Where did Pangu come from? What was the world like before Pangu opened the world? The following Chinese story network Xiaobian will bring you detailed answers.
For a long time, among all kinds of myths and legends in ancient China, the origin of the world is Pangu’s opening up the world. Because Pangu opened up the heaven and earth, the later Nuwa created people, and the talent has everything in the future. Therefore, Pangu’s opening up the world is considered to be the origin of the mythical world. However, everything came after Pangu. What was it before Pangu? What was the world like before Pangu opened the world?
China has a long history and culture, and there are also many legends and stories. Although there are few first-hand literature, they are all systematized and compiled into a book through word of mouth, which is convenient for people to learn and study.
In many myths and legends, the ancestors are fond of talking about “Nuwa made man” and “Pangu opened the sky”. But every time these two stories are told, I can’t help asking: since Nuwa made man, where did Nuwa come from? Pangu opened the sky. Where did Pangu come from?
I think many people will have the same questions as me. In fact, not only modern people but also ancient people will wonder. Qu Yuan in the Warring States period asked similar questions.
Today, I would like to talk about my own understanding of Pangu. My personal knowledge is shallow and my knowledge is limited. If there is any error, I would like to point it out. However, we only talk about myths and legends. Scientists who have read the origin of species should move to the field of Science. It is very inhumane for me to tell you legends and science.
01 Qu Yuan asked Heaven
In his poem Tianwen, Qu Yuan boldly doubted all the stories passed down by people. From the beginning of the world to the Warring States period where he lived, from myths and legends to the rise and fall of history, only you can’t think of anything, nothing Qu Yuan dare not ask.
Tianwen means to ask about the sky and ask questions about it. However, this day is not the day in our usual sense, but the “Tao” similar to the Taoist school. It is a general term for things and phenomena, which is called “Fa Xiang” in ancient philosophy. In Tianwen, Qu Yuan asked, “how did heaven and earth come into being?”
Who preached at the beginning of ancient times? Why is it that the upper and lower levels are not shaped? Then, he turned from his doubts about heaven and earth to his doubts about myths and legends. He asked: Nu Wa has a body, but who made it? It means that I know that human beings were created by Nuwa, but tell me, who created Nuwa?
Is this very similar to our previous question about Pangu? In fact, Qu Yuan’s heavenly question is the thinking and exploration of human beings about things they don’t understand. Not only Qu Yuan has these questions, but since the spring and Autumn period, hundreds of schools of thought have explored and answered these things. For example, Lao Tzu has explored the origin of all things.
02 Pangu created the world
We are all very familiar with this legend. We heard it from childhood. It means that when the world is still chaotic, like an egg, a great god named Pangu wakes up from his sleep. When he sees chaos around him, he shouts, “there must be light!”, Then he took the axe beside him and chopped it violently. He said that chaos was split. The pure Qi rose into the sky, and the turbid Qi sank into the earth. From this, the world opened.
Pangu was afraid that heaven and earth would meet again, so he held his head to the sky and his feet to the ground. The day after tomorrow, Pangu’s height increased by ten feet every day. After many years, the structure between heaven and earth was stable, and Pangu was no longer needed to stand tall, and the great God was tired and fell down. After that, Pangu’s breath turned into wind and cloud, his voice into thunder, his eyes into the sun and moon, his limbs into the four poles, his blood into rivers, and his sweat into rain and dew.
03 documentation
The legend of Pangu’s founding the world has been circulating for a long time, but it was not until the Three Kingdoms period that it was compiled into a book by a man named Xu Zheng. This is the San Wu Li Ji, which records the historical legends of Pangu since his founding. This book has now been lost, and some of it has been included in Shuyi Ji, which can be circulated:
The world is as chaotic as a chicken. Pangu was born in it. Eight thousand years old. The world was opened up. Yang Qing is heaven. Yin and turbidity are the ground. Pangu is among them. Nine changes a day. God is in heaven. Sacred to the earth. The sky is ten feet higher. The earth is ten feet thick every day. Pangu’s Day grows by a foot. So 8000 years old. The number of days is extremely high. The ground is extremely deep. Pangu is extremely long. So the sky goes to the earth for 90000 Li. Later, there were three emperors.
