Talk:Chinese mythology

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This article on Chinese mythology is rather incomplete and lack distinction between ancient tribal myths and later fantasies in imperial Chinese society. Here is some reading material:

http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/exbirchp.html

Chinese Myths

Back to Book Description

By Anne Birrell

   * Table of Contents
   * Introduction

Table of Contents

   * Introduction
   * Origins
   * Divine cosmos
   * Catastrophe myths
   * Mythic heroes and heroines
   * Gender in myth
   * Metamorphoses
   * Fabled flora and fauna
   * Strange lands and peoples
   * Continuities in the mythic tradition
   * Suggestions for further reading
   * Picture credits

• Index

Introduction

The mythology of Chinese culture and civilization is contained in a variety of sacred narratives which tell how the world and human society were created in their present form. They are sacred narratives because they relate acts of the deities in addition to other episodes, and they embody the most deeply felt spiritual values of a nation. A generally accepted Western definition of myth as 'sacred narrative' reflects the meaning of the Chinese term for myth, shen-hua: shen means 'divine, deity, holy'; hua means 'speech, tale, oral narrative'. The concerns of myth also extend beyond the accounts of the deities, including stories about world catastrophes of flood, fire, drought, famine, of eating, exile and migration, besides leadership qualities, human government, the hero figure and the foundation of dynasties, peoples and clans.

The modern study of mythology combines the disciplines of anthropology, the classics, comparative religion, history, folklore, literature, art and psychology. This broader line of inquiry into the nature of myth contrasts with the study of myth in the nineteenth century, which centred more narrowly on questions of origins and the idea of myth as an explanation of primitive science and primitive society. Compared with the study of Western mythologies, especially those of Greece and Rome, the study of Chinese myth is still in its infancy. Initially, the study of Chinese myth was heavily influenced by the origins and explanations, or 'etiological', approach. But it is now opening up to more contemporary theories of comparative mythology and the worldwide study of mythology, so Chinese mythology is proving to be a valuable and exciting treasure trove of mythic themes, motifs and archetypes.

The subjects and concerns of Chinese mythology can be traced back to the cultural and environmental factors which shaped the earliest form of Chinese civilization in antiquity. The beginnings of this civilization are inex tricably linked to its favourable environment. Three zones of ecogeographical systems developed in the land mass of China. There is the temperate North China belt with its fertile plains alluviated by the Yellow River. Its seed culture of millet and hemp, mulberry and fruit trees, and grasslands were conducive to the evolution of wild and domestic plants and animals, and to human habitation. But this region was also prone to harsh winters, severe droughts and catastrophic floods. The South China belt forms a second zone, with a stable, mild and humid climate, the region being alluviated by the Yangtze River. Its vegetative propagation culture benefits from an all-year growing season. It is an aquatic agricultural system that is favourable to rice, beans, lotus, bamboo, fish and turtles. The third zone is the Deep South China belt with rich coastal fishing grounds and a tropical ecosystem.

The different but equally favourable environments of north and south contributed to the dual origin of human culture in China, and led to the emergence of numerous communities of similar economic levels but with varying cultural systems. The earliest known sites of human habitation are the Neolithic settlements at Banpo in the Wei River valley in the north (near modern Xi'an, Shaanxi province) and Hemudu in the Yangtze River valley in the south-east (Zhejiang province). These centres of village farming are datable to around 5000 BC for Banpo and (by radiocarbon techniques) 3718 BC for Hemudu.

The environmental factors of climate, terrain, vegetation, animal life, mineral resources and topology contributed to the gradual evolution of diverse food-producing communities in the major river valleys of the Yellow (Huang) River, the Wei and Han Rivers in the north, the Huai River in the central region, and the Yangtze River in the south.

The development of Chinese civilization must also be viewed from the perspective of its ancient borders and its neighbouring countries in antiquity. China was to some extent protected by natural barriers. It was bounded to the north by the Gobi desert, to the west by the Kunlun and Himalayan mountains, to the east and south-east by the sea. This geographic cordon ensured that embryonic Chinese settlements were neither systematically eliminated nor repeatedly invaded by neighbouring peoples. On the other hand, the geographic disposition of its borders allowed for corridors and routes of communication which facilitated cultural diffusion. Modern research is still in the process of determining which cultural inventions are indigenous to China and which were the result of cultural diffusion. It is believed that millet, the staple crop of north China, arrived from fertile oases in Central Asia, and that rice originated in India and arrived in China by a land route of transfusion through south-east Asia. The cultural innovations of a writing system and metallurgy that were successfully exploited by the rulers of the earliest Chinese state may have been transmitted from non-Chinese peoples rather than independently invented by the ancient Chinese. Other cultural influences are discernible from Siberia in the north, Melanesia in the southeast, Tibet in the south-west, and most crucially from Central Asia in the west through the Tarim Basin, whose peoples formed points of contact with the Middle East and Near East.

