The myth of ancient China about the creation of the world. Ancient myths of China: Creation of the world and people

In the section on myths Ancient China children will learn about how the world and people's lives were created, about brave heroes who protect their people from evil. How people got food, defended themselves from angry Chinese gods who sent difficulties, and how they learned to experience feelings and emotions. They will understand that the origin of the language, rituals, etiquette - all this came from ancient oriental legends!

Myths of Ancient China read

Name	Collection	Popularity
	Myths of Ancient China	348
	Myths of Ancient China	387
	Myths of Ancient China	394
	Myths of Ancient China	232
	Myths of Ancient China	12760
	Myths of Ancient China	557
	Myths of Ancient China	424
	Myths of Ancient China	713
	Myths of Ancient China	378
	Myths of Ancient China	1194
	Myths of Ancient China	208

China has long been famous for its rich mythology. Ancient Chinese, Taoist, Buddhist and later folk tales of the peoples of China laid down in its history. She is several thousand years old.

The main strong-willed characters became Chinese emperors and rulers, who were honored and respected by the peoples as a token of gratitude. Minor Heroes passed into dignitaries and officials. Ancient people did not know the laws of science, but believed that everything that happened to them was the deeds of the gods. Thanks to mythology, Chinese holidays that are still relevant to this day.

Mythology is the way of thinking of the people, their traditions, beliefs and teachings. She is breathtaking with her stories and stories. Usually the characters in the legends are presented as bold, unpredictable and infinitely kind. These brave men cannot be confused with any other mythology! Unfortunately, over time, the Chinese began to forget their myths, and in our time only separate fragments of legends have been preserved.

On our site you can read the myths of ancient China with interest, because Chinese legends are unique in their kind. Teachings bearing wisdom and kindness lay down in it. Due to this, the traits of philanthropy, responsiveness, inner harmony and morality. And this is so necessary for children in the future.

Initially, only the primitive water chaos of Hun-tun existed in the Universe, similar in shape to a chicken egg, and formless images wandered in pitch darkness. In this World egg, Pan-gu was born by itself.

For a long time Pan-gu slept soundly. And when he woke up, he saw darkness around him, and this saddened him. Then he broke Pan-gu's egg shell and went outside. Everything that was bright and pure in the egg went up and became the sky - Yang, and everything heavy and rough went down and became the earth - Yin.

After his birth, Pan-gu created the entire universe from the five primary elements: Water, Earth, Fire, Wood and Metal. Pan-gu took a breath, and winds and rains were born, exhaled - thunder rumbled and lightning flashed; if he opened his eyes, then the day came, when he closed them, night reigned.

Pang-gu liked what had been created, and he was afraid that heaven and earth would mix again into primordial chaos. Therefore, Pan-gu firmly rested his feet on the ground, and his hands on the sky, preventing them from touching. Eighteen thousand years have passed. Every day the sky rose higher and higher, the earth became stronger and larger, and Pan-gu grew, continuing to hold the sky on his outstretched arms. Finally, the sky became so high and the earth so solid that they could no longer merge into one. Then Pan-gu lowered his hands, lay down on the ground - and died.

His breath became wind and clouds, his voice became thunder, his eyes became sun and moon, his blood became rivers, his hair became trees, his bones became metals and stones. From the seed of Pangu came pearls, and from the marrow - jade. From the same insects that crawled over the body of Pan-gu, people turned out. But there is another legend, which is no worse.

* * *

The pair of divine twins Fu-si and Nyu-wu, who lived on the sacred mountain Kun-lun, are also called the progenitors of people. They were the children of the sea, the Great God Shen Nun, who took on the guise of half people, half snakes: the twins possessed human heads and the bodies of sea dragons.

There are different stories about how Nui-wa became the progenitor of mankind. Some say that at first she gave birth to a kind of shapeless lump, cut it into small pieces and scattered it all over the earth. Where they fell, people appeared. Others claim that one day Nui-wa, sitting on the shore of the pond, began to sculpt a small figure from clay - a likeness of herself. The clay creature turned out to be very joyful and friendly, and Nu-we liked it so much that she fashioned many more of the same little men. She wanted to populate the whole earth with people. To make her job easier, she took a long vine, dipped it into the liquid clay, and shook it. Scattered clods of clay immediately turned into people.

