Being the most popular myth among most ethnic peoples in China,there are almost ten versions in oral or written from.In the most well-know one some basic motifs of Chinese culture can be worked out.
The first universe was like a shape of egg in an undifferentiated and indivisible situation.An almighty giant named Pangu was born into the entity.He kept growing until he used his legs and arms with strength to separate the universe into heaven and earth.When he noticed the earth and heaven still had some connection,he stuck to his work with a chisel and an axe until the great work was accomplished.While he was growing ,the world also grew.He lived for thousands of years till he died of exhaustion after pushing the heaven and earth farther apart.After his death,parts of his body changed into various things.For instance,his clearer breath became clouds and winds,while the coarser part sank down to earth.His left eye and right eye became the sun and the moon.The four coners of the earth were the transformation of his arms and legs.Parts of his body turned into mountains and his blood formed rivers.His flesh changed to be soil and his skin,body hair tuned into trees and plants.Rocks and metals anre his teeth and bones.Pearls and jade were the material changed from his marrow.Stars are his hair and mustache .HIs sweat fell as rain to nourish all living things,and the insects on his body took the shape of human beings,The myth tells us ancient Chinese people’s speculations about the world they lived in.
Pangu mirrors patriarchal society.Pangu and the world are two in one .The harmony and untiy of man and nature in found as the prototype of the Chinese worldview.This idea was later developed by philosophers and incorporated into theories.For example .Dong Zhngshu,the Han Danasty Prime Minister pointed out:Man is a duplicate of nature.Nature and man are fonctions and references of each other.A great deal of affinities and similarities are between them.The roundness of the world suggest the mellowness of Chinese thinking patterns and Chinese philosophy.The unity of the heaven,the earth and human beings suggest the holistic and integral thinging orientation.The myth influences ancient Chinese theories of the round shy,the square earth and the transformation of Pangu’s breath.The bud of thein-Yang theory of Taoism is also in the transformation of Pangu’s breath.The clearer breath is Yang rising up to heaven,and the coarser breath is Yin sinking down to earth.Pangu ’s left eye is Yang and the right one is Yin becoming the sun and the moon!