The ambiguous relationship between the relative insularity of the Chinese land mass and the proximity of neighbouring ethnic peoples raises the question of the origins of the Chinese people. Considering the size and importance of the region, firm evidence is remarkably poor for their physical origin. The major discovery of skeletal remains in a cave at Zhoukoutian near Beijing, which has been radiocarbon-dated to 16,922 BC, were initially classified as Peking Man hominids but are now believed to be related to American Plains Indians rather than Asiatic or Mongoloid types. The earliest Mongoloid skeleton was found in south China, in Guangxi province, though its date and identification are indefinite. Identification is insecure for an incomplete skull from Sichuan province dated at 5535 BC. One authoritative view is that the origins of the Chinese derive from Mongoloids who represent a mixture of racial populations of great antiquity, which are as diverse as Polynesians and American Indians. But the evidence for the ancestry of the people inhabiting the land mass of China between 10,000 and 5000 BC awaits further archaeological research.

Coming to the Neolithic period, skeletal remains from village cemeteries of north China dating from around 5000 BC show Mongoloid features with no significant ethnic diversity. For the later period of antiquity, the Late Shang era c. 1200 BC, data from sacrificial pits show a great diversity of racial origin, including Melanesian, Eskimo and Caucasoid types. But the ethnic origins of people buried in sacrificial pits, who were presumably non-Chinese prisoners of war, may be separated from the ethnic identity of the emergent civilization in China during the late second to early first millennia BC. Current scholarly findings lead to some firm conclusions. First, the Neolithic northern population shows a considerable physical homogeneity. Second, the population of north China has remained surprisingly homogeneous since the Neolithic era (c. 5550-c. 2000 BC). Third, the data point to the lack of any significant migration to or foreign invasion of the region during and since around 5000 BC.

Of the three ecogeographical systems in the land mass of China, the North China belt proved to be the most favourable for the development of China's first state and for the beginnings of Chinese civilization. Early on, its culture expanded to take the form of numerous ethnic communities distributed along the main river valleys of the Yellow, Wei, Han, Huai and Yangtze rivers. Their traits were equally developed by the Neolithic era. One of these ethnic groups emerged by about 1700 BC as the dominant power in the Yellow River region of the Central Plains. It progressed to become the first Chinese dynasty, the Shang, with a major site of power in Anyang city (modern Henan province). Two separate Neolithic northern cultures have been identified by their pottery styles: the Yangshao culture of painted pottery developed along the Central Plains region of the Yellow River, while the Longshan culture of unpainted black pottery was distributed over a large area to the south and east. The Shang state took its genesis from the Longshan culture of Henan province. It rose to prominence in an era of unprecedented cultural and technological innovation. The success of the Shang was due to its superior system of military organization, control of food production, urban settlements, institutions of kinship and the priesthood, methods of transport and communication, and its distinctively robust artistic expression. The Shang state had the power and authority to organize the construction of impressive buildings and to attract specialists such as record-keepers, soldiers, retainers and artisans to maintain the state apparatus and to conduct large-scale ritual ceremonies, including human sacrifice in the burial rite of the ruling elite.

Two factors played a crucial role in the rise of the Shang state and the beginnings of Chinese civilization. Technological expertise in bronze metallurgy meant supremacy in war and material culture. The invention of a usable writing system consisting of graphs or characters by around 1200 BC led to improved methods of social organization through the bureaucratic and administrative control of commerce, calendrical regulation of agriculture, foreign affairs, alliances and religious practices.

Central to the identity and function of the state was the Shang concept of a priestly king. The king's functions were to make divination to the royal ancestors, to conduct rituals in honour of the ancestors, to make a sacred and symbolic progress through Shang territory, to hold audience, to bestow honours, to lead in war, and to lead the royal hunt. The king's was an itinerant power, as there was no fixed Shang capital. Instead there were several sites that served as ritual, technological and funerary centres. The king ruled through the intercession of the great god Di (pronounced Dee).

One of the north-west regions visited by Shang kings was the Wei River valley west of the Yellow River, which was inhabited by the Zhou people. The Zhou belonged to a different ethnic group from the Shang, but they absorbed Shang cultural influences. They were a warrior people and in time they conquered their Shang overlords and established the Zhou dynasty c. 1123 BC. Zhou society was organized into strictly defined social classes and functions, with a dual emphasis on warfare and agricultural productivity. The Zhou kings embarked on a military strategy to unite the diverse communities of the north and south, extending their power into what is now Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, and to the regions north and south of the Yangtze River. They reorganized these settlements into a loose federation of kingdoms (guo) to form the Zhou state. Military expansion was reinforced by a hierarchy of aristocratic warriors and a food-producing peasantry who supplied conscript service and forced labour.

