“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

That’s one version. Here’s another: “Everything probably began with a Big Bang,” writes Nigel Calder in “Einstein’s Universe: The Layperson’s Guide.” “Enormous numbers of particles and anti-particles formed and disappeared in a frenzy of creation and annihilation. As the universe cooled and the energy of the prevailing radiation grew less, annihilation supervened, until only a billionth part of all that matter remained.” That billionth part is us, here, now, this.

Cultures are spawned by primal tales. Or are primal tales spawned by cultures? The Indian “Rig Veda” (translated by A.L. Basham) imagines a “primal man,” Prajapati by name, “sacrificed”: “The moon arose from (Prajapati’s) mind, from his eye was born the sun ... from his breath the wind ... from his navel the air, from his head there came the sky,” and so on. The earth came from his feet.

In the “Tao Te Ching” attributed to the Chinese sage Lao Tzu (circa eighth century B.C.) we read, “There was something vague before heaven and earth arose. How calm! How void! It stands alone, unchanging; it acts everywhere, untiring. It may be considered the mother of everything under heaven. I do not know its name, but call it by the word Tao.”

Myth-weavers of genius were the ancient Greeks. “In the beginning,” wrote Hesiod in the “Theogony” (eighth century B.C., translated by Stanley Lombardo), “there was only Chaos, the Abyss. But then Gaia, the Earth, came into being.” Is there not something vaguely Taoist about this? But what follows could hardly be less so. Hesiod’s primal universe, cataclysmically erotic, catastrophically violent, would have left the gentle Lao Tzu (“The Tao is something blurred and indistinct. How indistinct! How blurred!”) aghast and atremble. Gaia and her first child, “Ouranos, starry Heaven,” asexually born, mated and produced monsters, “strong, hulking creatures that beggar description ... outrageous children, a hundred hands stuck out of their shoulders, grotesque, and 50 heads grew on each stumpy neck. These monsters exuded irresistible strength.”

What a contrast is Japan! So gentle its beginning, so mild its unfolding. No monsters, little violence, much love, much humor — is Japan different because its myths are different? Or are its myths different because Japan is?

Japan’s earliest text is the “Kojiki” (712, translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain). “The names of the deities that were born in the Plain of High Heaven when Heaven and Earth began...” Such is its opening. There follows a list of names: “Master-of-the-August-Center-of-Heaven,” “High-August-Producing Wondrous deity,” and so on. Impressive names, but names of what? The names seem all. Rather than “god” or Chamberlain’s “deity” it seems best to retain the Japanese “kami.”

Its literal meaning — “higher,” “above” — is less awesome than any English equivalent. “I do not yet understand the meaning of the word ‘kami,’” wrote nativist thinker Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) in “The Spirit of the Gods” (1771, translated by Peter Flueckiger). “It ... includes (some) human beings. It also includes such objects as birds, beasts, trees, plants, seas, mountains and so forth. In ancient usage, anything whatsoever which was outside the ordinary, which possessed superior power or which was awe-inspiring, was called kami. ... Evil and mysterious things, if they are extraordinary and dreadful, are called kami.”

The “Nihon Shoki” (720, translated by W.G. Aston) speaks of “evil Deities that buzzed like flies.” Has any other culture ever spoken of its gods in such demeaning language? Maybe it’s not demeaning. Motoori writes: “The teachings of this august country have been transmitted unchanged since the age of the gods, without the slightest trace of human cleverness, so they may sound shallow on the surface. But in truth they are limitless and are imbued with a deep and mysterious principle that cannot be understood by the human intellect. The failure to understand this comes from being deluded by Chinese writings.” Confucianism, Buddhism and Chinese civilization in general, so rich and powerful and brilliant, everything early Japan was not, had led Japan disastrously astray. Motoori returned in spirit to Japan in its pristine state. Let us follow him — or the “Kojiki” rather.

In “the Plain of High Heaven,” in the seventh generation, Japan’s seed was sown. It is a nation conceived in love. A shy youth kami courted a shy maiden kami. They were elder brother and younger sister, but that is incidental. There is not a hint of incest in the tale. The youth’s name was Izanagi, the maiden’s Izanami. Their first task together was to create an island. The senior gods give them “a heavenly jeweled spear. So the two deities, standing upon the Floating Bridge of Heaven pushed down the jeweled spear and stirred with it.” The drops dripping from the spear became the island of Onogoro.

Here they erect a “heavenly august pillar.” Sparsity of detail permits us to imagine a kind of maypole around which the young kami lovers danced. Izanagi says, “We should create children.” Yes, they should — but how? Who can read this without recalling his or her own adolescent fumblings? Things go wrong: A “leech child” is born, deformed somehow, set adrift never to be heard of again. The young couple try again. The resulting offspring are the numerous islands destined in the fullness of time to be Japan.

Next are born myriad kami. Izanami dies, burned horribly giving birth to the fire-kami. Here the story turns filthy. “The names of the deities born from her vomit were...” “The names of the deities that were born from her feces were...” — and so on. It can’t be helped. High and low, beauty and filth, holiness and corruption — opposites they seem, one they in fact are.

Suppose we — humanity — could go back to “the Plain of High Heaven” and start all over again. The confusion of our own time breeds the thought. Would we write the story differently?