PANGU AND THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVERSE Wu Xiaodong Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Abstract The Pangu Myth presented in the classics Sanwu Liji and Wuyun Linianji was about the origin of the Three Sovereigns (or Sanhuang, i.e., the Heavenly Sovereign, the Earthly Sovereign, and the Human Sovereign), later misinter- preted as creation of the universe. The prototype of Sanhuang could be tracked back to the Daoist classic Laozi, an ancient work written in the Spring and Autumn Period. Thus, the comparison between Pangu and any other myths about universe creation by human or supernatural beings is groundless. The misinterpretation of Pangu as the universe creator evolved into three varied forms. Keywords: Pangu, creation myth, Sanhuang (the Three Sovereigns) The well-known Chinese idiom “Pangu created Heaven and Earth, and time marches on from Sanhuang (Three Sovereigns) and Wudi (Five Emperors) till today” states that Pangu created Heaven and Earth. Throughout history Pangu is widely regarded as a great creator god by people inside and outside of the academic and folklorist incrowd. As a result scholars explore the origin of the Pangu myth by comparing it with Brahma creation myths in India and ethnic minority creation myths in southern China. However, Pangu was not a creator god in the earliest Chinese records. The Pangu myth was first recorded in Sanwu Liji and Wuyun Linianji by Xu Zheng. Unfortunately neither of the texts survived, and we only know about their content from quota- tions found in other ancient literatures. Comprehensive analyses of the findings reveal that the Pangu myth has two main parts: the first part is about the transformation of Pangu, while the other part tells the origin of Heaven and Earth, and Pangu’s birth. In the second part, Pangu stands out as the first Human, not a creator god himself. The aforementioned idiom actually means “the birth of Pangu and the creation of the universe.” Pangu was the king of human beings, not the creator as implied in the current idiom verse. In order to clarify 164 wu xiaodong the misunderstanding, we must refer to the original text. There are only two records about the origin of Heaven and Earth and Pangu’s birth. One is a citation from Sanwu Liji in Volume I of Yiwen Leiju:1 In the beginning, Heaven and Earth were one boundary-blurred entity, like an egg, carrying Pangu inside itself. After eighteen thousand years, Heaven and Earth formed; yang was pure, and became Heaven; yin was murky, and became Earth. Pangu stayed between them, undergoing nine transformations every day. Pangu was holier than either Heaven or Earth; while Heaven rose ten feet higher every day and Earth grew ten feet thicker, Pangu grew ten feet taller every day. Another eighteen thousand years passed, and Heaven was extremely high, Earth extremely thick, while Pangu became extremely tall. Then Sanhuang came into being. Numerals start from one, erect at three, become established at five, prosperous at seven, and stablized at nine, so it is ninety thousand li between Heaven and Earth. This excerpt itself is not that difficult to comprehend, but the concept of Pangu as creator god is so deeply rooted in the Chinese culture that even scholars are sometimes misled to a false interpretation of the Pangu myth. People tend to read this simple text as a creation myth, not as the original description of the creation of Heaven and Earth and Pangu’s birth. Wang Liqun quotes the above text and explains in his paper: “It is Pangu’s fast growth that made the formation of Heaven and Earth possible. He transformed nine times each day in the chaos. It can be said that it was Pangu who created Heaven and Earth, an environment we live in” (Wang 67). Obviously, Pangu’s growing was misread as the behavior of separating Heaven and Earth. Zhao Tingguang interprets the text similarly in his paper: “Heaven and Earth were separated, and Pangu sighed emotionally. He thought that it was not easy to create Heaven and Earth. Thus he stood on Earth and supported Heaven. While heaven rose ten feet everyday and earth grew ten feet taller, eighteen thousand years passed, the soft heaven and earth finally solidified, heaven no longer rose and earth no longer sank, and Pangu no longer grew” (Zhao 49). Zhong Nian interprets the phrase “like a hen’s egg” as “was a hen’s egg,” and further elaborates from this perspective: “Pangu hit the egg shell, and the egg white and yolk streamed out. The egg white was light, float- ing on the top and turned into Heaven; the yolk was heavy, sinking and became Earth. And the egg shell had been broken into pieces by Pangu, mixed with the egg white and yolk” (Zhong 82). It is crystal 1 Pages are not numbered in the old edition of the classics..