But it is difficult to sculpt clay without unbending, and Nui-wa was tired. Then she divided people into men and women, ordered them to live in families and give birth to children.

Fu-hsi taught his children to hunt and fish, make fire and cook food, invented "se" - musical instrument such as psaltery, fishing net, snares and other useful things. In addition, he drew eight trigrams - symbolic signs reflecting various phenomena and concepts, which we now call the "Book of Changes".

People lived a happy, serene life, knowing neither enmity nor envy. The land bore fruit in abundance, and people did not have to work to feed themselves. The born children were laid, as if in a cradle, in bird nests, and the birds amused them with their chirping. Lions and tigers were affectionate like cats, and snakes were not poisonous.

But one day the spirit of water Gong-gun and the spirit of fire Zhu-jun quarreled among themselves and started a war. The spirit of fire won, and the defeated spirit of water, in desperation, hit his head and Mount Buzhou, which propped up the sky, so hard that the mountain split. Deprived of support, part of the sky collapsed to the ground, breaking it in several places. From the breaches gushed The groundwater sweeping away everything in its path.

Nu Wa rushed to save the world. She scored five stones different colors, melted them on fire and closed up a hole in the sky. In China, there is a belief that if you look closely, you can see a patch in the sky that differs in color. In another version of the myth, Nu Wa repaired the sky with the help of small shiny pebbles, which turned into stars. Nui-wa then burned a lot of reeds, collected the resulting ashes in a heap and blocked the water streams.

Order has been restored. But after the repair, the world was a little skewed. The sky leaned to the west, and every day the sun and moon began to roll down there, and a depression formed in the southeast, into which all the rivers on earth rushed. Now Nu Wa could rest. According to some versions of the myth, she died, according to others, she ascended to heaven, where she still lives in complete seclusion.

Ancient Chinese mythology is reconstructed from fragments of ancient historical and philosophical writings("Shujing", the oldest parts of the 14th-11th century BC; "Yijing", the oldest parts of the 8th-7th centuries BC; "Zhuanzi", 4th-3rd centuries BC; "Letsi", "Huainanzi").

The greatest amount of information on mythology is contained in ancient treatise"Shan hai jing" ("Book of mountains and seas", 4-2 centuries BC), as well as in the poetry of Qu Yuan (4th century BC). One of the hallmarks of ancient Chinese mythology historicization (euhemerization) of mythical characters, which, under the influence of the rationalistic Confucian worldview, began to be interpreted very early as real figures of ancient times. Main characters turned into rulers and emperors, and secondary characters- in dignitaries, officials, etc. Big role played totemic performances.

Thus, the Yin tribes considered the swallow as their totem, the Xia tribes considered the snake. Gradually, the snake transformed into a dragon (moons), commanding rain, thunder, water element and associated simultaneously with underground forces, and the bird, probably in fenghuang - a mythical bird - a symbol of the empress (the dragon became a symbol of the sovereign). The myth of chaos (Huntun), which was a formless mass, apparently, is one of the most ancient (judging by the inscription of hun and tun hieroglyphs, this image is based on the idea of water chaos). According to the Huainanzi treatise, when there was still neither heaven nor earth, and formless images wandered in pitch darkness, two deities emerged from chaos. The idea of primordial chaos and darkness was also reflected in the term "kaipi" (lit. "separation" - "the beginning of the world", which was understood as the separation of heaven from earth).

The myth of Pangu testifies to the presence in China of the assimilation of the cosmos, characteristic of a number of ancient cosmogonic systems. human body and, accordingly, about the unity of the macro- and microcosm (in the period of late antiquity and the Middle Ages, these mythological ideas were fixed in other areas of knowledge related to man: medicine, physiognomy, portrait theory, etc.). More archaic in terms of stages should be recognized, apparently, the reconstructed cycle of myths about the progenitor Nuwa, who was presented as a half-human, half-snake, was considered the creator of all things and people. According to one of the myths, she fashioned people from loess and clay. Later variants of the myth also associate the establishment of a marriage ritual with her.

