One Myth, Six Books, Six Accounts

The Songs of Yaochi and the Tiger Teeth and Leopard Tail

In the familiar later legends, the Queen Mother of the West is often depicted as the elegant and noble leader of the female immortals in the fairyland of Yaochi. However, going back to the earliest record of her in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, this deity's image is full of primitive and wild colors. The Classic of Mountains and Seas: Western Mountains records that the Queen Mother of the West "looks like a human, with a leopard tail and tiger teeth, and is good at whistling, with disheveled hair and wearing a jade ornament." She is the god of calamities and punishments, residing on Jade Mountain. However, by the Warring States or Wei-Jin period, in the Tale of King Mu, the Queen Mother of the West's appearance underwent a drastic transformation. She was no longer a terrifying half-beast deity, but a queen of the West residing by the Yaochi, who could even "sing in harmony" with King Mu of Zhou and host a banquet for this Son of Heaven from the Central Plains. The same name, one end is a half-beast god of calamities, the other is a Western ruler who can sing with the Son of Heaven. What happened in the few hundred years in between is not explained by either book.

• Queen Mother of the West

The Merit of Repairing the Sky and the Feet of the Cut Turtle

The story of Nüwa repairing the sky similarly gained causal logic as it was transmitted. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the record of Nüwa is extremely brief, with only phrases like "Nüwa's intestines transformed into spirits," and does not connect the sky repair with any specific cause of disaster. However, by the time of the Huainanzi, compiled by Liu An in the Western Han, the story was given a grand antecedent: Gonggong and Zhuanxu fought for the throne, and in anger Gonggong touched Mount Buzhou, causing "the pillar of heaven to break, and the cords of the earth to snap," with the sky tilting to the northwest and the earth sinking to the southeast. It was precisely because of this man-made catastrophe that Nüwa's feat of "smelting five-colored stones to mend the azure sky, and cutting off the turtle's feet to set up the four poles" was brought about. In other words, the widely circulated story today of "Gonggong knocked down the sky, and Nüwa repaired it" is the result of the Huainanzi joining two myths together. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, these two figures go their separate ways.

• Nüwa
• Gong Gong

Ten Suns Rising Together and the Vermilion Bow with White Arrows

The myth of Yi shooting the nine suns has subtle but crucial differences in its core motivation across various texts. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Chapter Within the Seas: Classic of Regions Beyond the Seas, Yi's act is carried out on orders. The book records that Di Jun bestowed upon Yi a vermilion bow with white arrows, "to assist the lower realms," meaning to help the people below. Here, Di Jun is the high god above, and Yi is his appointed envoy, representing the will and grace of the divine. But the Huainanzi, Chapter Basic Standards, offers another narrative logic: during the era of Yao's rule, "ten suns rose together, scorching the grain, killing the plants, and the people had nothing to eat." Yi stepped forward to save the multitude, shooting down nine suns. In this narrative, Yi's image is closer to a tragic human hero who resists natural disasters, while Yao becomes the representative of worldly order. One was sent by the high god, the other stood up on his own. The act of shooting the suns did not change; what changed was who ordered him to shoot.

• Di Jun

Drinking the Yellow River and the Wei, and Discarding His Staff

Also from the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the story of Kua Fu chasing the sun has inconsistent endings in different chapters. In the Classic of Regions Beyond the Seas: North, it is recorded that Kua Fu raced with the sun, thirsty and wanting to drink, he drained the Yellow River and the Wei River but still not enough, and was about to go north to drink the water of the Great Marsh, but "before he arrived, he died of thirst on the way." After his death, the staff he discarded turned into the Deng Forest (peach forest). This is a romantic ending full of tragic heroism, where Kua Fu dies in the challenge of limits. However, the Classic of Regions Within the Seas: North gives a completely different account: "Ying Long had already killed Chi You, and also killed Kua Fu, then went south to dwell there." Here, Kua Fu dies at the hands of Ying Long, becoming a victim in the wars of ancient deities or tribes. In the same book, two accounts coexist: one where he dies of thirst himself, and one where he is killed by Ying Long. The compilers included both without making a choice for later generations.

• Kuafu

混编的体系与后世的补笔

As time went on, many later texts such as the Liezi and In Search of the Supernatural also incorporated and rewrote ancient myths in large numbers. These texts often carried later ethical views and religious overtones, mixing mythological figures from different eras and sources into a single narrative framework. For example, in the Liezi, chapter "Tang Wen," when telling the story of the Foolish Old Man moving mountains, it adds the intervention of the Heavenly Emperor and the Kua'e clan; when recording Kua Fu and Nü Wa, it also often uses them as allegorical tools to explain Daoist philosophy. The problem is that these books mix ancient deities with medieval immortals, making them read as if they belong to the same system. This site therefore only treats them as sources of myths and does not use them to determine the era of figures—otherwise, Cao Cao would be classified as ancient because of a story about Zuo Ci in In Search of the Supernatural.

The Transitional Zone Between Myth and History

Between ancient myths and the verified history of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, there exists a vague and vast transitional zone. Names such as Huangdi, Houji, Cheng Tang, and Dayu are active on both sides of myth and official history. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas and early legends, Huangdi is a divine king commanding Yinglong and Nüba in battle, Dayu is a deity who can transform into a yellow bear to control floods, and Houji is a miraculous agricultural ancestor. However, in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian, these mythical elements are largely removed. Huangdi becomes a human sovereign who taught agriculture and ruled the world with simple governance; Dayu becomes a flood-control model who worked tirelessly and passed by his home three times without entering; Houji and Cheng Tang are established as the clear ancestors of the Zhou and Shang dynasties. The same names that command wind and rain in myths become ancestors of dynasties in historical records. These figures are where the myths and official history truly connect in this site's graph; clicking on their nodes shows the two sets of records side by side.

• the Yellow Emperor
• Houji
• Cheng Tang
• Yu the Great