Cosmogony
Chaos dominated the dawning of the cosmos. The primordial abyss stretching as far as can be conceived. No up, no down, no sky, no land, no sea, no air, except for the swirling matter of chaos that raged like the roiling ocean. None can say how long this state held for time itself had not yet been born. But even in such primitive, unending days, the tides of change could not be held at bay for long.
What occurred next is the subject of much speculation and lines of poetry, and truly how can any man know for sure? Where wandering philosophers and roaming rhapsodes do agree is that from this primordial morass emerged the matter that would become the cosmos. Poets and mystics would claim these took the form of eggs, perhaps one perhaps three, the stories do not agree on this matter. Whether this is the literal truth of things I cannot say. Kunpit himself held that this matter must have been contained somehow in its primordial state, its arche, and conceiving it as an egg is as elegant a solution as any for a human mind to comprehend.
Within the shell of one of these eggs, so the stories say, arose the first two thinking beings that were ever to exist. Gennon of the bountiful earth and her twin brother, Gingel the great sacrifice. Theirs is a tragic tale if we are to take that told by the poets, but even to observe as the philosopher might there are many lessons we can take. Two forces pulling in opposite directions, causing an explosion of possibility that would be forged into the world we know today and shape the cosmos for eons yet to come.
Riso of the Tilxosu is the most renown of the poets here, his words captured and written down by Rusosu Polriso. Riso claimed that Gennon loved the home she found inside the egg and set herself the task for age after age of creating, moulding and crafting with the matter that was contained within. But her brother, Gingel, though at first he watched with curiosity, soon he grew tired and restless of this repetitive act. For him the egg had become a prison, a trap, a wall which prevented him from exploring all that lay beyond.
Finally, one day he cracked, and determined to venture beyond the egg, out into the great sea of chaos. The words of Riso once again serve to illustrate this act.
‘Enough of this dear sister. Your craft and creation may satisfy your needs, but I have a desire to see beyond the limits of our containment and venture into the great unknown.’
This is what it is claimed by the poet that Gingel declared before the act which set the creation of the cosmos truly into motion. All agree that despite Gennon’s fervent protestations, Gingel smashed the walls of the egg, scattering the matter of creation across the sea of chaos as he set out to explore and discover.
Such a description may well be the invention of those storytellers but perhaps reveals a truth of our world. That the cosmos was born in chaos, and the divine forces that shaped it, at first struggled to contain its power and expansion. Indeed, Kunpit saw things in this way, before the divine forces were able to tame existence, the swirling mass of chaos dominated all.
The poets claim that Gennon was broken by this act. She screamed and cried as her world was eviscerated, desperately trying to prevent the earth that she had nourished for eons being blown into dust, the air and sky that she had nurtured from dissipating into the swirling mist and the water of the ocean she had so carefully seeded, turning to a hissing steam and soring into the nothing of the void.
This was the state of the cosmos for many eons we are told, a swirling ever expanding mass of matter as Gennon sat and sobbed, then lay in silence for another age, then seethed in fury for millennia or more. This is where I can only turn back to the words of the poets, for they are all we have as anything close to a true account of these days. Riso states that Gennon eventually arose from her stupor stating to the expanse,
“I will rebuild what you took from me brother, a place to call a home and ensure that such destruction can never be wrought again. Revenge dear brother is all that is left between us.”
Whether this is to be taken as truth or allegory, who can say. The great master often spoke cryptically about such things. From reading his works and listening to his teachings, one gets the sense that the unconscious, irrational layer of his shade wished it to be truth, but the conscious, rational layer reasoned this feeling away, though sometimes it strove to break through.
Gennon worked tirelessly to gather all she could, dispersed as the matter of creation had been throughout the chaos of the void. This is the time that many poets claim that she discovered and smashed the other eggs that existed on the sea of chaos, though such a thing is disputed. It is then claimed that it is from these eggs and the actions of Gennon that first appeared the heavenly realm and the hidden realm and with them the cosmos began to take shape.
What all do agree on is that Gennon used the matter she had acquired to create her daughters. For three ages she is said to have laboured. In the charged atmosphere of the first, she worked and worked and from her efforts were born the Zulyuli. The second age saw three more daughters sired, the Betithelon, less elegant than the first, but powerful and relentless. The final age, saw the coming to being of the Betigulon, less powerful than their sisters, but more intricate in their art. Nine daughters in all, each imbued with the wrath that Gennon felt for her wayward twin.
If this is but a metaphor for the forming of the cosmos, it is one that is instructive nevertheless, for it is an instinctive illustration from the minds of the poets, for the theory to which Kunpit of Thelonigul gave articulation. The great master famously argued that the first layer upon which all is built is a physical one, much like that matter of the cosmos that Gennon so lovingly tended to. It is as we move into the second layer though that Kunpit outlined how a cognitive layer would develop, bursting with irrational emotion in its first iteration. There is an echo of this truth within the tale of Gennon’s daughters, a candour that can often be discerned through the voice of the rhapsodes.
It is with the help of her progeny, that Gennon sought to take her revenge. During this time, Gingel had not been idol. He had crossed the great ocean of chaos and the plains of pandemonium, seeking out new things and exploring the depths of a world not yet taken shape. It was this curiosity that was to be his undoing, for he spied in the distance as he wandered and alluring presence. Eager as her to learn and discover, Gingel set off in pursuit and this, so it is agreed, was to be his undoing. As he chased, the spectres disappeared and retreated, drawing him ever deeper into the void, until he realised that he had returned to the centre of his cataclysm, the place that the egg once rested.
It was here that he was confronted by Gennon and her daughters. It is worth returning to the words of the poet Riso of the Tilxosu here, for he claimed that Gennon triumphantly declared to her twin.
“Now dear brother, you have had your time to seek and explore. Just as you deprived me of my heart’s desire, the one thing that gave me pleasure, so I shall rid you of your ability to roam, wander and seek.”
Seizing the wayward twin, Gennon instructed her daughters to carry out a great sacrifice, the first of its kind and the act that brought Kolgennon into being. From his flesh was created the earth, his blood became the vast oceans, from his bones arose the great mountain ranges, his hair they took and seeded the trees and his brains they scattered through the skies to create the clouds. To contain their work, they fashioned his skull into the heavens. Then Gennon took her place at the centre of her creation, her great conception. Kolgennon.
As philosophers, what are we to make of this tale? Whether literal truth or metaphor? And what does it tell us about the nature of our cosmos? These are all questions which the great master wrestled with.
What conclusions he drew are instructive and give us a frame through which we should view our world, constrained as we are from our own perspective. Certainly, observing the way in which the layers of the cosmos were built and acknowledging that the physical layer is the outer bounds of what drives us, the cognitive layer informed by that world can give us perspective. But there is more than that. In the words of the poets, we see something of the human condition. They speak of cosmic forces that we could not possibly comprehend, so they give them the face of man, and ascribe actions and motivations to them in only a way that humanity could. Gennon’s desire to create, her longing for home, all traits that are so recognisable. But in Gingel we see that too, his lust for knowledge, his curiosity and drive to explore. These are traits you know well Tekolger for they are what push you towards the west, but you must also bear in mind those forces that motivated Gennon to act, for they are strong and will take grip in the minds of those who travel with you. Be wary of the desperate acts that such forces can steer men to take, that layer of emotion driven by the physical conditions of their existence. Not all men have the ability to listen to their reason when such passions are aroused.
Rusosu Polriso's account of the creation of the Cosmos