Hundun
Hundun 混沌 was semantically extended from a mythic "primordial chaos; nebulous state of the universe before heaven and earth separated" to mean "unintelligible; chaotic; messy; mentally dense; innocent as a child".
These two are interchangeable graphic variants read as hún (混; 'muddy', 'dirty', 'filthy' [a]) and hùn 渾 "nebulous; stupid" (hùndùn 渾沌).
Semantically, the term hundun is related to several expressions, hardly translatable in Western languages, that indicate the void or a barren and primal immensity – for instance, hunlun 混淪, hundong 混洞, kongdong 空洞, menghong 蒙洪, or hongyuan 洪元.
It is also akin to the expression "something confused and yet complete" (huncheng 混成) found in the Daode jing 25, which denotes the state prior to the formation of the world where nothing is perceptible, but which nevertheless contains a cosmic seed.
Similarly, the state of hundun is likened to an egg; in this usage, the term alludes to a complete world round and closed in itself, which is a receptacle like a cavern (dong 洞) or a gourd (hu 壺 or hulu 壺盧).
"[6] Girardot quotes the Chinese philologist Lo Mengci 羅夢冊, who says that reduplicated words like hundun "suggest cyclic movement and transformation", and speculates:[7] Ritually mumbling the sounds of hun-tun might, therefore, be said to have a kind on incantatory significance that both phonetically and morphologically invokes the mythological and ontological idea of the Tao as the creatio continua process of infinitely repeated moments of change and new creation.The Shuowen Jiezi does not enter dun 沌 (which apparently lacked a pre-Han Seal script).
It defines hun 混 as fengliu 豐流 "abundantly flow", hun 渾 as the sound of hunliu 混流 "abundantly-flowing flow" or "seemingly impure", dun 敦 as "anger, rage; scolding" or "who", and lun 淪 as "ripples; eddies" or "sink into; disappear".
The following summary divides them into Confucianist, Daoist, and other categories, and presents them in roughly chronological order, with the caveat that many early textual dates are uncertain.
When King Wen of Zhou opened up the roads, "The hordes of the Keun [sic] disappeared, Startled and panting".
Another Zuozhuan context refers to Hundun 渾敦 as a worthless son of the Yellow Emperor, one of the mythical Sixiong 四凶 "Four Fiends" banished by Shun.
He hid righteousness from himself, and was a villain at heart; he delighted in the practice of the worst vices; he was shameless and vile, obstinate, stupid, and unfriendly, cultivating only the intimacy of such as himself.
… When Shun became Yaou's minister, he received the nobles from the four quarters of the empire, and banished these four wicked ones, Chaos, Monster, Block, and Glutton, casting them out into the four distant regions, to meet the spite of the sprites and evil things.
3rd-2nd centuries BCE) has a famous parable involving emperors Hundun 渾沌, Shu (儵; 'a fish name', 'abrupt', 'quick'), and Hu (忽; 'ignore', 'neglect', 'sudden').
[18] Girardot cites Marcel Granet on Shu and Hu synonymously meaning "suddenness; quickness" and "etymologically appear to be linked to the images of lightning and thunder, or analogously, flaming arrows.
"[19] The "Heavenly Questions" chapter of the Chu Ci uses Shu and Hu as one name: "Where are the hornless dragons which carry bears on their backs for sport?
Chapter 11 has an allegory about Hong Meng 鴻蒙 "Big Concealment" or "Silly Goose", who "was amusing himself by slapping his thighs and hopping around like a sparrow", which Girardot interprets as shamanic dancing comparable with the Shanhaijing below.
Hong Meng poetically reduplicates hunhun-dundun (渾渾沌沌; 'dark and undifferentiated chaos') in describing Daoist "mind-nourishment" meditation.
A man of true brightness and purity who can enter into simplicity, who can return to the primitive through inaction, give body to his inborn nature, and embrace his spirit, and in this way wander through the everyday world – if you had met one like that, you would have had real cause for astonishment.
Heaven and earth were perfectly joined [tung-t'ung 洞同], all was chaotically unformed [hun-tun wei p'u 渾沌為樸]; and things were complete [ch'eng 成] yet not created.
[26]Three other Huainanzi chapters use hun, for example, the compound hunhun cangcang (渾渾蒼蒼; 'pure and unformed', 'vast and hazy') The world was a unity without division into classes nor separation into orders (lit: a disorganised mass): the unaffectedness and homeliness of the natural heart had not, as yet, been corrupted: the spirit of the age was a unity, and all creation was in great affluence.
[27]The Liezi uses hunlun 渾淪 for hundun, which is described as the confused state in which qi 氣 "pneuma; breath", xing 形 "form; shape", and zhi 質 "matter; substance" have begun to exist but are still merged as one.
[28]The Shanhaijing collection of early myths and legends uses hundun 渾敦 as an adjective to describe a shen 神 "spirit; god" on Tian Shan 天山 "Heaven Mountain".
[33] He treated it as a world egg mythic "chain" from the southern Liao culture, which originated in the Sichuan and Hubei region.
Norman J. Girardot, professor of Chinese religion at Lehigh University, has written articles and a definitive book on hundun.
In the 2013 film Pacific Rim, the second kaiju to make landfall was named Hundun, though only a brief glimpse of it is seen and it doesn't have a major role in the plot.
In the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the character Morris (vocal effects provided by Dee Bradley Baker) is a Hundun and acts as a companion of Trevor Slattery at the time when he was a jester for Wenwu.
As Morris entered Ta Lo in a car with Shang-Chi, Xialing, Katy, and Trevor Slattery, he appeared excited to see other Hunduns and they waved their wings at each other.
