Pangu and the Cosmic Egg
In Chinese mythology, Pangu – or Pan Ku – was the first living being and creator of all.
The formless chaos of the universe first came together as a cosmic egg. This took 18,000 years. Within it, Yin and Yang became perfectly balanced and Pangu emerged, a hairy giant wrapped in furs and sporting horns on his head.
Pangu split Yin and Yang apart with his axe, creating Earth (Yin) and sky (Yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them for the next 18,000 years, pushing the sky up three meters each day, while the Earth expanded by the same amount. Pangu himself also grew taller by three meters each day to accomplish this.
In some versions of this story he had help from the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and
the Dragon.
According to http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Pangu :
“After the 18,000 years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; left eye the sun and right eye the moon; his body became
the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrows sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land.”
Eh, call me lazy, but I couldn’t see any way to paraphrase that block of text.
Speaking of lazy, Nüwa the Goddess is the one who created the humans. She started by forming them individually from the mud but got bored and started producing them in assembly line fashion, creating dumber humans than the individually-formed ones. To read more about her go here.
The Cosmic Egg, or World Egg, is a creation myth found in many cultures, including
Sanskrit, Chinese, Egyptian, and Finnish myths. Click here to learn more.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to think about fleas becoming fish and rain being from some giant’s sweat. Eww. And cosmic eggs? I think of Mork’s spaceship. Maybe he was authentic, after all.
What do you think? Are you old enough to know who Mork is?
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Don’t forget to mark your calendar for the What’s Your Chocolate? blog hop on Sept 10th.
Laura, I like this creation myth. I couldn’t paraphrase, anymore than you say you could, the lovely quotation where the fleas become fish and animals. The cosmic egg, the universe before its breaking, in the big bang perhaps, and its giving rise to Yin (earth) and Yang (sky) is far more appealing to me than any other fictional (read “religious”) view of the universe I’ve come upon. Which is not to say that my first love, by far, is science.
It is a rather beautiful myth, Ron. I find it striking that it centers around an egg, the beginning of so much life. I could do without the hairy guy though.
Humans formed out of dirt – that sounds familiar.
And dumber ones formed later when she got lazy? That explains a lot…
(Yes, feeling snarky this morning!)
LOL, Alex! Information like that begs for some snark!
I was thinking like Alex this morning.
I have to tell you that button looks fantastic on your site. I’m so proud of you Laura. The one and only KotRT Readers Choice award winner.
I wonder if the expression “dumber than dirt” came from that?
The award is such a great honor, Ciara!
Well, at least they didn’t waste any of him though the image of blood into rivers kinda gives me the creeps.
That’s true, Buffy. The fleas into fish creeped me out more than the blood into rivers though.
Very interesting. I love the part where Nuwa creates humans individually at first then just pumps out copies. I’m learning a lot about mythology from you
I’ve been meaning to congratulate you on the award for Immortal Desires. Well deserved!
Happy Weekend!
Thanks, Carol!
Yeah, Nuwa pumping out copies of humans cracks me up.
The assembly line humans thing made me laugh. Great myth.
And the assembly line was a rope in the dirt, Mary. She didn’t even bother to shake the water drops from her fingers.
You got me with something I did not know..Wow thank you…
Hi Savannah! I’m glad you liked it.
Fascinating. I never knew the origin of Yin and Yang. But I always wanted to.
It was for me too, Michael. I’d never really thought about their origin before. Thanks for stopping by!