If Pangu does not create the world, but develops along with the separation of heaven from earth (only medieval engravings depict him with a chisel and a hammer in his hands, separating heaven from earth), then Nuwa also appears as a kind of demiurge. She repairs the collapsed part of the sky, cuts off the legs of a giant tortoise and props up the four limits of the sky with them, collects reed ash and blocks the way for the overflow of waters (“Huainanzi”). It can be assumed that Pangu and Nuwa were originally part of various tribal mythological systems, the image of Nuwa arose either in the southeastern regions of ancient Chinese lands (German researcher W. Müncke), or in the area of the Ba culture in the southwestern province of Sichuan (American scientist W. Eberhard), and the image of Pangu - in the southern Chinese regions.

More widespread were the legends about the cultural hero Fuxi, apparently the ancestor of the tribes and (Eastern China, the lower reaches of the Yellow River), who was credited with the invention of fishing nets, divinatory trigrams. God Fuxi taught people how to hunt, fish, cook food (meat) on fire. Originally a tribal cultural hero whose totem was a bird, Fuxi may have been represented as a bird-man. Subsequently, most likely by the turn of our era, in the process of the formation of the common Chinese mythological system, he began to appear in tandem with Nuwa. On the grave reliefs of the first centuries AD. e. in the provinces of Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Fuxi and Nuwa are depicted as a pair of similar creatures with human bodies and intertwined tails of a snake (dragon), which symbolizes marital intimacy.

According to the myths about Fuxi and Nuwa, recorded in the early 60s of the 20th century in oral existence among the Chinese of Sichuan, they are brother and sister who escaped the flood and then married to revive the lost humanity. There are only fragmentary references in written monuments that Nuwa was the sister of Fuxi (since the 2nd century AD), she was first named his wife only by the 9th century poet Lu Tong. The myth of the flood was recorded in the literature earlier than other myths ("Shujing", "Shijing", 11-7 centuries BC).

It is believed that flood myths originated among Chinese tribes in the area of the Huang He and Zhejiang rivers, and then spread to the areas of modern Sichuan. As noted by the American sinologist D. Bodde, the flood in Chinese mythology is not a punishment sent to people for sins (as it is considered only in modern versions of the myth of Fuxi and Nuwa), but rather a generalized idea of some kind of watery chaos. This is a story about the struggle of farmers with floods in order to manage land and create irrigation. According to the entry in Shujing, Gun, who is trying to stop the waters with the help of a wonderful self-growing land (sizhan) stolen from the supreme ruler, enters the fight against the flood.

Presumably, this image is based on the archaic idea of the expansion of the earth in the process of creating the cosmos, which was included in the legend about curbing the flood, which in myths usually marks the beginning of a new stage in the development of the world and life on earth. But his son Yu wins the flood. He is engaged in digging channels, land management, rids the earth of all evil spirits (a cleansing function characteristic of a cultural hero), and creates conditions for agriculture.

Since the ancient Chinese imagined the creation of the world as a gradual separation of the sky from the earth, there are references in the myths that at first one could climb the sky using special celestial ladders.

In later times, a different interpretation of the archaic idea of the separation of heaven from earth appeared. According to this version, the supreme ruler Zhuanxu ordered his grandsons Li and Chun to cut the path between heaven and earth (the first raised the sky up, and the second pressed the earth down).

Along with the idea of heavenly ladders and the path to heaven, there were also myths about Mount Kunlun (the Chinese version of the so-called world mountain), which, as it were, connected earth and sky: the lower capital of the supreme heavenly ruler (Shandi) was located on it.

These myths are based on the idea of a certain "world axis", which takes the form of not just a mountain, but also a capital towering on it - a palace. Another idea of the cosmic vertical is embodied in the image of a solar tree - fusan (lit. "supporting mulberry tree"), which is based on the idea of a world tree. On the Fusan tree live the suns - ten golden ravens. All of them are the children of Mother Xihe, who lives beyond the Southeast Sea.

