Places
Various mythological geography is associated with the Eight Pillars, including the eight mountain pillars themselves along with surrounding or intervening terrain, such as the Moving Sands. The eight mountain pillars include Kunlun, Jade Mountain, Mount Buzhou, and five more (Yang Lihui 2005: passim). Kunlun functions as a sort of ladder which could be used to travel between earth and Heaven. Accordingly, any person who succeeded in climbing up to the top of Kunlun would magically become an immortal spirit (Yang 2005: 160–162).
Buzhou Mountain
Buzhou was the defective mountain pillar. Having been damaged by Gonggong, it no longer separated the Earth and the Heaven for the proper distance. Bu-zhou was the northwest one (Hawkes, 1985 (2011): 94–95, 135–136, 323).
Kunlun
Kunlun Mountain has been described in various texts, as well as being depicted in art. Sometimes Kunlun appears as a pillar of the sky (or earth), sometimes appearing as being composed of multiple tiers (Yang 2005: 160), with the commonality of "mystery, grandeur, or magnificence" being emphasized in the mythological descriptions. The base of the Kunlun Mountain is said to penetrate as far into the earth, as its above-ground part proceeds towards the sky (Christie1968: 74). As the mythology related to the Kunlun developed, it became influenced by the later introduction of ideas about an axis mundi from the cosmology of India. The Kunlun became identified with (or took on the attributes of) Mount Sumeru. Another historical development in the mythology of Kunlun, (again with Indian influence) was that rather than just being the source of the Yellow River, Kunlun began to be considered to be the source of four major rivers flowing to the four quarters of the compass (Christie 1968:74).
Jade Mountain
Another of the Eight Pillars was Jade Mountain.
Associated geography
Various other mythological geography is associated with the Eight Pillars. This includes the four rivers flowing from Kunlun Mountain and the Moving Sands.
Chinese mythology is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as "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 presents a more mythological version.
Gonggong is a Chinese water god who is depicted in Chinese mythology and folktales as having a copper human head with an iron forehead, red hair, and the body of a serpent, or sometimes the head and torso are human, with the tail of a serpent. He is destructive and is blamed for various cosmic catastrophes. In all accounts, Gonggong ends up being killed or sent into exile, usually after losing a struggle with another major deity such as the fire god Zhurong.
Mount Buzhou was an ancient Chinese mythological mountain which, according to old texts, lay to the northwest of the Kunlun Mountains, in a location today referred to as the Pamir Mountains. It is the mountain said to have supported the heavens, against which the Chinese water god Gonggong smashed his head in a fit of anger, requiring the goddess Nüwa to repair the sky. Nevertheless, once the spacer between the Earth and Sky was damaged, the land of China was permanently tilted to the southeast, causing all the rivers to flow in that same direction.
The Xiangshuishen or Xiang River Goddesses are goddesses of the Xiang River in Chinese folk religion. The Xiang flowed into Dongting Lake through the ancient kingdom of Chu, whose songs in their worship have been recorded in a work attributed to Qu Yuan. According to the Shanhaijing, the Xiang River deities were daughters of the supreme deity, Di. According to a somewhat later tradition, the Xiang goddesses were daughters of Emperor Yao, who were named Ehuang and Nüying who were said to have been married by him to his chosen successor, and eventually emperor, Shun, as a sort of test of his administrative abilities: then, later, they became goddesses, after the death of their husband.
The Queen Mother of the West, known by various local names, is a goddess in Chinese religion and mythology, also worshipped in neighbouring Asian countries, and attested from ancient times. The first historical information on her can be traced back to oracle bone inscriptions of the fifteenth century BC that record sacrifices to a "Western Mother". Even though these inscriptions illustrate that she predates organized Taoism, she is most often associated with Taoism. From her name alone some of her most important characteristics are revealed: she is royal, female, and is associated with the west. The growing popularity of the Queen Mother of the West, as well as the beliefs that she was the dispenser of prosperity, longevity, and eternal bliss took place during the second century BC when the northern and western parts of China were able to be better known because of the opening of the Silk Road.
