CC BY
25Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2 (2008 1) 253-259
УДК 400
Mythical Animals as Representations of the Basic Ideas of Chinese Philosophy
Olesya N. Volkova*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk 660041 Russia 1
Received 10.04.2008, received in revised form 06.05.2008, accepted 15.05.2008
This paper offers an original interpretation of the images of Chinese mythical animals selected from "The Book of Mountains and Seas". The author interprets the images as representations of the basic principles of Chinese philosophy and assumes that these supernatural creatures reconstitute a symbolic zoomorphic model of the world. The paper also analyzes the Chinese characters representing mythical animals. This analysis reveals the divine nature of these mythical animals, their ability to change form, and their close connection with the spirits of the dead.
Keywords: Chinese mythology, "The Book of Mountains and Seas", mythical animals, Chinese characters, graphic representations of mythical animals, symbolic model of the world.
At present, the research study of myth, a cultural phenomenon common to all mankind, mainly concerns the comprehension of its spiritual meaning. In the wide philosophical sense, myth is a mental reality, where the symbolic model of the world is reconstructed; and this model is defined as a product of the creative, spiritual activity of a human being. The significance of the research becomes evident if we accept the idea that myth as a method of modeling the world and, what is more important, the human being's attitude to the world reveals its universality, constant presence in the culture (human mind) since archaic times.
The main subject of this paper is the symbolic model of the world formed in ancient Chinese culture. The author touches upon particular elements of the model selected from the book called «lil^M», «Shanhaijing», or «The Book of
Mountains and Seas» [8]. This is a not well known book whose creator (exact period about Vth B.C.?) and the aim of the creating are still a mystery. It is usually characterized as a geographical work which represents a list of mountains, rivers, seas and lands; but, rich in content, it also provides information on mythical animals which inhabit the listed lands, magic herbs which grow there and wonderful minerals hidden deep in the listed mountains.
According to the recent interpretations, most of the mythical images of the book are identified with the natural objects and translated into scientific terms, zoological in particular [11]. We admit that such search for positive knowledge cannot give complete results and reveal the intentions of the ancient Chinese who composed «Shanghaijing». Apparently, the interpreting mind will find the
* Corresponding author E-mail address: o.volkova@akadem.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
book many-sided; depending on the viewpoint, it may be possible to disclose some of the facets, but not all of them at once.
This paper offers an original view on the mythical animals of «Shanghaijing» with relation to representation of philosophical concepts and ideas. The author takes into consideration that the Chinese "philosophical pattern", which in essence has remained unchanged over two thousand years, is based on cosmological ideas [9]. These fundamental ideas are formulated in the paper in order to prove the substantial unity of the selected mythological forms.
Before illustrating these ideas by concrete examples, it should be noticed that we used a semiotic structural method, which allows regarding the figures of animals and birds (taken as a whole) as one of the symbolic strati on the myth system. By means of these animal characters an all-sufficient cosmological model can be constructed. The matter concerns the sacred, lofty model of the world, which, i a man wit
the Chinese philosophy, is the a tail
Whole. Spirituality means that the space is filled with spirits of the dead. The spirits persomfy a flow of qi (^ qi), a vivifying cosmic substance which impregnates a universal nature. The ancients were in great need of feeling themselves a part of the Whole, in consequence, they yearned for being in touch with the spirits. The process of maintaining close contact with the spirits allowed them to overcome the limited nature of individual existence [5].
According to the Chinese idea of the spirits, the mentioned are devoid of constant corporeal form, and usually take the shape of animals. It follows from this that there is a kind of genetic relation between the animal figures and the representation of the dead. This relation has its traces in the attire of shamans who played a role of mediators in the ancient Chinese society: the attire included zoomorphous details such as horns,
feathers, tails and scales. The "half-human - half-animal" appearance showed the shamans inner transformation at the moment of contacting with the spirits. It can be illustrated by pictographic images of the shamans discovered among the oracle inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty (XVIIth - XIth century B.C.), the divination writings made on tortoise-shells and animal bones [10]:
V
a man with a tail
a man wearing
a feathered mask
a man in a fish-scaly attire
a man wearing an horned mask
Among the ornaments engraved on ethe
pottery of the early Neolithic Age (about 5890
B.C .) arehaeothgists found out a sacral image of a feathered mask a fish-scaly attire a
face whose mouth consists of two fish heads.
an anthropomorphous fish a ceramic dish of the Banpo Culture (5000 - 4500 B.C.)