According to the Huainanzi, the sun first bathes in the backwaters, and then rises to the fusang and travels across the sky. According to some versions, the sun is driven across the sky in a chariot by Xihe herself. Gradually, it comes to the extreme west, where it sits on another sunny jo tree, the flowers of which illuminate the earth (presumably an image of the evening dawn). The idea of a plurality of suns is associated with the myth of the violation of cosmic balance as a result of the simultaneous appearance of ten suns: a terrible drought sets in. A shooter sent from heaven And strikes an extra nine suns from a bow. Lunar myths are clearly poorer than solar ones. If the sun was associated with a three-legged raven, then the moon was originally, apparently, with a toad (three-legged in later representations) (“Huainanzi”). believed to live on the moon white hare, crushing the potion of immortality in a mortar (medieval authors considered the toad as the embodiment of the light beginning of yang, and the hare - the dark beginning of yin). The earliest fixation of images of a lunar hare and a toad is an image on a funeral banner (2nd century BC) found in 1971 near Changsha in Hunan.

If the solar myths are associated with the shooter Hou Yi, then the lunar myths are associated with his wife Chang E (or Heng E), who steals the potion of immortality from the shooter Yi and, having taken it, ascends to the moon, where she lives alone. According to another version, a certain Wu Gan lives on the moon, sent there to cut down a huge cinnamon tree, the traces of ax blows on which immediately grow back. This myth was formed, apparently, already in the Middle Ages in the Taoist environment, but the idea of a lunar tree was recorded in antiquity (“Huainanzi”). Important for understanding Chinese mythology are the ideas about the five star palaces (guns): middle, eastern, southern, western and northern, which correlate with the symbols of these directions: Tai Yi (“great unit”), Qinglong (“green dragon”), Zhuqiao ("red bird"), Baihu ("white tiger") and Xuan Wu ("dark militancy").

Each of these concepts was both a constellation and a symbol having graphic image. So, on ancient reliefs, the stars of the constellation Qinglong were depicted in circles and a green dragon was immediately drawn, Xuan Wu was depicted in the form of a turtle intertwined (copulating?) with a snake. Some stars were considered the embodiment of gods, spirits, or their habitat. The Big Dipper (Beidou) and the spirits inhabiting it were in charge of life and death, fate, etc. However, not these constellations appear in the plot mythological legends, but individual stars, for example, Shang in the eastern part of the sky and Shen in the western.

Among the deities of the elements and natural phenomena, the most archaic god of thunder Leygun. Perhaps he was considered the father of the first ancestor Fuxi. In the ancient Chinese language, the very concept of “thunderbolt” (zhen) is etymologically connected with the concept of “getting pregnant”, in which one can see relics of ancient ideas, according to which the birth of the first ancestors was associated with thunder or thunder, “thunder dragon”.

The hieroglyph zhen also meant "eldest son" in the family. At the turn of our era, there were also ideas about Leigong as a heavenly dragon. In the guise of a curved dragon with heads at the ends, the Chinese also represented a rainbow. Such images are known from Han reliefs. Judging by written sources, there was a division into a rainbow-hun - a male dragon (with a predominance of light tones) and a rainbow-ni - a female dragon (with a predominance of dark tones).

There were legends about the miraculous conception of the mythical sovereign Shun from the meeting of his mother with a large rainbow hun (dragon?). Wind and rain were also personified as the spirit of the wind (Fengbo) and the lord of rain (Yushi). Fengbo was represented as a dog with a human face (“Shan hai jing”), according to other versions, it was associated with a bird, maybe with a comet, as well as with another mythical creature Feilian, resembling a deer with a bird's head, a snake tail, spotted like a leopard (poet Jin Zhuo, 4th century AD).

The earthly world in Chinese mythology is primarily mountains and rivers (the medieval word jiangshan - "rivers - mountains", meaning "country", shanshui - "mountains - waters" - "landscape"); forests, plains, steppes or deserts practically do not play any role.

Graphic representation of the concept of "land" in ancient writing was a pictogram of "heaps of earth", that is, it was based on the identity of the earth and the mountain. The spirits of the mountains were characterized by asymmetry (one-legged, one-eyed, three-legged), doubling the usual human signs(for example, two-headed) or a combination of animal and human traits. The terrible appearance of most mountain spirits testifies to their possible connection with the chthonic element. An indirect confirmation of this can be the idea of Mount Taishan (modern Shandong Province) as the habitat of the ruler of life and death (a kind of prototype of the owner of the afterlife), of the lower world under the earth, in deep caves, the entrance to which is located on the mountain peaks.

