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Along with Chinese folklore, Chinese mythology forms an important part of Chinese folk religion (Yang et al 2005, 4). Many stories regarding characters and events of the distant past have a double tradition: ones which present a more historicized or euhemerized version and ones which presents a more mythological version (Yang et al 2005, 12–13).
Chinese mythology (traditional Chinese: 中國神話; simplified Chinese: 中国神话; pinyin: Zhōngguó shénhuà) is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural traditions.
Zhang Shoujie's Correct Meanings of the Record of the Grand Historian (史記正義; Shǐjì Zhèngyì) identifies Huandou (讙兠) with Hundun (渾沌), Gonggong with Qiongqi (窮竒), Gun with Taowu (檮杌), and the Sanmiao "Three Miao" (三苗) with Taotie (饕餮).
Chinese creation myths are symbolic narratives about the origins of the universe, earth, and life. Myths in China vary from culture to culture. In Chinese mythology, the term "cosmogonic myth" or "origin myth" is more accurate than "creation myth", since very few stories involve a creator deity or divine will.
Chinese Bronze script for po 魄 or 霸 "lunar brightness" Chinese Seal script for po 魄 "soul" Chinese Seal script for hun 魂 "soul". Like many Chinese characters, 魂 and 魄 are "phono-semantic" or "radical-phonetic" graphs combining a semantic radical showing the rough meaning of the character with a phonetic guide to its former pronunciation in Ancient Chinese.
One example of this is the symbolic meaning behind frogs and toads. Toads are named Ch'an Chu (蟾蜍) in Chinese, a folklore about Ch'an Chu illustrates the toad imports the implication of eternal life and perpetual. Chinese folklore unfolds the story of a Ch'an Chu (toad) is saved by Liu Hai, who is a courtier in ancient Chinese period.
The gates and doors of Chinese houses have long received special ritual attention. [1] Sacrifices to a door spirit are recorded as early as the Book of Rites. [1] [2] By the Han, this spirit had become the two gods Shenshu and Yulü, whose names or images were painted into peachwood and attached to doors. [1]
Trees in Chinese mythology and culture tend to range from more-or-less mythological such as the Fusang tree and the Peaches of Immortality cultivated by Xi Wangmu to mythological attributions to such well-known trees, such as the pine, the cypress, the plum and other types of prunus, the jujube, the cassia, and certain as yet unidentified trees.