The Zhou introduced moral rigour to their political and social system, echoes of which are to be found in China's first literary work, the Zhou Classic of Poetry of around 600 BC. The Zhou abandoned the great god Di of the Shang, and instead they worshipped the sky god Tian, with the Zhou king designated as Son of the Sky God (Tian Zi). Zhou divination methods included the use of milfoil or yarrow stalks, culminating in the Zhou text Classic of Change (Yi jing, pronounced E jing).

The Zhou political system flourished for several centuries but by the fourth century BC it had begun to disintegrate. As early as the year 771 BC Zhou power was effectively diminished, and the capital was moved east from Xi'an to Luoyang, but the king retained nominal control over the federation of kingdoms. These kingdoms gradually formed independent centres of political, military and economic power. They began to merge into larger polities that in the Warring States era of the fifth to third centuries BC contended for supremacy over a reunited state. The most militaristic of these kingdoms, the Qin of Shaanxi province in the north-west, successfully unified the residual Zhou kingdoms into the first Chinese empire. Though shortlived (only sixteen years of rule), it was followed by the four-centuries-long Han empire, which continued Qin socio-economic policies and consolidated imperial power.

Although the Shang had developed a writing system, its main function was divination by the priesthood and later by the king alone. Thousands of inscriptions found at Anyang city consist of oracle bones. The Shang script was not used to record their origins, myths or sacred history. The disintegration of the Zhou empire in the fourth century BC led to cultural fragmentation and the dispersal of older value-systems. Hence the perceived need for classical writers to record and preserve for posterity the remembered heritage of their sacred history. Since their different versions of the myths are relatively consistent, it must be assumed that these writers were drawing on a communal fund of oral traditions that date from before the first recorded myths in China's earliest text, the Classic of Poetry. Very few recognizably Shang or Zhou myths survive. Most recorded myth is undatable and takes its ancestry from the date of the written texts that were themselves based on an archaic oral tradition.

The myths of ancient China that emerged from the oral tradition were preserved in classical texts during the Age of the Philosophers with the advent of literary texts in the sixth to third centuries BC. The decline of the Zhou coincided with the emergence of great thinkers and writers, such as Confucius and Mencius of the Confucian school and Zhuang Zhou of the Daoist school. Ancient China had no Hesiod, Homer or Ovid to retell the mythic oral tales at length. Instead, Chinese writers introduced fragmentary passages of mythic stories into their works of philosophy and history to illustrate their arguments and give authority to their statements. Chinese myth thus exists as an amorphous, diffuse variety of anonymous archaic expression that is preserved in the contexts of philosophical, literary and historical writings. They are brief, disjointed and enigmatic. These mythic fragments incorporated into miscellaneous classical texts vary in their narration, and authors often adapted myth according to their own point of view. The result is that Chinese myth survives in numerous versions, the content of which is broadly consistent, but which shows significant variation in the details. Whereas the reshaping of archaic oral Greek and Roman myths into an artistic form of narrative literature implies the loss of the authentic oral voice, the Chinese method of recording mythic fragments in a wealth of untidy, variable stories is a rare survival of primitive authenticity.

The themes of Chinese myths have significant parallels with those of other world mythologies. Where they diverge is in their central concern and cultural distinctiveness. Major mythic themes are narrated in several versions, such as the six story lines of the creation of the world and the four flood myth stories. The world picture of one Chinese creation myth shows similarities with ancient Egyptian cosmology. Other creation myths in the Chinese tradition contrast with the Biblical and other versions in their lack of a divine cause or a creator. One major creation myth, the myth of the cosmological human body, has features similar to ancient Iranian mythology. Chinese flood myths are unique for the absence of the motif of divine retribution and of divine intervention in halting the deluge. Instead, the central concern of the major Chinese flood myth focuses on the concept of human control of the catastrophe through the moral qualities of the warrior hero. Drought myth, probably deriving from the arid conditions of parts of north China, finds frequent and eloquent expression.

Myths of cultural benefits resemble those of other mythologies in two respects: deities are the divine originators of these benefits, and deities are the first to teach humans how to use them. Chinese culture deities are mostly masculine figures. Female deities often figure in cosmological myths, but their mythic narratives have been obscured for us by later scribal prejudice. Modern gender theory has rediscovered vestiges of their myths, such as the creator goddess and maker of humankind, and the mother goddesses of the sun and moon. Myths of dynastic foundation give a unique emphasis to female ancestors, followed by male founding figures, as with the Shang and Zhou origin myths. The theme of love is rare and is narrated in a sexually non-explicit manner, which may suggest early prudish editing. Divine birth is expressed through animalian agency, such as a bird or a bird's egg, or through parthenogenesis, for example from the belly of a male corpse, or an old woman's ear, or a hollow tree. Metamorphosis colours the stories, with objects turning into trees of brilliant and symbolic foliage, or figures becoming a bear, a bird or a star. The foundation motif becomes more frequent in later classical texts as dynastic rulers, ethnic peoples and major families claimed divine descent through populous and conflicting genealogical lines.