The spirits of the waters are presented for the most part as creatures having the traits of a dragon, fish, turtle. Among the spirits of the rivers there are male (the spirit of the Yellow River - Hebo) and female (the goddess of the Luo River - Loshen, fairies of the Xiangshui River, etc.). Various drowned people were revered as spirits of the rivers; thus, Fufei, the daughter of the mythical Fuxi, who drowned in it, was considered a fairy of the Luo River.

Main characters ancient Chinese mythology- cultural heroes - the first ancestors, presented in ancient historical monuments as real rulers and dignitaries of ancient times. They act as the creators of cultural goods and objects: Fuxi invented fishing nets, Suizhen - fire, Shennong - a spade, he laid the foundation for agriculture, digging the first wells, determined healing properties herbs, organized barter; Huangdi invented means of transportation - boats and chariots, as well as garments made of cloth, and began the construction of public roads. His name is associated with the beginning of counting years (calendar), and sometimes writing (according to another version, it was created by the four-eyed Cangjie).

All mythical first ancestors were usually credited with the manufacture of various clay vessels, as well as musical instruments, which was considered an extremely important cultural act in antiquity. IN different options myth, the same act is attributed different characters. This shows that the connection between a certain hero and the corresponding cultural act was not finally determined immediately, that different ethnic groups could attribute inventions to their heroes. In the ancient treatise "Guanzi", Huangdi produces fire by rubbing wood against wood, in the ancient work "He Tu" ("Plan of the River") - Fuxi, and in the comments "Xiqizhuan" to the "Book of Changes" and in philosophical treatises ("Han Feizi" , “Huainanzi”) - Suiren (lit. “a man who made fire by friction”), to whom this most important cultural feat is assigned in the subsequent tradition.

All these cultural inventions, no matter to which of the first ancestors they are attributed, reflect far from the earliest ideas, since the heroes of myths themselves manufacture these objects. A more archaic way of acquiring them is considered to be stealing or receiving miraculous items as a gift from their owners from another world. Only a relic of one myth of this kind has survived - the story of the acquisition of the shooter And the potion of immortality from Xi Wangmu.

A visit by the shooter and the mistress of the west, which in Chinese mythology was associated with the land of the dead, can be interpreted as receiving a wonderful drug in the afterlife. This is in agreement with the nature of Chinese mythological thinking and later with the Taoist teaching, which aimed to find ways to prolong life and achieve longevity. Already in Shan Hai Jing there are a number of entries about immortals living in distant amazing countries.

The mistress of the west Xi Wangmu herself, unlike other characters who have pronounced features cultural heroes, is a completely different type of mythical character, originally, apparently, of a demonic character. In archaic texts, she has obvious features of zoomorphism - the tail of a leopard, the fangs of a tiger ("Shan hai jing"), she knows heavenly punishments, according to other sources, she sends pestilence and disease. The traits of a leopard and a tiger, as well as her dwelling in a mountain cave, suggest that she is a mountain chthonic creature.

Another demonic variant of the mythical hero is the destroyer of cosmic and social balance, the water spirit Gungun and the rebel Chi Yu. Depicted as an antagonist - the destroyer of cosmic foundations, the zooanthropomorphic water spirit Gungun fought with the spirit of fire Zhzhuzhong. (the struggle of two opposite elements is one of the popular themes of archaic mythology).

In a later myth, the battle of the many-armed and many-legged (in which one can see a figurative reflection of archaic ideas about chaos) Chi Yu with the sovereign Huangdi, the personification of harmony and order, is no longer depicted as a duel of two mythical heroes symbolizing opposite elements, but as a struggle for the power of the leaders various tribes, described as a kind of competition in the power of the lords of the elements in the spirit of a shamanic duel (in particular, the spirit of the wind Fengbo and the lord of the rain Yushi on the side of Chi Yu and the demon of drought Ba, Huangdi's daughter, on the father's side). Drought conquers rain, wind, fog, and Huangdi, as the supreme deity, takes over Chi Yu. In general, the war between Huangdi and Chi Yu, typologically similar to the struggle of Zeus with the titans in Greek mythology, can be represented as a struggle between the heavenly (Huangdi) and the chthonic (Chi Yu).

