Myths of ancient China briefly. Legends and myths of China. The Myth of the Dragon Mother

In the section about the myths of Ancient China, children will learn about how the world and people’s lives were created, about brave heroes who protect their people from evil. How people got food, defended themselves from angry Chinese gods who sent difficulties, and how they learned to experience feelings and emotions. They will understand that the origin of language, rituals, etiquette - all this came from ancient oriental legends!

Myths of Ancient China read

China has been famous for its rich mythology since ancient times. Its history is based on ancient Chinese, Taoist, Buddhist and later folk tales of the peoples of China. It is several thousand years old.

The main strong-willed characters became Chinese emperors and rulers, who were honored and respected by the people as a sign of gratitude. Minor characters became dignitaries and officials. Ancient people did not know the laws of science, but they believed that everything that happened to them were the acts of the gods. Thanks to mythology, Chinese holidays emerged that are still relevant today.

Mythology is the way of thinking of a people, its legends, beliefs and teachings. She takes your breath away with her stories and stories. Typically, characters in legends are presented as brave, unpredictable and infinitely kind. These brave men cannot be confused with any other mythology! Unfortunately, over time, the Chinese began to forget their myths, and in our time only isolated fragments of legends have survived.

On our website you can read the myths of ancient China with interest, because Chinese legends are unique in their kind. It contains teachings that bring wisdom and kindness. Due to this, the traits of philanthropy, responsiveness, internal harmony and morality are cultivated in a person. And this is so necessary for children in the future.

China is a country shrouded in myths and legends. The Middle Kingdom is an ancient state full of secrets and paradoxes. The hardworking Chinese people have always had a corner filled with poetry in their souls.

Only the Chinese were able to mix sublime philosophy and strange, sometimes meaningless beliefs .

The legends and myths of ancient China have changed over time. Primitive folk religion, the common sense of Confucius, the rituals and magic of Taoism, the sublime spirituality of Buddhism - a melting pot, a combination of gods for all occasions.

Some Chinese myths have something in common with legends of other cultures. For example, the creation myth is reminiscent of many similar stories in which the world is formed from the body of a primordial being.

In the beginning there was darkness everywhere and chaos ruled.

An egg formed in the darkness, and inside it a giant was born.

When it grew to gigantic size, it extended its huge limbs and thereby destroyed the shell. The lighter parts of the egg floated to the top and formed the heavens, while the dense parts sank down to become the earth.

This is how earth and sky appeared - Yin and Yang.

Pangu was pleased with his deed. But he was afraid that heaven and earth would merge again, so he stood between them . His head holds up the sky and his feet are firmly on the ground. Pangu grew at a rate of three meters per day over an 18,000-year period, increasing the space between sky and earth until they were fixed at a safe distance from each other. Having completed your mission, Pangu died with a clear conscience, and his body was used to create the world and all its elements .

Wind and clouds were formed from his breath , his voice became thunder and lightning, his eyes shone with the sun and the moon, his arms and legs appeared in the four directions of the world, his teeth and bones glittered with precious stones, and his phallus rose like mountains. His flesh turned into soil and plants, his blood into rivers, and so on.

The history of the ancient civilization of China or the birth of the Universe

The ancient myths of China describe the history of the ancient civilization of China since the birth of the universe. One could say that since the Big Bang, but this is part of modern scientific mythology, and in the ancient myths of China the Universe is described as a kind of egg that was broken from the inside. Perhaps, if there had been some external observer at that moment, it would have looked like an explosion to him. After all, the egg was filled with Chaos.

From this Chaos, with the help of the forces of the Yin and Yang Universe, Pangu was born. This part of the ancient myths of China is quite compatible with the modern scientific myth about how a DNA molecule was accidentally created from the chaos of chemical elements on Earth. So, according to the theory about the origin of life accepted in ancient Chinese civilization, it all started with the first ancestor Pangu, who broke an egg. According to one version of this ancient Chinese myth, Pangu used an axe, with which he was often depicted on antiques. It can be assumed that this weapon was created from the surrounding chaos, thereby becoming the first material object.

Pangu separates Heaven and Earth Chaos escaped from the egg, dividing into light and heavy elements. More precisely, the light elements rose up and formed the Sky - a bright beginning, white (yang), and the heavy ones sank down and created the Earth - cloudy, yolk (yin). It’s hard not to notice a certain connection between the ancient myths of China and the scientific explanation of the creation of the solar system. According to which our planetary system was formed from a rotating chaotic cloud of gases and heavy elements. Under the influence of rotation, heavy elements accumulated closer to the center, around the Sun, which appeared as a result of natural causes (which we will not discuss here). They formed rocky planets, and the light elements that accumulated closer to the edge became gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune...)

Life on Earth in ancient Chinese myths

But let’s return to the theory of the origin of life accepted in the ancient civilization of China, to what our self-confident science calls mythology. So, the ancient myths of China tell how Pangu, being the first and only inhabitant of the new universe, rested his feet on the ground, his head in the sky and began to grow.

For 18,000 years, the distance between heaven and earth increased by 3 meters every day until it reached today's scale. Finally, seeing that the earth and sky would no longer unite, his body was reincarnated into the whole world. According to the ancient myths of China, Pangu's breath became the wind and clouds, the body with arms and legs became huge mountains and the four cardinal directions, blood became rivers, flesh became soil, skin became grass and trees... The ancient civilization of China thereby confirms the myths of other peoples, in in which our planet plays the role of a living being or organism.