Themes of divine warfare and cosmic destruction are significant. There are also the important themes of a second beginning of the world after a hero has saved humankind from a major catastrophe, and of a Golden Age of wise kings who are ideal rulers and inaugurate the first human government. Less strong are themes to do with agriculture, the pastoral life, migration, exodus and exile, odyssey and the epic, and gender conflict. A major theme is the perception of foreigners in myths of the self and the cultural 'other'. Recurring themes of the warrior and the moral hero are represented in numerous episodes. Chinese heroic myth differs from other mythologies in its early emphasis on the moral virtue of the warrior hero.

Many figures depicted in mythical episodes represent cultural archetypes. The saviour figure occurs in myths that feature the creator goddess and the first human giant whose body becomes the universe. The archetype of the nurturing deity is represented by female cosmological and calendrical figures, such as the mothers of the sun and moon, and by the numerous male culture gods. Divine vengeance is symbolized by the myths of Woman Droughtghoul and Responding Dragon, who execute other deities on the command of a great god. There also appears the archetype of the failed hero, and the archetypal trickster figure, though these are not fully delineated in the myths. The stereotype of the successful hero figure is represented in several myths, for example the grain deity Sovereign Millet and the queller of the deluge, Reptilian-Pawprint. The moral hero Hibiscus is the archetypal hero and the leader of his people. These themes, archetypes, symbols and motifs will be developed and explored in the following chapters.

Ji Guang

An article called Ji Guang was created yesterday; it contains almost no content and a search on the web returned no related results. In fact, the link from Chinese mythology is the main thing that saved the article from speedy deletion. Is anyone reading this able to add some more information on the topic ? Otherwise, in its present state, the article Ji Guang should probably be proposed for deletion. Schutz 22:51, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Xing Tian

Is there anything about turtles?

Flood Myth

Need elaborations: There are three different legends involving the flood in Chinese mythology. One is a story of an angry and impetuous god who creates a flood that nearly drown the world before the other gods could stop it. The second one deals with a marriage between a brother and a sister, which may have been taboo in primitive time. The third story is a flood that sinks a city, killing everyone except a good-hearted person. (unknown)

There are probably many more than that. There are several documented variations of the Nuwa myth, and many more tribal accounts. mamgeorge 16:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Best way to deal with the many competing version is in a separate page. --Sumple (Talk) 05:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Probably best to give the most common (or the oldest), then a statement about variations, and a link for further review... This was done with Nuwa. By the way, I am somewhat familiar with variations on the Nuwa myth; I have not yet heard of one explicitly mentioning a city. If "unknown" can, please add this detail to Nuwa or Talk:Nüwa. Please be sure to document your story. mamgeorge 15:34, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Organization

Note on what I'm doing with this page

If anyone's interested, I'm trying to categorise and elaborate on the myths previously jumbled up in the form of a list at the bottom of the page. To do this, I have created several categories, chronologically for the creation myths, and by religion for the religious myths. I will try to move the myths listed into their rightful categories, and link/contextualise each one. The sources that I am using are various books on Chinese mythology, as well as articles on English and Chinese wikipedias. As each myth/mythical personality becomes categorised, they will be deleted from the mass list at the bottom. Hopefully eventually that list will disappear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sumple (talk • contribs)

(added from talk:mamgeorge)

Hi Mamgeorge, my original scheme at Chinese mythology was to list things in the "mythical chronology". That is, in terms of the Chinese mythology which most people in China believe in, what "came first" and what "came last". Thus, for example, Pangu came "earlier" than, say, Huangdi, even though he may be a later creation in terms of source documents.

I'm not insisting that the scheme has to be kept that way, but just thought I'd let you know. This is also why "creation myth" is listed before "the five emperors" or whatever they're translated as.

Anyway, continue to enjoy reading your contributions! --Sumple (Talk) 13:19, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello, Sumple.

I see your point. I had no intention of violating any scheme; and I see your goal, now that I am looking for it! I immediately considered how I might adapt my contributions to fit, but am now thinking a "chronology" of mythology might be problematic in the light of conflicting claims.

For example, Shangdi, Tian, Taiyi, Pangu, Yu Huang, et. al. are all claimed to be "originators" (Nuwa is a special case, and variations say she at least has a father).