A special place in ancient Chinese mythology is occupied by the images of the ideal rulers of antiquity, especially Yao and his successor Shun. Yao, as the Japanese scientist Mitarai Masaru suggests, was originally one of the solar deities and was thought in the form of a bird, later he turned into an earthly ruler.

Initially scattered images of the mythology of individual ancient Chinese tribes and tribal groups gradually formed into single system, which was facilitated by the development of natural-philosophical ideas and, in particular, various classification systems, among which the five-fold system - according to the five elements - was of the greatest importance. Under its influence, the four-member model of the world turns into a five-member one, corresponding to five landmarks in space (four cardinal points + middle or center), the supreme heavenly ruler is now realized as a deity of the center.

In the inscriptions on fortune-telling bones of the ShangYin era (16-11 centuries BC), we find the sign “di”, which was a kind of “title” for the souls of deceased rulers and corresponded to the concept of “divine ancestor”, “sacred ancestor”. (Etymologically, the grapheme "di" itself, as the Japanese scholar Kato Tsunekata suggests, is an image of an altar for sacrifices to heaven.) With the epithet "shan" - "upper", "supreme", "di" meant the supreme heavenly lord (Shandi).

In the Zhou era (11-3 centuries BC), in ancient China, the cult of Tian (heaven) was also formed as a kind of higher beginning who governs everything that happens on earth. However, the concepts of Shandi and Tian were very abstract and could easily be replaced by images of specific mythical characters, which is what happens with the design of the idea of five mythical sovereigns. It can be assumed that the notion of sanhuang — three mythical sovereigns — Fuxi, Suizhen and Shennong (there are other options) recorded in written monuments in parallel with it, is a reflection of a different (ternary) classification system, which led to the appearance in the Middle Ages images of three mythical sovereigns - the sky (Tianhuang), the earth (Dihuang) and people (Renhuang).

The five mythical sovereigns included: the supreme ruler of the center - Huangdi, his assistant - the god of the earth Houtu, his color is yellow, under his patronage there was a temple of the sun, many constellations of the central part of the sky, as well as Ursa Major, the planet Tianxing ( Saturn); the lord of the east is Taihao (aka Fuxi), his assistant is the green spirit of the Gouman tree, the thunderer Leigong and the spirit of the wind Fengbo, the constellations in the eastern part of the sky and the planet Suixin (Jupiter), he corresponds to spring and green color; the lord of the south is Yandi (aka Shennong), his assistant is the red spirit of fire Zhurong, he corresponds to various constellations in the southern part of the sky, as well as the planet Inhosin (); the deity of the west is Shaohao (his name is "small light" is opposed to the name of the ruler of the east - "great light"), his assistant is white spirit Zhushou, the constellations in the western part of the sky and the planet Taibai (Venus) are correlated with it; the lord of the north is Zhuanxu, his assistant is the black spirit Xuanming, under his patronage were the temples of the moon and the lord of rain Yushi, the constellations in the northern part of the sky, as well as the planet Chenxing (Mercury).

In accordance with the fivefold classification, each of the mythical lords, as the ruler of the cardinal direction, also corresponded to a certain primary element, as well as a season, color, animal, body part, for example Fusi - a tree, from animals - a dragon, from flowers - green, from seasons - spring , from parts of the body - the spleen, from weapons - an ax; Zhuanxu - water, black color, winter, turtle, guts, shield, etc. All this indicates the emergence of a rather complex hierarchical system, where all elements are in constant interaction, and the possibility of transmitting the same ideas using different codes ("spatial", "calendar", "animal", "color", "anatomical", etc.). It is possible that this system of views is based on ideas about the origin of people and the cosmos from the primordial being.

Ordering the Ancients mythological representations simultaneously proceeded in terms of genealogical classification. Fuxi began to be considered the oldest ruler, followed by Yandi (Shennong), Huangdi, Shaohao, Zhuanxu. This hierarchical system was borrowed by historiographers and contributed to further euhemerization mythological heroes, especially after the formation of the Han Empire, when genealogical myths began to be used to justify the right to the throne and prove the antiquity of individual genera.