According to the ancient myths of China, when the Earth had already separated from the sky, majestic mountains rose high, rivers full of fish flowed to the seas, forests and steppes were overflowing with wild animals, the world still remained incomplete without the human race. And then begins the story of the creation of humanity. As in other religious versions, the religions of the ancient civilization of China believed that people were created from clay. In the 2nd century treatise “The General Meaning of Customs,” the creator of people was Nuiva, the great female spirit. In the ancient myths of China, Nüwu was seen as a beautifier of the world, and therefore she was depicted with a measuring square in her hand or, as the personification of the feminine principle Yin, with the disk of the Moon in her hands. Nüwa was depicted with a human body, bird legs and a snake tail. She took a handful of clay and began to sculpt figures, they came to life and became people. Nuiva understood that she did not have enough strength or time to blind all the people who could populate the earth.

And then Nuiva pulled a rope through the liquid clay. When the goddess shook the rope, pieces of clay flew in all directions. Falling to the ground, they turned into people. But either due to the fact that they were not molded by hand, or because the swamp clay still differed in composition from that from which the first people were molded, but the ancient myths of China claim that people with a faster manufacturing method were significantly different from those created by hand. That is why the rich and noble are people made by the gods with their own hands from the yellow earth, while the poor and insignificant people are made with the help of a rope.

Further, Nuiva gave her creatures the opportunity to reproduce independently. True, before that she passed on to them the law on the responsibilities of both parties in marriage, which was strictly observed in the ancient civilization of China. Since then, for the Chinese who revere the ancient myths of China, Nuwa is considered the patroness of marriages, who has the power to save a woman from infertility. Nuiva's divinity was so strong that even from her insides 10 deities were born. But Nuiva’s merits do not end there.

Ancestress Nuiva protects humanity

People then lived happily ever after - this is how fairy tales in the European tradition usually end, but this is not a fairy tale, but the ancient myths of China, so they lived happily for the time being. Until the first war of the gods began. Between the fire spirit Zhuzhong and the water spirit Gonggun.

Nuiva lived calmly for some time, without worries. But the land, which was already inhabited by the people she had created, was engulfed by great disasters. In some places the sky collapsed, and huge black holes appeared there. The spirit of fire Zhuzhong gave birth to the spirit of water Gungun, the fight against which occupied a large place in ancient mythology. Ancient myths of China describe incredible fire and heat that seeped through them, as well as a fire that engulfed forests on Earth. Depressions formed in the Earth, through which underground water flowed. Two opposites that characterize the ancient civilization of China, two elements hostile to each other, Water and Fire, joined forces to destroy people.

Seeing how human creatures were suffering, Nüwa, as a true beautifier of the world, set to work to “patch up” the leaky firmament. She collected multi-colored stones and, melting them over the fire, filled the heavenly holes with the resulting mass. To strengthen the sky, Nüwa cut off four legs of a giant turtle and placed them on four parts of the earth as supports supporting the sky. The firmament strengthened, but did not return to its previous state. According to the ancient myths of China, it is somewhat askew, but in reality this can be seen by the movement of the sun, moon and stars. In addition, a huge depression formed to the southeast of the Celestial Empire, which became the Ocean.

Miao legends about the creation of the world

The Heimiao, or Black Miao (so named because of the dark color of their skin), do not have a written language, but have a developed epic tradition. From generation to generation they pass on poetic legends about the creation of the world and the Flood. During holidays, they are performed by storytellers accompanied by a choir consisting of one or two groups of performers. The story is interspersed with poetic inserts consisting of one or more five-line lines. They ask questions and answer them themselves:

Who created the sky and land?

Who created insects?

Who created people?

Created men and women?

I don't know.

The Heavenly Lord created the Sky and the land,

He created insects

He created people and spirits,

Created men and women.

Do you know how?

How did Heaven and Earth come into being?

How did insects appear?

How did people and spirits appear?

How did men and women come into being?

I don't know.

Heavenly Lord wise

He spat on his palm,

He clapped his hands loudly -

Heaven and land appeared,

Made insects from tall grass,

Created people and spirits

Men and women.

The legend of the World River is interesting because it mentions the Great Flood:

Sent fire and set the mountains on fire?

Who came to cleanse the world?

Did you release water to wash the earth?

I, who sing to you, do not know.

Ze cleansed the world.

He summoned fire and set the mountains on fire.

The god of thunder has cleansed the world,

He washed the earth with water.

Do you know why?

The legend goes on to say that after the flood, only Ze and his sister remained on earth. When the water subsided, the brother wanted to marry his sister, but she did not agree. Finally, they decided to take a millstone each and climb two mountains, and then let the millstones roll down. If they collide and fall on each other, then she will become Ze’s wife, but if not, then there will be no marriage. Fearing that the wheels would roll, the brother prepared two similar stones in the valley in advance. When the millstones they had thrown were lost in the tall grass, Ze brought his sister and showed her the stones he had hidden. However, she did not agree and suggested placing double sheaths below and throwing a knife into them. If they fall into the sheath, the marriage will take place. The brother deceived his sister again, and she finally became his wife. They had a child without arms and legs. Seeing him, Ze became angry and chopped him into pieces, and then threw him off the mountain. Having touched the ground, the pieces of meat turned into men and women - this is how people appeared on the earth again.

The period from the 8th to the 10th centuries was the heyday of Chinese literature. After the unification of the empire and the establishment of strong centralized power in Beijing, representatives of all states of South Asia appeared. It was at this time that Indian Buddhist texts began to be translated, and the achievements of Chinese culture became known in Central Asia, Iran and Byzantium. Chinese translators reinterpret borrowed texts and introduce into them the motives of their own beliefs and surrounding realities.

The literary tradition reaches its highest point during the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). In the history of Chinese literature, the Tang era is rightly considered the “golden age”. Thanks to the examination system, representatives of all classes gained access to knowledge. Art and literature flourished, and a galaxy of short story masters emerged—Li Chaowei, Sheng Jiji, Niu Senzhu, and Li Gongzuo. Below we present one of his short stories.