Analysis Of Chinese Mythology: Shan Hai Jin

1. Introduction

Scholar Wang Guanghu said “China and Greece both are world’s most famous ancient civilized countries. Their abundant and beautiful myths are the literary treasures which have been releasing lofty light and the splendid flower of the two countries’ civilization.” (王光浒38) So, the meaning of myth is of great importance for China and Greek. Furthermore, scholar He Zhitao frankly said “creation myth is an important part of the mythology and the romantic and serious thinking of primitive human for epoch-making, creation of all things and the origin of human beings which include people’s value orientation, behavior standards, moral customs and other national awareness content. It inevitably affects the culture of psychology, way of

Shan Hai Jin is an important Chinese mythology classical classics, often called as one of the treasures of Chinese mythology, even seen as an ancient Chinese encyclopedia by some experts. This book includes eighteen chapters, which can be divided into two parts: the mountain and the sea. We can find a lot of famous mythology from the Shan Hai Jing, such as Nu Wa, West Queen Mother, Gun and Yu, the Yellow Emperor and Chi You, Tong Ladder, Optimus Prime and many other myths. Songs of the South is a poetry collection, from late Warring States period to the early Western Han Dynasty, edited by Han Dynasty scholars. Its main author is Qu Yuan. Qu Yuan was born in Chu, influenced by the Chu culture, so he used a lot of Chu myths and legends to write his poetry. The Heavenly Question contains many myths. Huainanzi is a book presided by the early Han Dynasty Huainan Wang Liuan. Compared to the mythological fragments recorded in the Shan Hai Jing and the Heavenly Question, the form of mythology in Huainanzi is usually complete, and the story is written in more detail, such as Nu Wa mends the

In Chinese mythology, Pangu was the creator of the world, and the first one born in the universe of the egg of God. He created the sky and the ground and then his body became the cosmology after his death. But his myth appeared in ancient literature until the late period of the Three Kingdoms. Long time ago, heaven and earth are one union, and the whole universe is a chaos. Pangu was born in the dark cosmology. He woke up and found that he was surrounded by the endless dark environment, so he wanted to change it. He split the dark chaotic world with a huge ax. The light gas rose which became the sky and the feculent darkness jumped which became the earth. Pangu worried about the current formation of the sky and the earth will be re-together, so he used all the strength to support the sky to move up with his hands and step on the earth with his feet. At the same time, his body was also growing. Eighteen thousand years later, the sky and the earth will never be closed. Pangu also exhausted all his strength, and finally fell down. His body, therefore, became into the wilderness, his hands and feet became into the mountains, the blood became into the rivers and lakes, teeth and bones turned into mineral treasures which buried in the ground, hair turned into forest, breathing gas turned into wind and rain, eyes turned into the sun and the moon, and the beards became stars. So, Pangu was regarded as the