Korean creation narratives
In another pan-Korean episode, there are originally two suns and two moons, making the world unbearably hot during the day and intolerably cold at night, until a deity destroys one of each.
She gives birth to the twin boys Daebyeol-wang and Sobyeol-wang, who ascend to heaven, destroy the doubled sun and moon, and engage in the flower contest.
[10] The Hamhŭng Changse-ga was transcribed in 1923 by ethnographer Son Jin-tae, based on the recitation of Kim Ssang-dori, a "great shamaness" of Unjŏn-myŏn (modern Hŭngnam) born in 1856.
Rather than explain the reason there is evil in the world, as the flower story does in most other accounts, the episode concludes with the cheating god being taught how to spread the Buddhist faith in Korea.
[24] The narrative was accompanied by the shaman's offering of rice cakes to the arriving gods, presented in an earthenware food steamer (Korean: 시루 siru) with seven holes.
[29] In the shamanism of Jeju Island, the creation narrative is recited in the Great Gut, a large-scale sequence of rituals in which all eighteen thousand gods are venerated, as well as in certain smaller ceremonies dedicated to specific deities.
Once this is done, the narrative enters more historical space, lauding the heroes of ancient China from Tianhuang to Laozi and concluding with the recorded history of Korea and Jeju Island.
[59] Despite significant variation between and within regions, many elements are shared across Korean creation narratives, such as the following:[60][61] The flower contest and the destruction of the doubled sun and moon, both of which are found throughout mainland and Jeju corpuses, have received especial scholarly attention.
[80] In the Northern narrative the Sam Taeja-puri, Mireuk is portrayed as a cosmic giant whose body forms the sun, moon, and stars after his defeat at the hands of the usurping god Seokga.
[83][84] In Jeju, this era is a chaotic period without gawp during which humanity suffers until the good deity Daebyeol-wang numbs the tongues of "trees and rocks and grasses and crows".
[91] Throughout the mainland (except in the two eastern narratives), the contention begins when the new deity Seokga suddenly emerges to challenge Mireuk's rule and claim dominion over the present age.
The plant is grown in a silver jar, and sleeping is not one of the original terms but one proposed by Sobyeol-wang when he sees that his flower is black and withering while Daebyeol-wang's one is in full bloom.
[107] All mainland narratives except the Sam Taeja-puri (see below) and the truncated Danggom-agi norae, as well as the significant majority of Cheonji-wang bon-puri versions, state that there were at some point two suns and two moons.
[121] Seo Daeseok argues that the two suns and moons symbolize drought and flood respectively, and that their destruction represents a process of mastering nature in order to promote agriculture.
A nobleman has a virgin daughter named Danggeum-agi, who is impregnated by a supernaturally potent Buddhist priest from the Western Heaven who comes asking for alms.
[130] Only the creation myth-related parts of the eastern Sunsan-chugwon narrative were transcribed, but the excerpt ends with a detailed description of Seokga's clothing as he goes to ask for alms.
The woman gives birth to twins (Seonmun and Humun, or Daebyeol-wang and Sobyeol-wang) who go in search for their father and are ultimately made rulers (of China and Korea) or gods (of the dead and the living).
[148] In all four narratives, Seokga (except in Kim's Changse-ga, where Mireuk plays this role) then embarks on a quest for either the missing sun and moon or the source of fire and water, which always involves the god thrashing a smaller being.
The argument that Mireuk is a goddess was fully developed by Shim Jae-suk in 2018,[180] who argues that the first contest in Kim's Changse-ga is a metaphor for pregnancy, with the East Sea representing the amniotic fluid while the rope symbolizes the umbilical cord.
One day, the creator god Cheonji-wang descends to the human world to punish him, either for his hubris towards heaven or for refusing to hold the ancestral rites for his dead father.
[202] Park believes the core of the current Cheonji-wang bon-puri was brought to Jeju by the ancient migrants from mainland Korea who introduced ironworking to the island in the early first millennium.
Reversing the direction of the other versions, the man poses an earthly problem to be resolved by the celestial Cheonji-wang, while it is not the god but his sons who create the gawp between the living and dead.
[210] In Miyako Island, Miruku-potoke (the local name for the Maitreya Buddha) is believed to be an ugly god who arrives from China to create humans, animals, and crops.
The highlight of the Yonaguni harvest festival is a procession involving a person in a Miruku mask reenacting the goddess, as she is thought to "play the leading role as bringer of wealth, prosperity, and happiness".
[214][215] The Tungusic neighbors of the Buryats have a similar myth but with key differences; the contest is to grow a tree and not a flower, and the benevolent god prevails because there is no cheating involved.
[220] The Chinese myth was already present by the late fourth century BCE, and Waida believes that other East and Inner Asian stories involving the motif were probably created via its influence.
[222] They are found locally as a myth from the Apatani people and other tribal populations of central Arunachal Pradesh, as well as in "upland Southeast Asia and southwest China".
[236][237] Professor Charles Bawden provided another version of the tale, titled Erkhii Mergen (which he translated as "Marksman Thumb"), wherein the bird that cross the hero's aim is a swallow.
In a tale from the Golds people (Nanai) of the Amur region, the three suns and three moons disturbed human existence on earth, until a hero shot down the extra luminaries with his bow.
[239] Professor Stuart Blackburn stated that versions of the myth in Arunachal Pradesh show the multiple suns shot down, "often by a frog with bow and arrow", like in an Adi tale.
