Chinese legends about the origin of the universe
How the universe originated is a mystery that humans have been exploring. A long time ago, there were myths and legends about the creation of the world by Pangu.
1. Pangu, the founder of the world
According to legend, the world was originally a dark and chaotic mass, like a big egg. Pangu was conceived in the middle. After 18,000 years, suddenly the mountains collapsed and the ground cracked with a loud noise, and the big egg cracked. Some of the heavy and turbid things gradually descended and became the earth, while the light and clear things gradually rose and became the sky. The chaotic world was separated by Pangu. His hands are on the sky and his feet are on the ground. The sky rose one foot higher every day, the earth thickened one foot every day, and Pangu's body also grew ten feet taller every day. Another eighteen thousand years passed like this, and Pangu's body grew to a height of ninety thousand miles, standing like a huge pillar between heaven and earth, making it impossible for heaven and earth to close again and no longer become dark and chaotic. But Pangu was also very tired, and finally fell down and died.
Before Pangu died, strange changes occurred in the world. His voice turned into rumbling thunder, his breath turned into wind and clouds, his left eye turned into the sun, his right eye turned into the moon, and his body and limbs turned into the four poles and the five mountains of the earth. , his blood turned into rivers and lakes, his tendons turned into roads, his muscles turned into soil, his hair and beard turned into stars in the sky, his skin and fine hair turned into flowers, plants and trees, and his teeth and bones turned into Shining metal, hard stone and round bright pearls and jade, his sweat turned into rain and dew. All kinds of parasites growing on his body were nourished by the sun, rain and dew and became the dawn people of the earth. In this way, after Pangu created the world, he used his entire body to give birth to all things in the world.
There are also legends about Pangu’s divine power. Is he crying? The tears that flowed from time to time became rivers, and the flash of eyes became lightning. It is said that when he is happy, the sky will be sunny; when he is angry, the sky will be covered with dark clouds. He also said that when he opens his eyes, it is day, and when he closes his eyes, it is night.
Pangu, the founder of the world, was revered by the people. Various rituals and myths about worshiping Pangu are also spread among some ethnic groups in southwest my country. Legend has it that there is a Pangu tomb stretching for 800 miles in the South China Sea to bury his soul.
2. Nuwa refines stones to mend the sky
In ancient Chinese mythology, there is a goddess who nurtures all things and benefits mankind. This is Nuwa.
It is said that after the creation of the world, although there were mountains, rivers, lakes, flowers, plants, birds and beasts on the earth, there was no trace of human beings. The Great Mother Goddess Nuwa wanted to create a new life, so she grabbed the loess on the ground, kneaded it into the shape of little people, imitating her own appearance reflected in the water. As soon as these clay figures were placed on the ground, they came to life and jumped around. Nuwa named them "people". In this way, she fabricated many men and women out of yellow clay. But the speed of squeezing people with hands was too slow, so Nuwa picked up a piece of straw rope, stirred the muddy yellow mud and splashed it to the ground. As a result, the places where the mud splashed turned into lively people. So there are traces of human activities everywhere on the earth. Nuwa also matched men and women so that they could have offspring, generation after generation. In mythology, Nuwa is not only the founder of mankind, but also the earliest god of marriage.
Later, for some unknown reason, a big change suddenly occurred in the universe. Half of the sky? It collapsed, revealing terrifying black holes, and huge cracks appeared on the ground. The mountains and forests burst into flames, and torrential floods spewed out from the ground. All kinds of beasts, evil birds, and strange pythons came out to harm humans. Nuwa saw that mankind suffered such a tragic disaster, so she tried her best to save the world. She first selected many colorful stones from the river, smelted them into paste, and repaired the holes in the sky one by one. He also killed a big turtle, cut off its limbs and legs, and set them up on all four sides of the earth to support the sky. Then he killed the black dragon and drove away all kinds of evil birds and beasts, and used reed ashes to block the cross-current flood. Since then, the disaster has been subsided, mankind has been saved, and the world has prospered again. In order to make human life more pleasant, Nuwa also made a musical instrument called "Shenghuang" to allow human beings to have fun after work.
Nuwa is a mythical figure who originated in a matriarchal society. This myth reflects mankind's naive understanding of its own origins and natural phenomena at that time. The myths and legends of Nuwa are still circulated among the Miao and Dong people in southwest my country, and they worship her as the ancestor of their own nation.
3. The hero Kuafu Zhuri
"Kuafu Zhuri" is an ancient Chinese myth. It embodies the spirit of the primitive ancestors pursuing light.
