People around the world have tried over time to fashion stories that suggest how the world works and humanity came about. Some of them are vastly different, but they often share many of the same characteristics and events. This would suggest that humanity as a whole thinks relatively the same no matter where on Earth we are. Our stories and mythology are tailored to our immediate surroundings perhaps so that future generations can better understand them just by looking around them. Two texts that exemplify this common resemblance are the Norse creation myth and the Indian creation myth.
	The main similarity between the texts is the overarching theme of the cycle of death and rebirth. In both, the world is created as almost a sanctuary. The great Indian god Vishnu supplies gift-giving trees that provide humans with food, clothing, and decorative objects (Rosenberg, 292). To protect humanity from the evil frost giants, the Norse gods used Ymir’s eyebrows to build a wall to keep them separated (Rosenberg, 462). The protection and nourishment provided by the gods shows that both myths treat humanity in its infancy as children of the gods. As the humans grow up, however, they change and grow farther apart from their parental figures. At the end of their natural lifespan, the worlds are shattered shells of their former selves. The coming of Ragnarok in Norse myth prompts the great god Surt to bathe the lands in fire, discriminating against no man, god, or giant (Rosenberg, 465). Likewise, the Indian Vishnu takes on the form of Shiva-Rudra to intensify the sun’s rays and burn up the heaven, earth, and underworld (Rosenberg, 293). This common aspect of using fire is widely used to signify the purification and purging of an entity. “One must descend into Darkness to find the source of Light; one must die in order to be reborn (Opsopaus)”. Another example of this would be the phoenix, which burns to death every 500 years only to be reborn in the ashes of its predecessor.  Although both myths end with a charred earth, there is still hope as the earth is reborn afterwards and the cycle begins again.
The Norse view of life was brutal, yet simple. To live a good life was to fight the hardest you could and hope it was enough to be worthy of a final stay in Valhalla. This rough view on life was most likely due to the writer’s homelands being covered in ice and snow, with very unforgiving weather. In this culture, the many threats in their mythology would inspire its readers to work hard and fight even harder. On the other hand, the Indian creation myth shows that people have different desired virtues at different times. Their lives are constantly changing, and their mindsets change as well. In Krita Yuga, the first age of man after creation, everyone is devoted to meditation while later on in Kali Yuga, people measure virtue in material wealth alone (Rosenberg, 293).
	There is some semblance of comradery between the Norse gods and the humans that is not present in the Indian myths. When the king of Sweden disguised himself as an old man seeking knowledge, the gods replied, “Ask of us whatever you will, and you will leave here wiser than you arrived (Rosenberg, 461)”. They could have turned him away from their home or even given him wrong information, but instead they answered truthfully to the man. The gods may perhaps see humans as not inferior to them since both will eventually fight side by side when Ragnarok occurs. The gods of Indian myth do not interact with humanity directly at all. Instead, they influence nature during the four ages of Maha Yuga while people act on their own desires.
	Both myths are also similar in that they have a predefined timetable of events. “[The world] continuously moves from one Maha Yuga (great age) to the next, with each lasting for 4,320,000 years. Each Maha Yuga consists of a series of four shorter yugas, or ages, each of which is morally worse and of shorter duration than the age preceding that preceded it (Rosenberg, 292)”. This precise structure for the future leaves little to the imagination of man, whose fate is set in stone. The Norse creation myth’s time period is not as exact, but still does follow the same general path. MORE HERE
	Another shared concept is that society will deteriorate over time. This deterioration is most visible in the Indian myth, while slightly less visible in the Norse myth. The first age of Maha Yuga is an age of perfection, where humanity is provided with everything they could possibly need. “During this period, human beings need no shelters, whether they live in the mountains or by the sea. Everyone is born good and lives a happy, contented, unselfish, and beautiful life.” In the second age of Maha Yuga, people begin to attempt to make the giving trees their private property, after which they disappear and life starts to get hard for humanity. In the third age, disease, misfortune, suffering, and death are part of everyone’s existence. The fourth and final age brings humanity to its lowest point, where living to the age of twenty-three is considered to be old for many (Rosenberg, 292).” MORE HERE Norse(8).
	The gods of these myths are vastly different in how much power they have. Vishnu, the creator and destroyer of life on earth is far more powerful than the Norse gods. Vishnu exists eternally in his three forms: Brahma, the grandfather and creator of the world; Vishnu, the preserver of life on earth; and Shiva-Rudra, the destroyer of life on earth (Rosenberg, 294).  One god is responsible for all life and death on the earth, as opposed to the many gods of Norse mythology who act together to both create and destroy. Norse gods, like humans, know that their strength has its limits and one day they will die, most likely in battle.
	Humanity tries to come up with ways to explain the world around us, many times centering these explanations around ourselves. Through these creation stories, there are themes that are the same regardless of where in the world the story originated from. MORE HERE