Majority mythological stories reconstructed according to the monuments of the 4th century BC and later. This is evidenced by Qu Yuan's "Questions to Heaven" ("Tian wen"), full of bewilderment about the plots of ancient myths and contradictions in them.

Subsequently, in the 1st century AD, the controversial philosopher Wang Chun gave a detailed critique of mytho-poetic thinking from the standpoint of naive rationalism. The withering away and oblivion of ancient mythological plots, however, did not mean the end of myth-making in the oral tradition. folk tradition and the appearance of new mythical heroes and legends about them. At the same time, there was a process of active anthropomorphization of ancient heroes. So, Xi Wangmu from a zoo-anthropomorphic creature in art and literature turns into an anthropomorphic figure, even, apparently, a beauty (in literature). Next to her, on the Yinan relief (Shandong, 2nd century AD), a tiger is depicted - the spirit of the West, which took on its bestial features (similarly in Huan Lin's "Biography of Xi Wangmu", 2nd century AD). In the Han era, the mistress of the west has a husband - the lord of the east - Dongwanggong. His figure is modeled on the model of a more ancient female deity, this is especially noticeable in his description in the “Book of the Divine and Amazing” (“Shen and Ching”), created in imitation of the “Book of Mountains and Seas”, where, unlike the reliefs, he has a zooanthropomorphic view (bird face, tiger tail).

China is a country shrouded in myths and legends. Middle Kingdom - ancient state, full of secrets and paradoxes. The industrious Chinese people have always had a corner filled with poetry in their souls.

Only the Chinese were able to mix lofty philosophy and strange, sometimes meaningless beliefs .

The legends and myths of ancient China have changed over time. Primitive folk religion, the common sense of Confucius, the rituals and magic of Taoism, the sublime spirituality of Buddhism - a melting pot, a combination of gods for all occasions.

Some Chinese myths have something in common with the legends of other cultures. For example, the myth of the creation of the world resembles many similar stories in which the world is formed from the body of a primary being.

In the beginning, there was darkness everywhere and chaos ruled.

An egg formed in the dark, and inside it was a giant came into being .

When he grew to a gigantic size, he stretched out huge limbs and thereby destroyed the shell. The lighter parts of the egg floated up to form the heavens, while the denser parts sank down to become the earth.

So the earth and the sky - Yin and Yang - appeared.

Pangu was pleased with his deed. But he was afraid that heaven and earth would merge again, so he stood between them . His head holds the sky, and his feet are firmly on the ground. Pangu grew at a rate of three meters a day for 18,000 summer period, increasing the space between heaven and earth until they were fixed at a safe distance from each other. Having completed his mission, Pangu died with a clear conscience, and his body went to create the world and all its elements .

Wind and clouds were formed from his breath , his voice became thunder and lightning, his eyes shone with the sun and moon, his arms and legs were the four cardinal directions, his teeth and bones shone with precious stones, and his phallus rose into mountains. His flesh turned into soil and plants, his blood into rivers, and so on.

And even though Pangu died, many believe that he is still in charge of the weather , which fluctuates according to his mood.

Legends of Chinese dragons

The dragon occupies a central place in the legends and myths of China. First dragon appeared in the mythical era of Emperor Fu Xi , and filled in the hole in the sky made by the Kung Kung monster. Chinese legends say that his awakening, sleep and breathing determined day and night, season and weather.

There are five types of dragons in Chinese mythology:

guarding gods and emperors;
controlling wind and rain;
earthly
river and sea;
guardians of hidden treasures.

The dragon is the highest spiritual power , the oldest in Eastern mythology and the most common motive in Chinese art. Dragons represent heavenly and earthly power, wisdom and strength. They live in the water and bring wealth and good fortune, as well as rainfall for crops.

The dragon always participates in traditional Chinese New Year parades. to ward off evil spirits who want to ruin the holiday.

Chinese Kung Fu Myths

Shrouded in legends and kung fu of China. Kung Fu - martial arts , the purpose of which is self-defense, health preservation and self-improvement. Eat common topics in different styles that imitate the movements of animals, draw inspiration from various Chinese philosophies, myths and legends.

