There are many stories in the Hindu religion that focus on creation and the beginning of the earth. This is one of the most popular and beloved ones:
Before time, there was nothing. There was no heaven, no earth, and nothing else. There was only a vast ocean of nothingness, so large as to be immeasurable. It was so large, no one would ever be able to comprehend it. The waves of this ocean licked at the edges of absolutely nothing, but in the middle of the ocean, there was a giant cobra. This cobra was coiled around the Lord Vishnu. Everything was utterly silent, and Vishnu slept in the coils, undisturbed by anything at all. There was only motion, and nothing else.
At one moment in time, from the depths of the ocean, a sound began to tremble its way forth. It was a constant hum, one of urgency that filled the entire ocean of nothingness with a throbbing of energy. Light began to fill the spaces where darkness was, and in the heat of the light, a flower began to bloom from the navel of the now alert Vishnu. In the center of that flower sat Brahma, the servant of Vishnu.
Vishnu looked at Brahma and said, The time has come. Let us create the world.
Brahma, the God of creation, stayed on the Lotus flower as everything around him disappeared. He was alone in the vast ocean, tossed on the now-furious waves. He lifted his arms to calm the ocean, and then set about splitting the flower. One part of the flower became the earth, another part became the sky, and the third part became the heavens.
But the earth was bare. Brahma set to work. He created flowers and grasses and trees, and gave them the ability to grow, and infused them with feeling. Then he created the animals of the earth, put the birds in the sky, and offered fish to the sea.
Soon the world was alive and well, and everything was growing. The silence of nothingness was filled with the joyous sounds of a world changing and growing by the minute. Brahma had created the world.