Let me know how you think this might be better represented. Thanks!

mamgeorge 14:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Hehe. Yeah, I've been thinking the exact same thing. Perhaps, an over-arching chronology in terms of creation --> kings --> dynasties, but within each one... put the competing claimants in order of when they appeared?

Sumple (Talk) 00:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Material relating to novels

I removed the following piece of writing from the introduction because it appears to deal with novels, and not mythology. I've moved it to the talk page so that it can be re-inserted into a more appropriate part of the article (e.g. on mythological fiction) later:

"The writing of such stories sparked various writers, influenced by the alchemist's ideas and Taoist and Buddhist superstitions, were interested in inventing stories about gods and ghosts. Some of them show their unusual imagination and mastery of the written language. This practice was continued in the next period, the period of Southern and Northern Dynasties.

"But the dawn of fiction, in the true sense of the term, came much later, in the middle of the Tang Dynasty, when many well-known writers and poets went in for story-writing. Their stories have a wide range of subject matter and themes, reflecting various aspects of human nature, human relations and social life. In form they are not short notes or anecdotes like the tales produced before them, but well-structured stories with interesting plots and vivid characters, often several thousand words in length. Among them are many tales whose main characters are gods, ghosts, or foxes.

"Mythical stories of the Song Dynasty show strong influence of Tang fiction, but hardly attain the Tang level. One achievement in the field of fiction worthy of special mention is the compilation of the great Taiping Guangji or Extensive Records Compiled in the Taiping Years (976-983), which is a collection of about seven thousand stories published before and in the first years of the Song Dynasty. The stories were selected from over three hundred books, many of which have long been lost to us. A large portion of the seven thousand stories are about gods, deities, fairies, and ghosts.

I am looking for information on the myth " Chi Li Slays the Serpent" I ahve found no information. I also would like to nkow how mythology affected the current chinese culture, if this topic could be added it would be very useful.

"In Song times there were stories written in the vernacular, called "notes for story-tellers". In the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties that followed the best-known works of fiction were novels in the vernacular, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms,Water Margin, Pilgrimage to the West, The Scholars, and Dream of the Red Mansions."

--Sumple (Talk) 11:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Anthropomorphizing

This discussion applies mostly to characteristics of Shangdi. The debate of anthropomorphizing characters often stems from the assumption that attributes of person are added to a character (the chair is lonely). However, when the origin of the "thing" is in question, claiming this is NOT a nuetral point of view. If a "god" is described as judgemental, kind, angry, and in heaven, than the assumption that "god" is Heaven, or that "god" is anthropomorphized is NOT FACTUAL. A factual description is "god" is described with these characteristics.

Additionally, assuming all origins are non personal is an unprovable assumption. In Chinese history, the "nonpersonal" seems to be the "acquired" attribute, not the other way around. Please do not change the entry; push the debate to the appropriate article. mamgeorge 18:41, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Dating Myths

It is important to note that the "dating" shown for Shangdi, Pangu, Nuwa, Yu Huang, et. al. refer to the best estimate for the actual composition of the literature; the "bibliographical" date. It does NOT mean the date the god or person actually existed. This is important for determining reliability: If document resource "A" dates to 700 BC and describes a god or person during 2000 BC (such as the Wu Jing on Shangdi), the date of composition (Western Zhou Dynasty) reflects a different culture and therefore a different evaluation for the reliability of the claims. A different story from document resource "B" dating to 200 AD (such as the Sanwu Liji on Pangu), the date of composition reflects a change in culture after Daoism, Buddhism, and established Confucianism during the Han dynasty.

No existing Chinese literature preceeds about 700 BC . (Oracle bones are not literature; although they may reference literary creations, thus adding weight to dating claims). Plenty of documents claim earlier dates; many of those were written well after the fact, or after earlier claims from earlier myths.

Who cares? It depends on who is reading the encyclopedia and what they are looking for. Claiming the date of the earliest gods or people is more reliable for earlier documents. Thus, Yu Huang may "date" to a time before Nuwa, but in reality, the myth of Nuwa is much older, and includes references from historians. Thus, Nuwa may have really existed; whereas Yu Huang is almost certainly an anthropomorphized conception of god originating in the Han Dynasty, and not really "real".

I would like to include these sentiments in the article, and would like some "peer review" first. Any thoughts?

Thanks, mamgeorge 18:53, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that "dating" a myth is not that important in an encyclopedia - not as important as, say, allowing a reader to understand the overall structure of the "Chinese mythology" today. Perhaps discussions of dating should be in the individual articles about each creature/god/myth?

Sumple (Talk) 04:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Dating "Organization"

(This may be more appropriate in the above "Organization" section because of the convergence of ideas)

Sumple, Hello! The "who cares" seems to have been confusing; it was supposed to be rhetorical, and then recognizing some would care and some would not. I like the idea, but I see how it could get top heavy. My contribution possibly lies outside the scope of your intent. I am not sure if that is good or bad.

