Chinese mythology

Populated with engaging narratives featuring extraordinary individuals and beings endowed with magical powers, these stories often unfold in fantastical mythological realms or historical epochs.

[2] Many narratives recounting characters and events from ancient times exhibit a dual tradition: one that presents a more historicized or euhemerized interpretation, and another that offers a more mythological perspective.

A subset myths provides a chronology of prehistoric times, often featuring a culture hero who taught people essential skills ranging from building houses and cooking to the basics of writing.

The underground world also came to be conceived of as inhabited by a vast bureaucracy, with kings, judges, torturers, conductors of souls, minor bureaucrats, recording secretaries, similar to the structure of society in the Middle Kingdom (earthly China).

The Queqiao (鵲橋; Quèqiáo) was a bridge formed by birds flying across the Milky Way, as seen in The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl mythology surrounding the Qixi Festival.

In more recent mythology, the underground inhabitation of the dead is generally described as somewhat similar to the land above: it possesses a hierarchical government bureaucracy, centered in the capital city of Youdu.

The rulers of the underground realm are various kings, whose duties include parsing the souls of the dead according to the merits of their life on earth, and maintaining adequate records regarding that process.

Generally, Chinese mythology regarded people as living in the middle regions of the world and conceived the exotic earthly places to exist in the directional extremes to the north, east, south, or west.

Nearby to Kunlun, it was sometimes said or written and forming a sort of protective barrier to the western paradise or "fairyland" named Xuánpǔ (玄圃) where also was to be found the jade pool Yáochí (瑤池), eventually thought to exist on mount Kunlun (which itself was thought to possess cliffs insurmountable to normal mortals was the Moving Sands, a semi-mythological place also to the west of China (the real Taklamakan Desert to the west of or in China is known for its shifting sands).

Mythology of time and the calendar includes the twelve zodiacal animals and various divine or spiritual genii regulating or appointed as guardians for years, days, or hours.

The flood disrupted society and endangered human existence, as agricultural fields drowned, hunting game disappeared, and the people were dislocated to hills and mountains.

Thus, Yu and his work in controlling the flood with xirang would symbolize a societal development allowing a large scale approach to transforming wetlands into arable fields.

Yet, as in common with the founding of Xia, there is mythological material regarding how the previous dynasty turned to evil and unworthy ways, and the founder (of miraculous birth or ancestry) overthrew it.

On the way back from victory, the heavens gave him the emblem of a yellow bird.The mythological events surrounding the end of the Shang dynasty and the establishment of the Zhou greatly influenced the subject and story told in the popular novel Investiture of the Gods.

One of the main legacies of the rise of Zhou was the dissemination of the classic book I Ching, however the eight trigrams must be from a far earlier period than Wengong, and even more than the editing and commentary by Confucius – mythology references the culture hero sometimes named Fuxi.

Another example is the immortality sometimes obtained by the lohans, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas of Buddhist religion and mythology (this contrasts with indefinitely prolonged series of unenlightened re-births).

The development of Daoism as it came to be called was a lengthy one, with various strands including both rationalist ethical philosophy and a magico-religious stand informed by mythology.

As Daoism developed as a concept from its traditional roots in Chinese folk religion and mythology, its legitimacy was bolstered by claims of originating with Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor.

Buddhism was historically introduced to China, probably in the first century CE, accompanied by the import of various ideas about deities and supernatural beings including Kṣitigarbha who was renamed Dizang.

[citation needed] A major factor in Chinese mythology is shown in the development of the tradition known as Confucianism, named after a writer and school master who lived around 551–479 BCE.

There is a myth of Kua Fu, a giant who followed the sun, during the course of his chase he drained all of the waters dry including the Yellow River, and after he died of thirst was transformed into a mountain range or a forest.

During full moons the three-legged Golden Toad Jin Chan frequents near houses or businesses that will soon receive good news generally in the form of wealth.

There are deities mythologically associated with various intimate aspects of human life, including motherhood, general sodality and formal syndicals, lifespan and fate, and war and death.

Also, species or even genera are not always distinguished, with the named animal often being seen as the local version of that type, such is as the case with sheep and goats, or the versatile term sometimes translated as ox.

A semi-mythical, semi-historical story involves the adventures of the Han diplomat Su Wu held captive among the Xiongnu for nineteen years and forced to herd sheep and/or goats.

Xu Shen in his early 2nd century CE) dictionary Shuowen Jiezi defines what is represented by this particular lin[44] as "an animal of benevolence, having the body of an antelope, the tail of an ox, and a single horn."

The weaponry motif is common in Chinese mythology, for example, the heroic archer Yi is supposed to have shot down nine problematic suns with a magical bow and arrows given to him by Di Jun.

The sacred or magical attitude towards some of these cast inscriptions is shown in that they sometimes appear in places almost inaccessible to being read, such as the inside of a vessel (often quite large and heavy, often covered with a lid, and perhaps meant to store food).

[52] Some information can be found in the Confucian Classics, such as the Shijing and Yijing, and other Zhou dynasty era material, especially Book of Rites, but also the Lüshi Chunqiu.

Legends were passed down for over a thousand years before being written in books such as Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing), basically a gazetteer mixing known and mythological geography.