The mysterious author, or authors, of "Shanghaijing" described a strange creature who is presumed to be a personification of the world in the primary stage of the creation. This sacciform creature named Hundun hundun, chaos) represents the world as the entire living organism. The description says that Hundun is formless, its appearance is dim, it has no holes, but has wings and legs, which demonstrate the unity, inseparability of the Yang (P§ yang) and the Yin (^ yin), the sky and the earth. Besides,
the anci ent nuthor emphasiz ed Hundun ' s abi lity to s ign and dance, this p e culiarity mapl^ ere ative power, action potency hidden inside the being. Hundun is an original formula of the universe, which expres ses ^l^e: iaLw^ of ere ating from writon, but not from without, its own self. It seems that Hundun unrolls itself into an endless chain of zoomorphous creahures, whish represent the multiformity of "the world ofthings".
a bird and a fish a ceramic vesse l of the YacgsУao Culture (lOOe- 3000 f . C . i
The mythical creatures, which combine distinguishing features of the described above natural beings, play the role of the interrelated yin-yang pair. For example, the following
Hundun,
the bird-spirit
A crucial point of the cosmic process is the demarcation of the single Whole, the Great Absolute, and the origination of two creatihe forces - the Yang and title YiC. The polarity piercing through the workl if cymbolized by fish, snakes and birds, in view of the fact that they live in the opposite elements. Fish and snakes possess the yin qualities, they inhabit dark sea depths and are able to penetrate into the earth; birds possess the yang qualities, they belong to the elemena of air, the sky and the ligHt. This archaic pari appsars in the Neolithic paintings, for instance a bird holding a fish in its beak.
supernatural agents have forms where the fish features are meshed with the bird features: a creature called Zao (IK) is a fish with bird claws and a creature called Hua (fit) is a fish with bird winfs. Anoaher c urio ua creature ami^d ofthg (Pp) is a four-winged snake. Their shapes each fix the principle of yin-yang metamorphoses, which in conformity with the Chinese philosophy rules over the creation.
The reciprocal conversion of two forces is defined as gradual and includes many intermediate stagcsforming a steady stream of metamoythosts ef fte world. This stream of metamorphoses his represented by the mythical animals, which contain elements of "the other". For example, a horned creature called Bo (®) is characterizes by the inclusion of tiger's features (paws and fangs) within the body of a horse. It is said that Bo uses tigers for food, thus it absorbs a part of its victim, which merges with its body. Theidec ofsacrific e is the essence of the world's motion, theessenee of the conversion of the Yin into the Yang and the Yang into the Yin.
Zao,
a fish with bird claws
Hua, a fish with wings
Ming, a four-winged snake
fo,
a horse with tiger paws
It seems that the idea of the balance (the harmonious merging) of two forces is illustrated by the dichotomous (bifurcated) creatures. One of them is a mythical bird Jian It looks like
a wild duck, which consists of a green-feathered female and a red-feathered male; ducks each have one eye and one wing and can fly only together. Such creatures differ from androgynes, which represent the idea of the absolute merging.
Jian, a bifurcated bird
The clual b irth (XX^ shuangshenge give s impetus to the creative process, which (in a quantitative sense) can be defined as a consecutive fission. In this case, a creature called Fei (HI) with two bodies crowned by one head demonstrates the stage of "two" (^ er, according to «MMS», «Daodejlng», or «Taoteking») and embodies the idea of splitting of the primeval Whole, which in the initial stxge of the c osmia ehoSuiion i s omnlar to a coiled up snake. After the stage of "two" goes the stage of "three" (H san), this nur^ea fixi^ ibe beginning of plurality and variety and correlates with a group of mythical creatures with triple parts of the body. For example, a bird named Qi (ti) has three heads and six tails.