The burden (and size) of knowing when *every* myth was recorded, by who, and in what source, would be overwhelming for an overview. It would be a great idea for another article (and I shudder at the work it would require). I believe, in any case, individual myths should be documented with who, what, where, and when (although even that frustrated at least one other person) to provide context.

However, without some dating, there may be a problem with conflicting claims. A "narrative" or "non-source dated chronology" of mythology is (I believe) only possible if you adopt one viewpoint or school of thought. Thus, the "overall structure" (I predict) would quickly break down if it is thematic. (e.g., Nuwa myths depicting her as creator do not make sense with Nuwa myths depicting her as a daughter. Pangu and YuHuang are both creators but their mythology is entirely different. etc.). Do you see this as a problem going forward?

Other approaches could be 1) discuss dating in a seperate paragraph, 2) apply dating to only selected sections (as it is now), 3) discuss dating in another article, or 4) adopt a limited "lightweight" chronology based on Dynasties.

What do you think? mamgeorge 16:42, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Arranging them in a "mythical chronology" is problematic because of competing myths and competing versions of the same myth. Arranging myths by a "dating chronology" is also problematic, because it could put, for example, a mythical king before any of the creation myths.

I'm thinking, perhaps, within each "period" (Creation, mythical kings, blah blah), summarise the dating issue briefly (e.g. Nuwa is one of the oldest myths, etc), and then list the various myths in order of how well known / how important they are?

Also, I think this problem applies to the "creation myths" most of all, because with things like the mythical kings, there is a "commonly perceived" list, as it is contained here. Ditto with the Xia and Shang dynasties - the myths/stories are well established. It's with the Creation Myths that the problem is biggest, because every man/woman/god worth his/her salt claims to be the creator. --Sumple (Talk) 01:07, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Sumple, Hello!

This reminds me of arranging furniture in a living room... :) What you propose sounds like a variation on the thematic element; and it is a little hard for me to visualize how that would look coming together. Would that not have the effect of perpetuating the "common", rather than describing the reality?

Personally, I would like to see a listing of stories within the dynasties (#4) above. This is because "my organization would be in the context of the larger vision" to understand the "flow" of myth development, particularly origins. I like the idea of a mythical king appearing before a "creator", since it exposes the ridiculous claim of the myth...!

However, I do not have the knowledge or time to bring that together for the entire mythology. Thus, I limited my focus to the earliest mythologies, as I am most familiar with that period. (In my furniture analogy, this would be the entryway foyer).

You are certainly free to rearrange! If you do so, and it still seems to me that the "flow" of mythology development should be explicitly described, then we can revisit the organization, or I can add a new entry with that focus...

Until then, I have appreciated this dialog, and look forward to your contributuions. Thank You! mamgeorge 13:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What is the chinese ranka?

I'm deplacing this : [*Ranka or "Rotten Axe Handle"] from the article pending clarification. 218.166.84.71 05:57, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

"Lanke" is a Rip Van Winkle type story about a guy who goes into the woods and is so mesmerised by two immortals playing a board game (Go) that when he comes out, many years have passed outside and his axe handle had rotten. --Sumple (Talk) 04:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

which comes first?

I have a problem with the sentence

Qilin (in Japanese, Kirin), chimeric animal with several variations. Originally referred to the giraffe.

in the article. It seems to indicate that the Japanese knew about the African animal earlier than the mythical animal, which I think is unlikely. Kowloonese 04:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

See Qilin. --Sumple (Talk) 02:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

---

Just wondering why there isn't any mentioning of the game Dynasty Warriors, the game is based mostly on the information here and on the book The Romance of the 3 Kingdoms. ~Testament (to lazy to log in at school)

---

sure they mentioned it a lot already,they have a "modern reference" under nearly every sanguo general,which is mostly around his appearance in DW--Ybfelix 18:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

A colorized version of Guan Yu icon suggested

The black-and-white icon now used by Chinese myth catalog will not be easily recognized by most Chinese as Guan Yu, in my opinion. Since traditionally, a mythical or folk-lore version of Guan Yu is mostly held as a tall man with fiery red skin and a magnificent beard, with his voulge( Qing Long Yan Yue Dao ), in a green robe( as discribed in Romance of Three Kindoms, a gift from his sworn brother and lord,Liu Bei. ), much like the statues shown in the page Guan Yu and this one:[1].

This stereotype which emphasized in RoTK can be seen in most Guan Di Temples and family shrines, as well as in Chinese operas. It is, by most Chinese, the "standard" appearance of Guan Yu.

