The Universal Qualities of Chinese Creation Myths

The Universal Qualities of Chinese Creation Myths

From every culture and every generation come myths, myths that discuss things such as the existence of a god, the purpose of the sun and the moon and most importantly creation and how we came to be on this earth. Creation myths not only contain an explanation for our existence but will also say or demonstrate something distinctive about the culture from which it originated in a way unique to that culture. Despite the differences in time of their creation and the cultures from which they come, all creation myths contain universal elements, elements that can be found in creation myths from around the world. Chinese Creation myths, though created in a remote area of the world and nearly lost during the Han dynasty, contain several universal ideas, including the idea of chaos and the cosmic egg, and also have helped to define the roles of the family in the Chinese culture.

Chinese myth contains three basic creation stories. One involves Yin and Yang, one revolves around the goddess Nu Kua, and one discusses P'an Ku in conjunction with the yin and yang. For our purposes we will use the story involving P'an Ku, the most universal of the myths. The character P'an Ku, meaning coiled antiquity, can be found in the story of Nu Kua and in the different variations of the yin and yang myth. His story can be read in Hsu Cheng's San Wu li chi (Historical Records of the Three Sovereign Divinities and the Five Gods) and also Wu yun li-nien chi (A Chronicle of the Five Cycles of Time). This story has several variations, but the basic ideas remain the same. At the beginning, there was an egg inside of which was the entire universe, consisting of chaos and P'an Ku. He slept in th...

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...irm once again, that even in our ideas of creation, there are universal elements that help remind us of our similarities as human beings.

"The Tao is the One

from the one come yin and yang;

from these two, creative energy;

from energy, ten thousand things;

The forms of all creation

All life embodies the yin

And embraces the Yang

Through their union Achieving harmony."

Tao Te Ching Ch. 42

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Rosenberg, Donna. World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics. Lincolnwood, Illinois. NTC Publishing Group: 1999.

Shan, Jun. 1998. 12 October 2000. http://chineseculture.about.com/culture/chineseculture/library/weekly/aa08209