As the process of fission continues, the next stages can be identified with creatures sbshas h six-headed bird called Shu (St). Evidently, th e finishing-point of the fission is represented by a fish named Luo with ten bodies crowned by one head; its monstrous look illustrates the moment of the creation which, according to Laotse (^T Laozi) , is called the birth of "ten thoudand things" (7J ^S wanwu).
Fei,
a snake with two bodies and one head
a bird with three heads and six tails
Shu,
a six-headed bird
Luo,
a fish with ten bodies but one head
Everything in the "unrolled" cosmos, as the Chinese perceive ft, id organized in order, but at the same time a part of chaos lurks in this order and threatens with destruction, rolling the world back into the mixed Whole. It is possible to identify the idea of the chaos remains with the creatures with displaced parts of the body or the creatures missing some parts of the body. For example, a mythical ram Huan (5®) lacks a mouth (but it does not di e of starvation), and the ey e s of a mythical goat Bo (#) are placed on the back.
Huan, a ram without a mouth
Bo,
a goat with the eyes on the back
The zoo-anthropomorphous creatures of «Shanhaijing» denote a shaman who crossed a border of the material world and looked into the realm of spirits, a man who took part in "the great play of illusions" [4]. For example, a creature named crimson Ru (H) has a creature with the fish features intertwined with the anthropomorphous features, that way it fixes the moment of integration of a human being and cosmic forces. It
i s noticeable that Ru i s analo gous to the Neolithic anthropomocshour fish.
Ra,
a fish with anthropomorphous features
This research leads to the conclusion that non-nataral forms of the mythical animals reflect the coarse of nature, the peculiarities of their structures correlate with the principles of the universalstructure.
The paper also formulates some ideas based on the analysis of the Chinese characters
a snake with two bodies a bird with three heads
For tfie analysis , the author used the semiotic model offered by Charles Peirce [6]. As is well known, the Chinese characters reproduce the forms of the objects they designate. Taking into consideration the potentialities of representation of the selected characters, the author presumed that their graphic images should allude to the ide al nature of the denote d cheu^s and , as a result ,
a ram without a mouth
Patternl. One mythical animal has more than one graphic representation. In that way, it is illustrated that a mythical creature cannot be put into a concrete single form. The Chirks e dragon (Ü lóng) and the phoenie (M feng) are bright examples for this case. Each of the named creatures has its own pictograms (icons) found in the oracle bone inscriptions.
Long, the dragon with horns on its head, scales on its b ody and a long tail
Feng, the phoenix with peacock-like feathers
and a tuft
It seems that these pictograms were not enough for the ancient Chinese, who worshiped the animals and depicted them in many ways. The dragon is often accompanied with raindrops (S ling). This complex image reveals the dragon's divine nature and refers to the idea of the master ruling over the clouds and the rain-water, which impregnates the earth, gives birth and makes the living things grow.
the dragon soaring under the raindrops
Some pictograms of Feng, the phoenix, include the image of a sailing vessel, which represents the wind. This mysterious picture has its explanation: according to the ancient beliefs, the wind originates from the flapping of this giant bird's wings. Feng is the spirit of the wind and it personifies the air, the breath, the life principle.
One character (Bit ining) depicts the miraculous bird under the shining sun and the moon crescent, which are the total embodiments of the Yin and the Yang. Evidently, these images show the nature of Feng known as one of four first-born creatures, the ayi^ol of the yin-yang harmony.
1? tt
Feng and a sailing vessel
Feng, the sun and the moon crescent
© 3
The explanation of creating so many graphic representations of a single mythical animal lies in the statement that a symbol inevitably bounds the denoted object and within the bounds distorts it (E. Cassirer). A symbol withdraws the object from the continuous stream of metamorphoses and gives its one-sided reflection.