Besides, the beard length and style of the black-and-white version is quite far from modern recognition(even for mythology).the BW icon looks more like supposed "standard portrait" of actual person and not a folk-lore one.

So I suggest a colorized and more easy-recognized icon version be used instead.

Ybfelix 18:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• I did a short piece on Guan Shengdi with a colour portrait, see it works.ACHKC 06:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Creation Myth

A paragraph added on chinese creation and I reduce to references to Shangdi, willing to discuss. ACHKC 06:04, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted your edits to this page. Regardless of the outcome of the deletion discussions on your two book articles, the information you added here represent a minority, perhaps marginal view. They seem to be supported by no sources other than the two books which you have written articles on. They do not represent the general understanding of Chinese mythology, nor the most common version of myths.

Unless there is some sources, other than the original books on which you have written articles, to back up this version of the myths, they cannot be included. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:27, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I have read some of the sources cited in the pantheon of chinese myths and I think some of them are equally lacking in sources. How might that be balanced?ACHKC 07:34, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Cantonese

Is there any way of working a cantonese and other transliteration into this? As I don't know mandarine so I get lost with these articles. Enlil Ninlil (talk) 06:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Clean up the list a bit?

Anyone mind if I clean up this article a bit, esp the list of deities and mythological creatues as they are kinda messy?whipsandchains (talk) 15:18, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose. Kayau Wuthering Heights VANITY FAIR paradise lost 05:55, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Bi Fang

the link that SHOULD go to a page about bi fang just links back to the same page

Allow me to fix that... The Sound and the Fury (talk) 18:02, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

White Serpent Myth

I've also noticed it in Japanese folklore, Legend of the White Snake seems to be Chinese though. Does it qualify? Twillisjr (talk) 02:10, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Chinese demigods needs serious attention

Can anyone improve the stub and add some references to Chinese demigods, which has been unreferenced and poorly written since 2011? Might it be better off merged into this article or another one? --Animalparty-- (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Merge: I vote for merge into this or other articles. See, for example, 9 sons of the dragon. Badon (talk) 06:29, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

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Lede does not describe content of article

The lede says:

Chinese mythology refers to myths found in the historical geographic area of China: these include myths in Chinese and other languages, as transmitted by Han Chinese and other ethnic groups, which have their own languages and myths.

This a good description of the Chinese government's stance on what is included in 'Chinese' but does not necessarily conform with what is historically understood as 'Chinese' and, more seriously, does not accurately describe the content of the article. The article concerns itself solely with the myths of the Chinese mainstream culture (sometimes called Han Chinese) and does not cover Tibetan mythology, which has its own article, nor myths of other minority nationalities such as Koreans, Mongolians, Uzbeks, Russians, Yao, Miao, etc. etc.

In that sense, the lede is simply an ideological statement disconnected from actual practice. Nor is there any real justification for including the mythology of Chinese minority ethnic groups within the article, which would only result in a hodgepodge of different cultural mythologies included in one article for purely ideological reasons.

Note that the treatment of "American mythology" does not attempt to impose such a narrative on the United States. The brief article on American mythology deals with the mythology of American colonists, while a separate article on Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas acts as a central point for a host of separate articles. Including Paul Bunyan and the Lone Ranger in the same article as Algonquian, various Plain Natives, Muskogean, Iroquois, Uto-Aztecan etc. mythology would make no sense in an article on "American mythology", except insomuch as these mythologies all arose within the borders of the modern nation called the United States. The same should apply to China.

66.181.177.133 (talk) 11:16, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

The definition of Chinese mythology in the lead is based on the book on that subject by Yang Lihui et al. (2005: Handbook of Chinese Mythology. New York: Oxford University Press,ISBN 978-0-19-533263-6), and other sources which should be cited eventually. Note that Yang's book is a publication from a reliable academic press located in the United States. Sure, the subject area is a bit of a mess and the article could use extensive work. You make some good points, however I disagree with a conclusion that the subject area of the article should be changed away from what can be found in reliable reference sources. I think we are stuck with an amorphous subject area that needs to be handled with skill. The "American mythology" article stub is a poor comparison, not only does it completely lack any references, but it makes no attempt to deal with the difficulties inherent to the subject. I think that as far as the "Chinese" in Chinese mythology goes, it refers to the people in the area of what is now China, rather than to the Han Chinese ethnic group. These are certainly issues not to be neglected as the article's development progresses, and as much needed content is added. Indeed, the lede does need to be re-written to better reflect the contents of the article; however, not to change the referenced definition of Chinese mythology. Dcattell (talk) 22:12, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Lists

The lists from this article are for the most part moved to "List of Chinese mythology", and the present "Chinese mythology" article begun to transform into regular Wikistyle. It would be good to keep the two co-ordinated. Dcattell (talk) 22:46, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Classification of "deities"