In conclusion

The legends and myths of China, which were originally regional, spread through pictographic writing, overcoming language barriers. But even now in every province of the Middle Kingdom, there are local beliefs, and very strange and surprising. The gods here are cheerful and playful and endowed human weaknesses. China - Wonderland shrouded in countless legends and myths!

Chinese myths about the origin of man have several variants.

The first Chinese myth of the origin of man

The beginning of the beginnings was laid in the primitive water chaos of Hun-tun, which looked like a chicken egg. And around in impenetrable darkness wandered images, devoid of any form. It was in this egg-shaped structure that Pan-gu was born. For a long time he slept soundly, and when he woke up, he saw only darkness around him, and then Pan-gu became so sad. Wanting to get out, he broke the shell. Part of the fragments rose up and became the sky, called Yang, the other part of the coarser and heavier fragments sank down and turned into the earth - Yin. Pan-gu used five components to create the Universe: water, wood, earth, fire and metal. When the creator of the universe took a breath, it began to rain and the wind howled; exhaled - immediately a thunderstorm began, lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. When Pan-gu's eyes were open - it was day on the planet, when he closed them - everything around became dark, and night fell.

Pan-gu really liked his creation own hands and he was very afraid of losing it all again. The mighty Pan-gu stood firmly on his feet, raised his hands up and rested against the sky, now the earth and sky could not unite again and create primeval chaos. So he stood for eighteen thousand years, and every day the distance between the earth and the sky increased. Now they will no longer be able to connect in any way, and Pan-gu's duty is fulfilled. He lowered his hands helplessly, lay down on the ground and fell into an eternal sleep. According to legend, his eyes turned into the moon and sky, his blood gave rise to large rivers, his bones turned into huge stones. People on earth appeared from those insects that crawled over the dead body of Pan-gu.

Second Chinese myth about the origin of man also beautiful and a bit sad. According to its plot, the son and daughter of the majestic Shen Nong, the god of the seas and water, are considered the creators of people. Fu-si and Nyu-wu lived on the top of the sacred mountain Kun-lun and had the appearance of a half-snake and half-man. Moreover, the upper part was similar to a human form, but the torso and legs were similar to a sea snake. Of these two twins, Noi-va is considered the progenitor of all people on earth. The first version of the legend tells that Noi-va was able to give birth to a lump that had no shape at all. Then she took this lump in her hands and divided it into many small lumps. She threw these small particles so that they scattered all over the earth. In place of each fallen lump, people appeared. The second version says that one day, sitting on the shore of a pond, Noi-va, in her own image and likeness, molded a small clay figurine, which came to life and turned out to be very welcoming and friendly. And then Noi-va came up with a wonderful idea: to mold a lot of such figures. She really wanted these friendly creatures to populate the whole earth. It was very slow to sculpt such figures, and Noi-va found a solution: she took a long vine in her hands, lowered it into wet clay, and shook it above the ground. In an instant, the clay shattered into small lumps, and a person appeared from each small piece. But the earth is very large and Noi-va could not stick so many little men to populate the entire territory. Then she decided to give the little men feminine and masculinity, divide them in pairs and order them to live in peace and harmony and give birth to children. Fu-si in turn taught human race useful things: get food for yourself, kindle a fire, cook food. Gave a musical instrument, gave the first basics of science, or rather eight trigrams. And people lived happily: no one was at enmity, animals and people lived in peace, nature endowed them in full with its riches. But one day the spirits of water and fire quarreled and started a war. The victory was for the spirit of fire, Ju-jun, and the spirit of water, Gong-gun, became so desperate that he hit his head with all his strength on the mountain, which was a support for the sky. The sky broke in several places, and water poured out of the resulting holes, which swept away everything in its path. Noi-va rushed with all her might to save the earth from disaster. She melted the pebbles and filled the hole in the sky with them. The pebbles froze and turned into stars. Noi-va was able to restore order and tranquility to the earth. Now she deserves a rest. Someone says that Noi-va died, and someone that she flew away to heaven and from there keeps order on earth.