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Epic Of Darkness
The Epic of Darkness () is a collection of tales and legends of primeval China in epic poetry, preserved by the inhabitants of the Shennongjia mountain area in Hubei. It is composed of numerous Chinese myths relating to the creation of the world, containing accounts from the birth of Pangu till the historical era. It dates back to the Tang dynasty of China. It was translated and published by Hu Chongjun after the discovery of a manuscript in 1982. Like the Homeric epics, the written poem was likely preceded by an oral tradition dating back to at least the Tang dynasty. Wooden copies of ''Darkness'' are said to have survived to the Ming dynasty but none have been found today. History The origin of ''Darkness'' dates back to the Tang dynasty (618–907). At least eight manuscripts have survived today, most of which come from Shennongjia in China's Hubei Province. The tales told in the story have survived in the folk songs of the region. In August 1982, Hu Chongjun was given a son ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legend
A legend is a Folklore genre, genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived, both by teller and listeners, to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude (literature), verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants may include miracles. Legends may be transformed over time to keep them fresh and vital. Many legends operate within the realm of uncertainty, never being entirely believed by the participants, but also never being resolutely doubted. Legends are sometimes distinguished from myths in that they concern human beings as the main characters rather than gods, and sometimes in that they have some sort of historical basis whereas myths generally do not. The Brothers Grimm defined ''legend'' as "Folklore, folktale historically grounded". A by-product of the "concern with human beings" is the long list o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Sovereigns And Five Emperors
The Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors were two groups of mythological rulers in ancient north China. The Three Sovereigns supposedly lived long before The Five Emperors, who have been assigned dates in a period from 3162 BC to 2070 BC. Today they may be considered culture heroes. The dates of these mythological figures may be fictitious, but according to some accounts and reconstructions, they supposedly preceded the Xia Dynasty. Description The Three Sovereigns, sometimes known as the Three August Ones, were said to be god-kings or demigods who used their divine abilities to improve the lives of the Chinese peoples and gift them essential skills and valuable knowledge. The Five Emperors are portrayed as exemplary ancestral sages who possessed a great moral character and lived to an extremely old age and ruled over a period of great Chinese peace. The Three Sovereigns on the other hand are ascribed various identities in different Chinese historical texts. These high kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Folklore
Chinese folklore encompasses the folklore of China, and includes songs, poetry, dances, puppetry, and tales. It often tells stories of human nature, historical or legendary events, love, and the supernatural. The stories often explain natural phenomena and distinctive landmarks. Along with Chinese mythology, it forms an important element in Chinese folk religion. History Folktales The main influences on Chinese folk tales have been Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Some folktales may have arrived from Germany when Grimm brothers had contributed some materials for the folktales regard to the country life of the German dwellers since the 1840s; others have no known western counterparts, but are widespread throughout East Asia.Eberhard, Wolfram, ''Folktales of China.''(1965). University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1965. University of Congress Catalog Card Number: 65-25440 Chinese folktales include a vast variety of forms such as myths, legends, fables, etc. A number of collections ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Mythology
Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of the mythology involves exciting stories full of fantastic people and beings, the use of magical powers, often taking place in an exotic mythological place or time. Like many mythologies, Chinese mythology has in the past been believed to be, at least in part, a factual recording of history. Along with Chinese folklore, Chinese mythology forms an important part of Chinese folk religion. 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 present a more mythological version. Many myths involve the creation and cosmology of the universe and its deities and inhabitants. Some mythology involves creation myths, the origin of things, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Of Hubei
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Hubei is a province of China, known for the Huangmei and Chu opera styles and a wide array of folk songs; Huangmei opera is especially renowned, and has spread to Shanghai, Beijing and Anhui, among other places. In 1986, the Hubei Folk Arts Association published several versions of ''Darkness'', believed to be an ancient Han creation myth, collected mostly in song form by Hu Chongjun. Modern popular performers from Hubei include Li Qiong and the Hubei Song and Dance Ensemble. References Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The prov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nüwa
Nüwa, also read Nügua, is the mother goddess of Chinese mythology. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven. As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In the Huainanzi, there is described a great battle between deities that broke the pillars supporting Heaven and caused great devastation. There was great flooding, and Heaven had collapsed. Nüwa was the one who patched the holes in Heaven with five colored stones, and she used the legs of a tortoise to mend the pillars. There are many instances of her in literature across China which detail her in creation stories, and today remains a figure important to Chinese culture. Name The character ''nü'' ( zh, t=女, l=female) is a common prefix on the names of goddesses. The proper name is ''wa'', also read as ''gua'' ( zh, t=媧). The Chinese character is unique to this name. Birrell translates it as 'lovely', but notes that it "could be construed as 'fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuxi
Fuxi or Fu Hsi (伏羲 ~ 伏犧 ~ 伏戲) is a culture hero in Chinese legend and mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2,000BC. Fuxi was counted as the first of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Origin Pangu was said to be the creation god in Chinese mythology. He was a giant sleeping within an egg of chaos. As he awoke, he stood up and divided the sky and the earth. Pangu then died after standing up, and his body turned into rivers, mountains, plants, animals, and everything else in the world, among which is a powerful being known as Huaxu (華胥). Huaxu gave birth to a twin brother and sister, Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi and Nüwa are said to be creatures that have faces of human and bodies of snakes. Fuxi was known as the "original god", and he was said to have be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East China Normal University
East China Normal University (ECNU) is a comprehensive Public university, public research university in Shanghai, China. It was formed in 1951 by the merger of the Great China University (est. 1924) and Kwang Hua University (est. 1925) and originated from the St. John's University, Shanghai, St. John's College founded in 1879. Established as a normal school, it had an original mission to train teachers for secondary and higher education, but soon housed top-class researchers and developed into an elite research-intensive university. As of 2020, ECNU is organized into 22 schools, colleges, and institutes, located in two campuses throughout Minhang District, Minhang and Putuo District, Shanghai, Putuo. The university comprises 2 affiliated schools across the Shanghai metropolitan area: NYU Shanghai in Pudong New Area, Pudong, EMLYON Business School, Asia-Europe Business School in Zizhu International Education Park. It also maintains a National Forest Ecosystem Observation and Resear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Flood (China)
The Great Flood of Gun-Yu (), also known as the Gun-Yu myth, was a major flood in ancient China that allegedly continued for at least two generations, which resulted in great population displacements among other disasters, such as storms and famine. People left their homes to live on the high hills and mounts, or nest on the trees. According to mythological and historical sources, it is traditionally dated to the third millennium BCE, or about 2300-2200 BCE, during the reign of Emperor Yao. However, archaeological evidence of an outburst flood at Jishi Gore on the Yellow River, comparable to similar severe events in the world in the past 10,000 years, has been dated to about 1920 BCE (a few centuries later than the traditional beginning of the Xia dynasty which came after Emperors Shun and Yao), and is suggested to have been the basis for the myth. Treated either historically or mythologically, the story of the Great Flood and the heroic attempts of the various human charact ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last orthodox dynasty of China ruled by the Han Chinese, Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family—collectively called the Southern Ming—survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (r. 1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homeric Epic
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history. Homer's ''Iliad'' centers on a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles during the last year of the Trojan War. The ''Odyssey'' chronicles the ten-year journey of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, back to his home after the fall of Troy. The poems are in Homeric Greek, also known as Epic Greek, a literary language which shows a mixture of features of the Ionic and Aeolic dialects from different centuries; the predominant influence is Eastern Ionic. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. Homer's epic poems shaped aspects of ancient Greek culture and education, fostering ideals of heroism, glory, and honor. To Plato, Homer was simply the one who ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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