The three emperors and five emperors are old enough, but after Pangu opened the world, the three emperors were born. If you rank according to myth, Pangu is the first.
We should know that whether it is the San Wu Li Ji or the later Shuyi Ji, the author’s books are not made up of his own imagination, but the collation of existing legends and stories. Therefore, although Pangu’s story was first recorded in the Three Kingdoms period, we can’t say that Pangu was created only in the Three Kingdoms period.
Like strange tales from a lonely studio, Mr. Pu Songling has sorted out many ghost fox stories spread among the people, but we can’t say that Mr. Pu Songling created the ghost fox.
04 origin of Pangu
Confucius talked but did not write. He said that he would only say things, not add his own thoughts, and not create and record them. Before Confucius, even fewer can be recorded in writing, which makes textual research difficult. Many western countries do not recognize the existence of China’s Xia Dynasty because there are no relevant written records.
When talking about the story of Pangu, Mr. LV Simian, a famous scholar, said, “gaiqi’s story is very old, so it is widely spread.” this means that the legend of Pangu is not fabricated out of thin air. The reason why it is widely spread is that these stories have a very long history.
As for the origin of Pangu, the general mainstream view is that it originated from the place of Baiyue, which refers to the coastal area of southern China, which is later called the place of Nanman. If you are more careful, it is the Guangdong area, so some people say that Pangu is the ancestor of the Cantonese people. This view is very consistent with the record in Shuyi Ji: “the ancient country of zhongpan in the South China Sea… There is a tomb of Pangu in the South China Sea today, which is 300 miles long. As the saying goes, later generations will chase and bury the soul of Pangu; there is a temple of Pangu in Guilin, and people today wish to worship it.”
A long time ago, there was a country in the deep South China Sea called Pangu country… Until now (Southern Dynasty), there are still Pangu tombs and Pangu temples there, and people still have the custom of worshipping Pangu. According to the research of experts and scholars, it is believed that the location of Pangu is the Lushan area of Guangdong Province, where the ancient Yao people lived. However, since China is too big and the myth of Pangu is not only spread in Baiyue, this view is also controversial.
The mainstream believes that this statement is reliable. Because many historical sites related to Pangu culture have been found in Baiyue.
05 Pangu is actually a Panhu (P á NH ù)?
Panhu was originally a dog of Gao Xin’s family. Gao Xin’s family was the great grandson of the Yellow Emperor. In ancient times, the five emperors had always been the emperor. It is said that in the period of emperor Ho, when someone made a disturbance, Emperor Ho said that whoever could take his head, I would grant him a thousand miles of land, a thousand taels of gold, and marry his daughter.
Although Panhu usually keeps his head down and doesn’t say a word, he doesn’t know that only dogs that don’t bark bite people. When he heard Dihao say this, he jumped up and took a bite out of the head of the leader of the chaotic army. What can Dihao do? Dihao is also very desperate. He can only marry his daughter to this dog as his wife. There is a curse, you know (squint).
From then on, Panhu had its own fief, and the local people respected him as their ancestor, and Panhu became human.
The place where this story is most widely spread also happens to be in the southern ethnic minority areas. According to our previous saying that Pangu originated from the place of Baiyue, coupled with the homophony of Panhu and Pangu, some people conclude that Pangu is Panhu.
Mr. Lu simian said, “nonsense!” I also think that Pangu and Panhu are not the same thing. You think, Pangu is the God of opening up the world. Panhu is only the ancestor of the southern barbarians, and the image of one is a towering giant, and the other is a dog. The difference is really too big. It would be too casual to judge the relationship between the two just because of the homonym.
