Study on the myths of the creation of the world—Chinese races as the center

• Main Authors: Mei -fang Chuang, 莊美芳
• Other Authors: Hsiao -lian Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/87919940795312914304

博士 === 東吳大學 === 中國文學系 === 94 === 　　The origins of humans, universe and culture are the major themes of the myths for nearly all races around the world. Every race uses the myths to answer three fundamental questions: How did the universe come about? Where did humans come from? Where were grains and tinder obtained? 　　In the genesis, humans are the most curious about the universe and eager for the explanation. Therefore, the creation is the most common theme in the myths of all races. It tries to explain how the world was created and how humans came into this world. 　　Many western scholars thought that Chinese had no myths of the creation. By contrast, some thought that Chinese myths possessed some elements of the creation but had no the systematic form. As the matter of fact, Chinese myths differ from western myths in their distinct features, which are amply shown in the myths of the creation widely spread among races. This study will use the myths of the creation as the entering point to understand Chinese myths. 　　This study will investigate the myths of the creation in the myths of genesis from Chinese races. Based on the mythical materials recorded in ancient books and the narrative stories collected from all races in the recent years, I made a careful and detailed analysis on the categories, content, types of thinking and ways of narrative of the myths to discuss the forming process of the universe in the ideas of the early peoples. 　　The forming of the universe, the origins of celestial phenomena and landforms, the ways of communication after the disconnection of the sky and land construct the imagination of the universe for the early peoples and explain the relationship between the early peoples and their universe. The myths of the creation reveal the forming order of the universe. This study will make a sequential discussion and try to show the complete map of constructing order of the universe from three topics: (1) the birth of the universe, (2) the construction of the universe, and (3) the communication of the sky and land. 　　The world was created when humans began to think about their own existence and imagine their world. There are correlations between the ways the world and humans were born, often categorized into types of “material-born”, “sense-born”, and “sex-born”. Most myths indicate that the world before creation was in the state of chaos. So-called chaos means shapeless status, suggesting the phenomena of lack of time and space. Time and space began at the moment when the universe was created. 　　Since the creation of the universe, space and time exist and the world for human inhabitation appears. The instability of the sky and land led to the production of the myths of supporting the sky or supporting the land. The imperfect initial construction of the universe led to the adjustment of the second phase to separate the sky and land, or to squeeze the larger land to match the smaller sky. After the creation of the sky and land, the origins of sun and moon came into the consideration. This study emphasized on the myths of sun-shooting from Taiwanese aboriginals. The myths of sun and moon show the time concepts such as the revolution of sun and moon, the alternation of day and night, changes of moon, and the changes of seasons. 　　Since the disconnection of the sky and land, humans and gods had to use the heavenly ladder to get to each other. Whoever could get to the sky must be extraordinary figures. The most common heavenly ladders are divine mountains and divine trees. Humans climbed the heavenly ladders to reach gods and look for the eternal lives. The myths of heavenly ladders construct the universe concept of this world and other world. 　　Many themes in myths are concerned with the situations of humans and how humans perceive the natural world and universe. Main themes of the world creation such as chaos, “transformation”, origins of sun and moon all show the concepts of the universe, time and space in primitive early peoples.