by Macy Abramson, Riley Johnson and Jada Smith

[I]n other stories we have approached and analyzed as a class, there have been mentions of a special, unique, all-powerful deity that was already existing and created the earth, followed by animals, humans, and any other source of life. Additionally, there have been stories that involve animals being the ones to aid in the creation of the foundation of the earth. However, the story of The Cosmic Egg handles the story of the earth’s creation in an
extremely diverse and extraordinary manner, and it is definitely a story that I personally enjoyed for those reasons. Another aspect of this tale that makes it so unique is the specific correlations it makes between the contents of an egg with the fundamental elements of the earth.

Jada Smith

We planned each page based on the original text, and then wrote the new text over that. Writing new text based on our original drawings, which were heavily rooted in the original text, gave our presentation a unique appeal. The new text and images came together in a really interesting way, and aesthetically leaned on each other. . . I wanted to be very careful in depicting these scenes as accurately and sensitively as possible. The idea that my drawings, if done poorly, would be seen as disrespectful was a cause for concern. Because of this concern, I ended up doing a bit of outside research looking into the popular depictions of the Hindu sun god, as well as images of Hindu monks. The fruits of this research can be seen in the latter parts of our booklet, and I think that this gave our adaptation more of an authentic edge

Riley Johnson

 It was important to our group that we build upon the original text without stripping it of its intention. To me, ancient texts are fragile and sacred artifacts. This mindset causes me to be weary of my natural inclination to westernize and throw my American touch on practically everything. When it came to adapting the text, I made sure to do brief research on the early Upanishads. Not enough to overwhelm myself, but as much as I needed to understand life in an early Hindu civilization. It was this simple groundwork that allowed me to rewrite the original Cosmic Egg story without colonizing it, if you will. . . We met up on a couple of Saturdays to work on our book, passing it between the three of us and adding something new with each turn. What’s so special about this is that it is reminiscent of the way the original story was created. Just as we joined forces to design our story, the writers of ancient creation myths melded their knowledge together to do the same.

Macy Abramson

For more artistic renderings of ancient cosmogonic stories, follow this link.