06 is Pangu an alien god?
In addition, some scholars believe that the story of Pangu originated from India, because the period of the San Wu Li Ji was the Three Kingdoms period. There was no legend of Pangu before that, and Buddhism was introduced to China in the Han Dynasty. In addition, some places in the story of Pangu are similar to Buddhist stories.
This argument seems to be very reasonable, but there is no way to explain the core question: “if Pangu’s creation began in the Three Kingdoms period, how did the Chinese explain the formation of heaven and earth before the Three Kingdoms?”
In fact, all religions and myths are related, and it is not impossible to encounter them by chance. In terms of correlation, ancient Chinese philosophy is more relevant to Pangu’s creation of heaven and earth. For example, before Lao Tzu, heaven was the highest level God, and it was only from Lao Tzu that people began to think and explore the formation of heaven and earth: “there are things mixed together, and they are born naturally.”—— Laozi
07 ancient symbols
In ancient times, writing was not created yet. People could only pass it on by word of mouth. When they met simple things, they could record them by tying ropes. Well, since there is rope tying to record events, there must be other ways to record events, such as engraving a simple symbol on a stone or painting a simple picture on a stone.
These symbols and paintings are extremely important materials for later generations to study the culture of primitive ancestors. On an unearthed bronze square Ding, there is a special “ten” symbol. After the research of Guo Moruo and other experts, they determined that this symbol represents the meaning of Pangu. Similarly, although the symbols can be seen on the bronze square tripod, we cannot conclude that Pangu was born in the bronze age.
08 Yunnan Cangyuan rock painting
Archaeologists have found many murals in Cangyuan, Yunnan Province, of which 1063 can be identified. They are very important and precious historical materials with a history of at least 3000 years. Among them, there are people, animals, houses and trees, and the content of expression is also very rich, including hunting and gathering, war and dance.
Most importantly, in one of the paintings, there is a man with an axe in one hand and wood in the other. His legs stand upright and his head is still shining. This is very close to the image of Pangu, and the light on his head should represent the sun.
09 Malipo Dawang rock painting
With the discovery of the king rock painting in Malipo, scholars have not stopped interpreting it, and there are more and more proofs that the myth of Pangu’s pioneering came from a very long time.
First of all, according to documentary records, the God Pangu stands tall and upright. As the sky rises, Pangu’s body will also grow day by day. In the Dawang rock painting, there are two towering giants.
Secondly, in Shuyi Ji, it is clearly recorded that Pangu had a wife. The couple represented Yin and Yang. The two giants in Dawang rock painting had three fingers and four fingers respectively. According to the theory of the book of changes, three represented Yang and heaven, and four represented Yin and earth: “heaven one and earth two; heaven three and earth four; heaven five and earth six; heaven seven and earth eight; heaven nine and earth ten” — the book of changes
In addition, counting with fingers is also a method that will be used in the I Ching. Those fortune tellers, whether they are charlatans or real experts, will emphasize that they are proficient in the I Ching. When they are divining, they will pinch their fingers. “Pangu’s husband and wife, the beginning of yin and Yang” — Shuyi Ji
Through archaeology, it can be determined that the mural of the king is the site of the new era, and the new era can be recounted at least 10000 years ago. Thus, whether it is Cangyuan rock paintings, Dawang rock paintings or mysterious symbols, it can at least prove that Pangu was a mythical figure that existed in ancient China, a unique God in China, and not an alien.
As for whether Pangu really exists or not, it doesn’t matter. Westerners believe that humans came from Adam and Eve stealing forbidden fruits. There are also various creation legends in ancient Greece, which are all the same. Myths and legends are people’s thinking and exploration of unknown things. The ancestors gave romantic and magnificent imagination to the unknown world and weaved them into myths and legends, which are valuable cultural wealth of mankind. Disclaimer: the above content originates from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. If your original copyright is infringed, please inform us, and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.