Kuafu, a tall man, has great ambitions and is determined to chase the sun and do something earth-shattering. Kuafu hung two yellow snakes from his ears, held two yellow snakes in his hands, and carried a cane with him. One day, the sun rose, and he took great strides to chase him until he reached Yu Valley. Legend has it that Yugu is the place where the sun rests. After the sun sets here and takes a bath, he rests on the huge Ruomu and rises again the next day. At this time, I saw a huge red fireball right in front of me. Kuafu had entered the sun's light wheel and was completely surrounded by light. While he was congratulating himself on his victory, he felt extremely thirsty. So he bent down and drank heavily from the Yellow River and the Wei River. He drank all the water from the two rivers in a few times, but he was still unbearably thirsty. He ran to the north again, wanting to drink the water from Daze, which was a stretch of water stretching thousands of miles.
But before Kuafu reached his destination, he died and fell down like a mountain. Where the cane was dropped, a peach forest with lush foliage and abundant fruits appeared. Legend has it that in the southeast of Lingbao County at the junction of Henan and Shaanxi provinces, there is Kuafu Mountain, which is the relic left by Kuafu in the world. On the back of the mountain, there is a peach forest several miles wide. It is also said that there is also Kuafu Mountain in Hunan, and there are three huge rocks on it where Kuafu set up his pot.
4. Workers broke the sky pillar
Why do the sun, moon and stars rise in the east and set in the west? Why do rivers flow eastward? Legend has it that the water god's water god broke the sky pillar, and the water god became a symbol of justice.
After Nuwa repaired the sky, the sun, moon and stars moved normally for a long time. But then a war disrupted this situation. The two warring parties are the Water God Gong and the Emperor of Heaven.
***Gong is the son of Zhurong, the God of Fire. He has a human face, a snake body, and red hair. *** Workers are in charge of seven-tenths of the world's areas such as oceans, rivers, lakes, rivers, and ponds. In the great battle between Huangdi and Yandi, Huangdi used water to help his ancestor Yandi fight. He was the great-grandson of Huangdi, and Huangdi once asked him to exercise divine power on his behalf. But when he was in charge of the divine power, he did not care about the common people in the human world. He also sent people to cut off the passage between the human world and the heaven, and also oppressed the gods he was dissatisfied with. Even more unreasonable. He tied the sun, moon, and stars to the northern sky and fixed them there unable to move. In this way, some places on the earth are always bright, and some places are always dark, which brings disaster to people. The God of Water took the opportunity to lead his men to revolt, rise up to overthrow the rule of the emperor, and seize the throne of the Emperor of Heaven.
The war was very fierce. They fought from the sky to the foot of a mountain called "Buzhou Mountain". Buzhou Mountain is located in the northwest, with a strange and abrupt mountain shape. It is a very high sky-supporting pillar. Both sides here? The battle continued, and when the soldiers saw that they could not win for a while, they suddenly became furious and slammed into Buzhou Mountain. There was a loud crash and the Buzhou Mountain was broken in an instant.
At this time, another big change occurred in the entire universe. Without the support of Mount Buzhou, the sky in the northwest tilted down. The sun, moon and stars were no longer fixed in their original positions, but they all tilted involuntarily. He ran away to the west, so day and night were exchanged every day. The ground in the southeast was violently shaken by landslides and sank, forming China's topography of high in the west and low in the east. The water in the rivers also flowed involuntarily toward the east.
5. Xingtian, whose fierce ambition is always there
Xingtian is a famous mythological hero who fought against the Emperor of Heaven and failed to be beheaded but still continued to fight.
The Yellow Emperor defeated the Yan Emperor with powerful force and took the throne of the Central Heavenly Emperor. The Yan Emperor was forced to retreat to the south. But Yan Emperor's men were not willing to fail, and Xing Tian vowed to compete with Huang Emperor for the throne. Holding a shield in his left hand and an ax in his right hand, he started a fierce battle with the Emperor of Heaven. They fought all the way to Changyang Mountain. Huangdi saw the opportunity and slashed Xingtian's neck with his sword, and Xingtian's huge head was chopped off. Xing Tian became even more furious when he saw his head being chopped off. He showed no sign of weakness, using his two nipples as eyes and his navel as his mouth, waving his weapons and continuing to shout for battle.
Although Xing Tian failed, his perseverance and heroic spirit of fighting to the end are often praised by future generations. Tao Yuanming, a great poet of the Jin Dynasty, praised this beheaded hero with the poem "Xingtian dances with relatives, strong will is always there".
