Pangu
In Chinese mythology, Pangu (盤古; pinyin: pan2 gu3; also PanGu, PanKu, Pan Guo) was the first living thing and the creator of the cosmos.
Original Source Documents (please confirm):
| Xu Zheng (徐整; pinyin: xu2 zheng3; also Shu Zheng) is the first to mention PanGu in the story "Pangu Separates the Sky from the Earth" from Three Five Historic Records (三五歷紀; pinyin: san1 wu3 li4 ji4) (where Three Five refers to Sanhuangwudi). |
| Ge Hong (葛洪; pinyin: ge2 hong2; also Ko Hung) is a reclusive Daoist monk who describes PanGu in Bao Pu Zi (抱朴子內篇 pinyin: bao4 pu4 zi3 nei4 pian1; also Pao Pu Tzu Nei Pien) The Master of Preserving Simplicity Inner Writings (ETC Werner, Myths & Legends of China, 1922). |
| Ouyang Xun (歐陽詢; pinyin: ou1 yang2 xun2; also Ou Yang Hsun) a Confucian scholar and calligrapher of the early Tang. One of three who compiled Yi Wen Lei Ju (藝文類聚 pinyin: yi4 wen2 lei4 ju4) "Classified Anthology of Literary Works" aka "Varied collection of Classics and other Literature" in 622. The three were 歐陽詢 Ouyang Xun , 令狐德棻 Linghu Defen , and 陳叔達 Chen Shuda. / ??possibly references PanGu by compiling Xu Zheng. |
Scholar Wei Juxian stated that Pan-gu-shi story of Qin-Han time periods had derived from the story of ZhongLi (Chong-li ?aka ZhuYong, the grandson of Gao Yang) in Western Zhou Dynasty, 1000 years earlier than Pangu (unconfirmed). Other popular Chinese creation myths say humans were created later either by the goddess Nuwa or by the Jade Emperor.
Professor Qin Naichang, head of the Guangxi Institute for Nationality Studies proposes the myth originated in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Laibin city (in the center of the Pearl River Valley). He believes that there are older stories of Pangu from this region and that they originally involved two people:
| A brother and his sister became the only survivors of the prehistoric Deluge by crouching in a gourd that floated on water. The two got married afterwards, and a mass of flesh in the shape of a whetstone was born. They chopped it and the pieces turned into large crowds of people, who began to reproduce again. The couple were named 'Pan' and 'Gou' in the Zhuang ethnic language, which stand for whetstone and gourd respectively. |
He suggests China has no myth about the creation of the universe and that the Chinese mythology of PanGu had came from India, Egypt or Babylon. Apparantly, this story mingled in with the origin stories of other cultures, eventually changing into the later narrative more popular today:
| In the beginning there was nothing in the universe except formless chaos, but then this chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg. Within this, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu, the first living thing, emerged from the egg. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive hairy giant clad in furs. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang, creating the Earth and the sky by forcing them apart. The task took eighteen thousand years. Each day the sky grew ten feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most fortunate beasts, namely the Dragon, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Turtle. After eighteen thousand years had elapsed, Pangu died. His body became the mountains of the world; his blood, sweat, and tears the oceans and rivers; his eyes the sun and moon; his breath the wind; his voice thunder; his hair forests; and the fleas on his body human beings |
Ancient literature on Pangu, written in Classical Chinese:
天地渾沌如雞子，盤古生其中 .
萬八千歲，天地開辟，陽清為天，陰濁為地 .
盤古在其中，一日九變，神於天，怪於地 .
天日高一丈，地日厚一丈，盤古日長一丈 .
如此萬八千歲，天數極高，地數極深，盤古極長 .
《藝文類聚》卷一引《三五歷記》 首生盤古，垂死化身 .
氣成風，聲為雷霆，左眼為日，右眼為月，四肢五體為四極五岳，血液為江河，筋脈為地里，肌膚為田土，髮髭為星辰，皮毛為草木，齒骨為金石，精髓為珠玉，汗流為雨澤，身之諸蟲，因風所感，化為黎甿（黎民百姓） .
《繹史》卷一引《五運歷年記》 .