Pattern 2. It was mentioned above, that all mythical animals taken together represent the stream of metamorphoses and one of their abilities is to change their form and turn into another creature. First of all, it is illustrated by fixing one creature with two or more logogramsinwluchthe role of the semantic index belongs to different real animals. For example, the dragon is represented by the "bird - snake" archaic complex (ill qiu) or is depicted as a frog (HQ qiu). A giant bird named Peng is depicted not only as a bird (11 peng), but also as a fish (SI ), because it can turn into a fish named Kun.
the dragon =
1
a poisonous snake
a flying bird
69
a trog a calabash1
by the logogram waere ess; semantic indax is not a turtle, but a frog (tt ao) or a fish (^). The logogram, which fixes a mythical ram Zhi, depicts a tiger (M zhi). A mythical bull Yuan has the logo^em, wluch reproduces the shape of a wild boar (M yuan) . Ths logogram fepresenting a mythical fish Qiu includes a dog shape (^ qiu). Thus, ancient painters identified the forms, which have no similarfeature s . This identity seems absurd, but it illustrates die philosophic formula, according to which everything that exists keeps the reversyshape witWn it ewn self and is ready
to take this shape aay time, followmg the stream
o with a train
the dragon =
Peng a
a bird a fish
with a train
Secondly, the ability to change forms becomes evident, if a natural animal of the semantic hindex (usually taken as a model for a form of a mythical creature) does fnot agree with the shape of the mythical creature itself. For example, a mythical turtle Ao is represented
Ao,
a mythical turtle
Zhi,
a mythical
Yuan,
a mythical bull
Qiu,
a mythical fish
a frog a tiger
a fish
a wild boar
«TT*
a dog
Pattern 3. A mythical animal, in essence, is a bright form of a spirit, and its demonic nature becomes visible in the case of substitution the "animal" marker for the "spirit" marker (% gui). The immaterial agent is depicted as the shaman dancing in a ritual tailed mask. For example, the dragon is represented by the spirit flying under the rain (f| ling). A mythical bear Tui (It tui) is represented by the complex image of the spirit and a short-tailed bird.
+
1 In the Chinese culture, the image of calabash has a deep symbolic meaning. Traditionally it refers to the idea of Chaos, the source of "the world of things", and is regarded as a personification of the maternal womb of the world.
the dragon depicted as the spirit flying under the rain
a spirit of the dead
m
■ •
+
ad short-tailed bird
The results of the analysis confirm the offered hypothesis that each figure of the mythical animal is the form with deep symbolic content related to the spirits, which represent qi, the cosmic substance. Evidently, it is not possible to reduce such content to a single form (M. Fuko). Besides, the grammar - logical analysis proves that there is the mythological model of the world constituted in the Chinese mind and depicted by the Chinese characters.
References
1. E. Cassirer, "The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms", vol. 2, Mythical Thought (St. Petersburg, 2001), Russian.
2. M. Eliade, The Aspects of Myth (Moscow: Academic Project, 2000), in Russian.
3. Li Leyi, Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases (Beijing: Beijing Languages and Culture University Press, 1997).
4. V.V. Maliavin, Twilight ofthe Tao. Chinese Culture on the Threshold of Modern Times (Moscow: AST Publishing, 2000).
5. A.A. Maslov, China: Taming the Dragons. The Spiritual Search and the Sacral Ecstasy (Moscow: Aleteya, 2003).
6. Ch.S. Peirce, Logical Foundations of the Theory of Signs (St. Petersburg: St. Petersburg State University Press, 2000), in Russian.
7. Tao: the Harmony of the World (Moscow: Eksmo Press, 2000).
8. The Book of Mountains and Seas (the original Chinese version) (Hefei: Anhui National Press, 1999).
9. E.A. Torchinov, Philosophy East and West (St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie, 2005).
10. Wang Hongyuan, The Origins of Chinese Characters (Beijing: Sinolingua, 2000).
11. E.M. Yanshina, The Book of Mountains and Seas (Moscow: Science Press, 1977), the Russian
version.