6. Jingwei holds a stone to fill the sea
"Jingwei fills the sea" is a mythical story of the ancients praising good wishes and perseverance.
According to legend, the youngest daughter of Emperor Yan, the sun god, went to the East China Sea to play, but unexpectedly fell into the sea and drowned. After her death, her soul turned into a little bird, called "Jingwei", with a flower head, a white beak, and red feet, and looked lively and cute. She was destroyed by the ruthless waves of grief and hate, and thought that others might also be deprived of their young lives, so she kept picking up twigs and stones from the Western Mountains and throwing them into the sea, hoping to save them. The sea fills up. She flies endlessly between the Western Mountains and the Eastern Sea.
Jingweiqi’s perseverance, kind wishes, and grand ambitions are respected by people. Tao Yuanming, a poet of the Jin Dynasty, wrote in his poem: "The Jingwei holds a tiny tree and will fill the sea." He warmly praised the tragic fighting spirit of the Jingwei bird who dared to fight against the sea. Later generations often used the phrase "Jingwei reclamation" as a metaphor for the arduous and arduous undertakings undertaken by people with lofty ideals and benevolence.
7. B You, who has a bronze head and an iron forehead
B You is a mythical figure who is extremely brave. He has 81 (or 72) brothers, all of whom have bronze heads and iron foreheads, sharp horns on their heads, and sword-like hair on their ears. They feed on sand, stones and iron, and are good at making all kinds of sharp tools. Weapons possess immense divine power.
A big war broke out between Huangdi and Byou. Byou mobilized his brothers and the southern tribes and the strange gods in the mountains, forests and swamps to kill Zhuolu, where the Yellow Emperor was located. The Yellow Emperor mobilized ghosts and gods from all directions, various beasts and some tribes in the Central Plains to fight. The battle was extremely fierce, and Byou was very changeable, blowing wind, rain, blowing smoke, and surrounding the Yellow Emperor's army in heavy fog. It was not until Fenghou, a minister of Huangdi, made a compass that Huangdi's army broke out of the fog. Huangdi invited Yinglong to try to drown the enemy with heavy rain. B You also invited Feng Bo and Yu Master to blow up a more violent wind and rain, causing Huang Di's army to flee in all directions. Huangdi also asked his daughter Ba to join the battle. The rainstorm disappeared in an instant. Yinglong and others waited for the opportunity to attack Byou, which frustrated Byou.
Huang Di used mythical beasts again? His skin was made into a drum, and the bones of the God of Thunder were used as drums? . The sound of the drums was earth-shattering and could be heard five hundred miles away. Byou's army was devastated. Huangdi also laid out a changing formation map and surrounded Byou's army heavily. Byou was defeated and captured.
B You was killed with Zhuolu. The shackles on his hands and feet were thrown away and turned into a bright red maple forest, which was stained with B You's blood. It is also said that he was killed in the middle of Yizhou, and his head was in a different place, so he was called "Jie", which was later known as Jie County in Shanxi.
8. The hero Yi shoots the sun
Yi is a god who is good at archery. Even if a bird flies by, Yi can shoot it down with one arrow.
It is said that when Yao was emperor, ten suns appeared in the sky together, bringing severe drought to mankind. The land was so scorched that it was smoking, the seedlings were all withered, and even the copper, iron, sand and stone were so soft that they were about to melt. The people felt even worse, and the blood seemed to be boiling in their body cavities. Strange birds and beasts came out from the flaming forests and boiling rivers and lakes one after another to hurt the people, making the people suffer even more. When the Emperor of Heaven knew about this, he asked Yi to go to the mortal world to save the people. The Emperor of Heaven gave Yi a red bow and ten white arrows.
Yi followed the order of the Emperor of Heaven and came to the mortal world and was welcomed by the people. He then took a stance, bent his bow and arrow, pointed it at the fireball in the sky, and shot it with a whoosh. There was no sound at first, but after a while, I saw fire flying in the sky and fireballs exploding silently. Then, something loud and bright fell to the ground. People rushed to check it out, and it turned out to be a three-legged crow, golden in color and extremely huge. It must be the incarnation of the sun spirit. Looking at the sky again, there was one less sun and the air seemed cooler. People couldn't help but cheer in unison. This encouraged Yi, and he fired arrows one after another without caring about anything else. He saw the fireballs in the sky burst one by one, and the sky was filled with flowing fire.
Yao, who was standing on the earth altar watching the archery, suddenly thought that the world cannot live without the sun, and hurriedly ordered someone to secretly take an arrow from Yi's quiver. Finally, there was only one sun left that was not shot down by Yi. .
