Separation of heaven and earth

The separation of heaven and earth is a major event in the creation of the cosmos found in many creation myths across the world, from Egypt to New Zealand.^[1] This event functions as a necessary precondition for the rest of the creation event, as before it, the cosmos is chaotic and undifferentiated, sometimes understood in the form of a universal cosmic ocean. The cause of the separation event differs by the mythology, but is either a spontaneous process or one caused by a specific deity. Sumerian literature mentions the separation of heaven and earth more than any other literature, but all the references are in passing, while Egyptian texts place a greater emphasis on the mechanism of the separation.^[2]

Ancient Near Eastern cosmology

Main article: Ancient Near Eastern cosmology

The cosmic and physical union (mythologically symbolized as a marriage) of heaven and earth is spoken of in ancient Near Eastern texts stretching back to the 3rd millennium BC. The first source that mentions their separation is from the late 3rd millennium BC, known as the Song of the hoe. During the 2nd millennium BC, these texts entirely shift in focus from describing a union of heaven and earth, to describing a separation between the two, as shown by Sumerian, Akkadian, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greek mythologies.^[3][4] In older Sumerian texts from the 3rd to early 2nd millennia BC, the original mass that was separated was a solid. In the younger Akkadian tradition, such as the Enuma Elish, the original mass was a water. In the Sumerian sources, heaven and earth are separated over the course of "long days and nights" (resembling the timeline in the Genesis creation narrative), by two gods: Anu, the King of Heaven, and Enlil, the King of Earth.^[5] Sumerian literature mentions the separation of heaven and earth more than any other literature, but all of the references are in passing.^[6]

The immediate cause of the separation event differs depending on the text. Usually, it is caused directly by the god Enlil, or it is a spontaneous event.^[7] In the Song of the hoe, Enlil is responsible. The first line in the creation myth of the tablet KAR 4 mentions the event: "After heaven was made distant and separated from earth, (its) trusty companion". The event is also mentioned in other stories like Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave, the Debate between silver and copper, Enki and Ninmah, OIP 99 113 ii and 136 iii.^[8][9] The introduction of an old Sumerian story called Gilgamesh, Enkidu, and the Netherworld says that heaven is carried off from the earth by the sky god Anu to become the possession of the wind god Enlil.^[10] Other Sumerian and Akkadian sources also have this idea,^[11][12] prominently in the Akkadian Enuma Elish. In this work, the god Marduk divides the corpse of the slain primordial goddess Tiamat into two parts, one stretched out to create heaven, the other to create the earth. As begins in lines 135–138:^[13]

135 The Lord [Marduk] rested, examining her [Tiamat's] dead body, 136. To divide the abortion (and) to create ingenious things (therewith). 137. He split her open like a mussel (?) into two (parts); 138. Half of her he set in place and formed the sky (therewith) as a roof....

The separation event is found in Hittite texts. In the Song of Kumarbi, it is implicit. It is explicit in the Song of Ullikummi, where the giant Upelluri, a counterpart of Atlas, say: "When heaven and earth were built upon me I knew nothing of it, and when they came and cut heaven and earth asunder with a cleaver I knew nothing of it."^[13][14] An Egyptian source refers to "when the sky was separated from the earth" (Pyramid Text 1208c).^[15] Other texts in Egyptian cosmology speak of how the sky god Shu lifts the sky goddess Nut from the god of the earth, Keb, thus separating the two asunder.^[16] In the Coffin Texts:^[17]

For I [Shu] am weary at the Uplifting of Shu / Since I lifted my daughter Nut atop me / That I might give her to my father Atum in his utmost extent / I have put Geb under my feet.

Chinese cosmology

In Chinese mythology and in Taoism, heaven and earth are separated. In earlier sources, this is a process that happens spontaneously. Later sources, after a primordial being named Pangu had been transformed into a great deity and the creator of heaven and earth, relate the separation of the two to Pangu. In earlier sources, Pangu is originally inside of heaven and earth. The three of them grow over the course of 18,000 years, eventually separating. In the Wuyan Linianji, the growth and separation of heaven and earth occurs naturally, and only later does Pangu begin to grow. In later texts, once Pangu had become transformed into the creator of heaven and earth, the growing body of Pangu is the cause of the separation of heaven and earth. Other late sources have heaven and earth being created out of distinct parts of the corpse of Pangu.^[18]

Early Greek cosmology

Main article: Early Greek cosmology

The separation of heaven and earth is described by Euripides, a playwright of the 5th century BC, preserved in a fragment from his lost play Melanippe the Wise, reported by Diodorus^[19]

And the tale is not mine but from my mother, how sky and earth were one form; and when they had been separated apart from each other they bring forth all things, and give them up into light; trees, birds, beasts, the creatures nourished by the salt sea, and the race of mortals

Some have interpreted Hesiod's Theogony to also possess indications of the idea of a separation between heaven and earth.^[20] Explicitly, the idea is also found in the Bibliotheca historica (1.7.1) of Diodorus Siculus and in the Argonautica (1.496) of Apollonius of Rhodes. In the latter, Orpheus sings of "how earth and heaven and sea were once joined together in one form, and by deadly strife were separated each from the other".^[21]

Islamic cosmology

See also: Quranic cosmology

The separation of heaven and earth is found in the Quran (21:30):^[22]

Do those who disbelieve not see that the heavens and the earth were (once) a solid mass [ratq], and We split the two of them apart [fa-fataqnā-humā], and We made every living thing from water?

In the Quran, ratq is a hapax legomenon, a word that only appears one time. In Arabic dictionaries, it means something that is patched up or sewn together, meaning that heaven and earth were once connected to one another. The separation is described using the verb fataqa, meaning "splitting, cleaving, unstitching, unsewing".^[23]

Polynesian cosmology

See also: Polynesian mythology

In the creation according to the Māori:^[24]

Rangi and Papa, or Heaven and Earth, were the source from which in the beginning all things originated. Darkness then rested upon the heaven and upon the earth, and they still both clave together, for they had not yet been rent apart.. . . Now are rent apart Rangi and Papa, and with cries and groans of woe they shriek aloud: 'Wherefore slay you thus your parents ? Why commit you so dreadful a crime as to slay us, as to rend your parents apart?

And in the creation story from the Gilbert Islands:^[16]

in the beginning there was nothing in the Darkness and the Cleaving-together save one person. . . . Heaven was like hard rock that stuck to the earth. And heaven and earth were called the Darkness and Cleaving together Then Na Arean called to him Riiki that great Eel and said, "Sir, thou art long and taut: thou shalt lift the heavens on thy snout." .. . Na Arean called aloud, saying, "Lift, lift." But Riiki answered, " I can no more, for heaven clings to the underworld." . . . He said again, "Slide sideways and cut. Heaven clings to the underworld." They answered, "We cut, we cut." .. . So Riiki the Eel raised the heavens aloft, and the earth sank under the sea.