Dividing "deities" into Daoist and Buddhist is not suitable for an article about mythology. Certainly, this is not the case in for reliable reference literature which I have consulted. The Daoist-Buddhist religious dichotomy is not particularly helpful, especially in an article about mythology. The resulting division of entries ended up more erroneous than correct. Similarly "mythological beings or people" suits this article better than "deities", which is a religious concept that does not suit the subject of Chinese mythology very well. The people and beings in mythology may also be deities from the perspective of religion, but generally in mythology lacks clear distinctions between the profane and the divine, or the actual versus the imaginary. Thus we get talking animals, humans with magical powers, heavenly beings with weaknesses and vulnerabilities, wizards that become immortal, and all kinds of hard-to-classify people and beings. Certainly, attempting to classify them into deities and non-deities and as Daoist and Buddhist does not work, as can be seen in the awkward stages shown in the history of this article. Dcattell (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Which to include?

This article as it is has a lengthy list of various "deities". It might be better to leave a comprehensive list in the list article "List of Chinese mythology", and only include the most mythologically important here, together with enough examples for a full presentation of the subject area. (Also, the listed subjects are by no means complete, there are far more than listed here). The Category system can be used to find a comprehensive list, if implemented correctly, although somewhat less useful due to a lack of short descriptions. Of course, any listings that do not pertain to mythology must be removed. Also, any material that is not referenced by an appropriate citation is also subject to removal. Dcattell (talk) 17:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC) revised Dcattell (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

Regarding Category Tree

I find the use of the Category Tree in this article very useful both as a Wikipedia User and editor. Please discuss here before deleting the presence of this feature in this article. Chinese Mythology has been difficult in terms of organizing the subject space on Wikipedia. Much work remains to be done, and the Category Tree is both a most useful aid and seems to cause no harm. Dcattell (talk) 01:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

@Dcattell: This is currently the only Wikipedia article using <categorytree>. (See this search to check current status.) The other 5.8 million articles, whether about difficult-to-organize subjects or not, all have simple links into the category system at the bottom of the page, showing which categories the specific article being viewed has been classified into. The two ways of doing it are redundant, and having redundant navigation elements makes the page harder to use by cluttering it. If readers want to navigate the category tree, we expect them to click into the category system from the bottom-of-the-page link, where they should be looking for it if they are familiar with Wikipedia's navigational conventions. -- Beland (talk) 19:05, 10 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure who the "we" is in "we expect". Am I being excluded from the group of people with expectations? I have used the tree system in articles before, for example in the area of Chinese poetry. I was not aware that tree system has been deprecated and systematically removed from articles. Frankly, the category system in regards to Chinese poetry is a big mess. And I find the tree system easier to deal with (but maybe I'm old fashioned). There seems to be a movement to move edit-related material to the talk pages (per "This is the talk page for discussing improvements...", and I certainly support that -- especially when it come to multiple scare tags with editorial suggestions that article users are immediately subjected to before any encyclopedic content appears (talking about clutter!). If I am the only one in the Wikipedia universe that benefits from trees, then it is perfectly reasonable that we move the category tree code to the talk page instead, for easy access to humble, hard-working editors? Maybe category trees would be more popular if they were not being removed? Or, how 'bout this? We move the cat tree down to the bottom of the article, then it could not possibly be considered to be "cluttering up" the article? Generally I don't support putting category trees in articles, but it makes a certain amount of sense for certain more top-level articles such as "Chinese mythology", plus its easily accessible in the article, rather than having to navigate to a separate Category page, and then to various subpages (plus the Portal system isn't really a substitute). Instead, with an embedded tree it is all right there in-page! Scroll up and down, compare the tree structure to the article content, and so on (try it! --unfortunately it's a very bad structural mismatch in "Chinese mythology", and that's what really needs to be fixed, one way or the other). Actually, much in the encyclopedic area of Chinese mythology needs to be fixed, and that is where energy should be directed. Dcattell (talk) 01:03, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

@Dcattell: By "we" I mean the Wikipedia editors who agree with the consensus of how categories are applied to articles. The clickable category trees are indeed useful, but a better version is available on the category page. If you click the link at the bottom of the page to Category:Chinese mythology, you'll see that you can click on triangles next to subcategories to expand them, if you wish. But what this page has that the categorytree in the article doesn't have, is all the articles in Category:Chinese mythology itself. It seems like that represents a much better reader experience. I wouldn't want readers to stop looking for categories when they see the categorytree and get a worse experience by not clicking through to the category page - that's why I'd see the categorytree as clutter. Since both the catgegory page and the talk page are one click away from the article, it doesn't make much sense to me to put a copy of the category tree on the talk page. -- Beland (talk) 16:56, 11 June 2019 (UTC)