After Yi shot down the nine suns, he also killed many strange birds and beasts for the people. Among them are the "Chisel Teeth" who eats people, the "Chisel Teeth" with teeth like chisels, the "Nine Infants", a water and fire monster with nine heads, the "Great Wind" that destroys houses, and the "Ba She", a giant Dongting python that makes waves. "And the big wild boar "Seal?"
9. Chang'e ran to the Moon Palace by mistake
Chang'e was originally a goddess in the sky. Because her husband Yi had been ordered by the Emperor of Heaven to go to the human world to eliminate harm and demons, she followed him to the earth. Yi was away all day long, shooting down nine suns for the people, killing strange birds and beasts, and not taking care of his family. Chang'e gradually became dissatisfied with him. One day, Yi asked for the elixir of immortality from the Queen Mother of the West. If two people take this elixir together, they can live forever; if one person takes it alone, they can ascend to heaven and become a god. Yi took the medicine home and gave it to Chang'e, asking her to keep it well. He wanted to choose an auspicious day to eat it together. But Chang'e felt that she had suffered a lot since she came to the world with her husband. Since the elixir has the magical effect of ascending to heaven and becoming a god, why not just take it alone!
One night, while Yi was not at home, Chang'e poured out the elixir from the gourd and swallowed it all. Suddenly her body felt light and fluttered, and she floated out of the window involuntarily, flying straight into the sky. As she flew, she thought that if she arrived in Heaven, the gods would laugh at her for being selfish, and it would be difficult to meet her husband, so it would be better to hide in the Moon Palace for a while. Unexpectedly, as soon as Chang'e arrived at the moon palace, her backbone kept shortening and her waist and belly expanded outwards, and finally she turned into an ugly toad. Therefore, in many ancient poems, the moon is called "Toad Palace".
There was another legend later, saying that she did not turn into a toad, but was still an extraordinary and beautiful fairy. But she was very lonely in the moon palace. The only people who kept her company all year round were a white rabbit making medicine and a laurel tree. Later, there was another Wu Gang who was punished by the Emperor of Heaven to do hard labor. He kept cutting down the osmanthus trees, but the osmanthus trees followed the cutting, and he could never rest.
10. Dayu, who controlled floods and provided disaster relief
In ancient times, the floods were overwhelming and the earth was covered with vast oceans. People had no place to live. Some people found caves to hide in the mountains, and some hid in trees. Write about birds making nests. Birds and beasts also compete with poor humans for territory and food. Dayu was appointed by the Emperor of Heaven and brought his assistant Yinglong to save mankind and control the flood.
Yu Xian led the gods in the world to drive away the water god's workers who were causing trouble. Then he asked a big black turtle to carry the soil on his back and follow him. This breath soil is a kind of sacred soil. As long as it is placed on the ground, it will continue to grow and accumulate into mountains. Yu used it to fill up the abyss along the way. Yinglong was also clearing the way ahead, using his tail to mark the ground. Yu asked the people to dig river channels where Yinglong's tail crossed and guide the floods to the rivers and seas. When he arrived at Tongbai Mountain, Yu managed to capture the water monster Wuzhi Qi. The shape of Wuzhiqi is like an ape, but it is stronger than nine elephants. It jumps up and down all day long, and there is never a moment of silence, so that the place is always windy and thunderous. Yu locked Wuzhiqi's neck with a big iron chain and pinned him under Turtle Mountain. Yu was very busy with flood control and had no time to spare. He passed by the door of his house three times without going in.
After many hardships and hardships, Yu finally cured the flood, but there were other disasters. There is a monster with a snake body and nine heads named "Xiang Liu". He is greedy and violent and wants to eat things from nine mountains in one breath. If he touches or sprays any place, it will immediately turn into a puddle and harm the people. Yu then used his divine power to kill Xiang Liu. At this time, the world was at peace, people lived and worked in peace and contentment, and Yu became emperor.
The local officials from Kyushu sent a lot of copper, and Yu asked the craftsmen to make nine tripods. The tripod is engraved with images of various poisonous insects, pests, beasts, demons and ghosts, making people wary of these things in advance. The people were grateful for Yu's kindness and called Baoding "Yu Ding". Later, "Yu Ding" was used as a synonym for identifying evil.
Yu worked conscientiously throughout his life to seek happiness and peace for mankind, and was revered by people from generation to generation. The Dayu Temple with towering buildings was built in the southern suburbs of Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province to commemorate his achievements.