Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 1 -- Greek Mythology
What particular watercourse was denoted by a certain name at a given time may never be clear.
What is clear, however, is that myth, geography and mysterious waters are already intermeshed.
We've begun our journey in mythical Greece, the source which, among other things, named our
planets, gave us Cupid, Chaos, Eros, Hades, the word "ocean," the Olympics. Underground
rivers are very much a part of that legacy.
As the Greeks were only one of many cultures with mythology pertaining to the underground,
however, we could have begun with subterranean tales from the Scandinavians, Tetons, Celts
and Welsh, the Chinese and Japanese, the Arabs and Central Asians, the Cherokee, Hopi,
Lakota, Mandan, Navajo, Pajaritan and Shawnee Native Americans, the Amazonians, Aztecs and
Incas, the Australian aborigines, the Bengals and Burmese, the Micronesians, Melanesians and
Malaysians, the Persians, the Buddhists and the Hindus.
Although we direct our interests toward Western culture, we must note that both myth and
philosophy filtered across the Euro-Asian landmass. Sanskrit scripture written between the 16th
and seventh century BC instructs,
These eastern rivers, dear son, flow along to the east and the western ones to the west. They
arise from the ocean and merge into the ocean and become that ocean itself. -- Chandogya
Upanishad, 6.10.1-2
“Arise from the ocean” sounds very much like evaporation, and if so, the Hindus had a 3,000-year
lead in the field of hydrology.
In Sumerian tradition, Enki was Snake Lord of the Abzu (Greek "abyssos," English "abyss"). His
ziggurat temple, surrounded by Ephratean marshlands, was the E-engura, the "house of the
subterranean streams."
But as we must sail onward, we can only tip our hats to the Snake Lord before we move to
philosophy.
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