were foreigners who in ancient times settled along the banks of the Nile, bringing with them civilization from their ancestral homeland, the art of writing and a refined language. They came from where the sun sets, and were the most ancient of people."
Isn't it a very remarkable statement, given that Diodorus clearly expresses not so much his opinion as the traditional version of the origin of the Egyptians, which was firmly entrenched in the consciousness of the ancient world? First, they are "strangers", not local, some kind of alien people. But at the same time, the representative of the Romans - a people who have always extolled their culture and were very skeptical about the achievements of other peoples - is incredibly ready to recognize their high level of culture. It is amazing that he does not even call them "barbarians" and considers their language "honed", and the Egyptians themselves - "the most ancient of people"! Secondly, there is a relatively accurate indication of the direction from which the Egyptians came - "where the sun sets", which means, most likely, from the western Mediterranean.
A number of prominent historians, among whom the recognized authority professor V. B. Emery in his work "Ancient Egypt" (1971), notes the mysterious parallel coexistence of actually two races on the territory of Egypt, which probably correlated with each other as lords and subjects, and possibly slaves. Moreover, these races were so markedly different from each other, even in external data, that this seems to really confirm the theory of the arrival of "people from nowhere" to North Africa. In particular, in the 4th millennium BC. in Egypt a certain people is found, traditionally called "the followers of Horus", i.e. a solar deity associated with the sun and the power of life. Horus was usually depicted as a creature with a human body and an annual Ibis in a solar halo; in mythology, he appears as the son of Isis and Osiris. To avenge my father's deathhe kills his brother Seth and becomes the ruler of Egypt (how can you not recall the biblical parable of Cain and Abel!), and all the rulers of Egypt were considered "the sons of Horus."
Let us pay attention to what was the difference between these "followers of Horus". First of all, they were quite impressive in size. Let us refer, so as not to be unfounded, again to the opinion of V. Emery: “The theory of the existence of this race of masters is supported by finds in burials dating back to the late pre-dynastic period (3500 BC) in the northern part of Upper Egypt, which contain human bones, whose skulls were larger and whose bodies were much wider than those of the local population. The differences between them were so noticeable that any suggestion that these people came from an earlier trunk seems impossible."
The origins of this unusual race are still unclear to historians. It is interesting that they were considered followers of the solar deity Horus, who was also a wise ruler who brought a lot of useful knowledge to people. It is enough here to recall the legends about the Chinese first emperors Fuxi and Shennong, who also brought people the knowledge necessary for survival, in order to understand how close these versions are about superraces living in parallel with ordinary people, perceived by them as half-people-half-spirits and giving them wisdom. In almost all countries - in Egypt and China, Central America and Tunisia - these creatures acted precisely in the role of masters, wise, though not always merciful rulers.
And again, as the most remarkable feature of these people, their unusual sizes are noted, so large that they clearly indicate that we are talking about the parallel "cohabitation" of two completely different races. But where did these giants come from? “From where the sun sets,” the legend says. But in the adjacent regions we do not meet people of such large size that they could be attributed to something extraordinary. Does this mean that their ancestral home has disappeared, say, went under water? Or maybe they just completely moved from their lands, settling in nearby areas? Perhaps so, but what then prompted them to this resettlement, given that the developed culture of this race certainly means rich cult and ritual buildings that had to be abandoned as a result of the resettlement?
As you can see, different types of people coexisted on a well-defined area of land. They were really different: some were tall titans, others were quite ordinary. But they gave joint offspring. And this led to completely unexpected results.