The Kunlun or Kunlun Shan is a mountain or mountain range in Chinese mythology, an important symbol representing the axis mundi and divinity.
Xirang, also known as hsi-jang, Swelling Earth, self-renewing soil, breathing earth, and living earth is a magical substance in Chinese mythology that had a self-expanding ability to continuously grow – which made it particularly effective for use by Gun and Yu the Great in fighting the rising waters of the Great Flood. This Chinese word compounds xí 息 "breathe; cease; rest; grow; multiply" and rǎng 壤 "soil; earth". Noting similarities with earth-diver creation myths, Anne Birrell translates xirang as "self-renewing soil", and compares other translations of "breathing earth", "swelling mold", "idle soil", and "living earth" or "breathing earth".
Jade Mountain is a mythological mountain in Chinese mythology and the residence of The Queen Mother of the West.
Feather Mountain is one of many important mythological mountains in Chinese mythology, particularly associated with the Great Flood. According to the mythological studies of Lihui Yang, Gun was executed on the "outskirts" of Feather Mountain by Zhu Rong, either for stealing the xirang or for failing to control the flood waters. According to K. C. Wu, Emperor Shun exiled Gun to Feather Mountain for lèse-majesté, but that Gun was not executed; and, rather, that such accounts result from misunderstanding the meanings associated with the ancient Chinese character jí (殛), which appears in certain source works.
Hebo is the god of the Yellow River. The Yellow River is the main river of northern China, one of the world's major rivers and a river of great cultural importance in China. This is reflected in Chinese mythology by the tales surrounding the deity Hebo.
The Yellow RiverMap, Scheme, or Diagram is an ancient Chinese concept. It is related to the Lo Shu Square. The origins of the two from the rivers Luo and He are part of Chinese mythology. The development of the two are part of Chinese philosophy. (Wu:52)
Chinese traditional religion is polytheistic; many deities are worshipped in a pantheistic view where divinity is inherent in the world. The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven, which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order. Many gods are ancestors or men who became deities for their heavenly achievements; most gods are also identified with stars and constellations. Ancestors are regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and therefore as the means connecting back to Heaven, which is the "utmost ancestral father".
The Weak River also known as the Weak Water or Ruoshui is an important feature in the mythical geography of Chinese literature, including novels and poetry over a course of over two millennia from the Warring States to early Han dynasty era poetry of the Chuci onward. The Weak River is one of the mythological rivers flowing near Kunlun, home of a Western Paradise. The Weak River flowed with "water" so lacking in specific gravity that even a feather would not float, thus being a protective barrier against the unworthy, who otherwise would profane the paradise on Kunlun, and perhaps even climb up to Heaven and disturb the deities and other inhabitants residing there. In the novel Journey to the West, the Weak Water River forms one of the obstacles the fictional version of the monk Xuanzang, the magic monkey Sun Wukong, and companions must cross over on their mission to fetch the Buddhist scriptures from India and return them to Tang China.
The Red River or Red Water is an important feature in the mythological geography of Chinese literature, including novels and poetry over a course of over two millennia from the Warring States to early Han dynasty era poetry of the Chuci onward. The Red River is one of the mythological rivers said to flow from Kunlun, a mythological land, with mountainous features. Translations into English include "Scarlet River".
The Moving Sands also known as the Flowing Sands ) is an important feature in the mythological geography of Chinese literature, including novels and poetry over a course of over two millennia from the Warring States to early Han dynasty era poetry of the Chuci onward to the present. In his poem "Li Sao", author Qu Yuan describes an aerial crossing of the Moving Sands on a shamanic spiritual Journey to Kunlun. "Moving Sands forms one of the obstacles the fictional version of the monk Xuanzang and companions must cross over on their mission to fetch the Buddhist scriptures from India and return them to Tang China. In this story, Xuanzang recruits the former sand demon and eater-of-humans Sha Wujing who is living in Moving Sands as his third disciple. Sometimes the Moving Sands seem to depict drifting dunes or desert, sometimes a sand or quicksand-like river, in which case, in Chinese, it would be (Liúshā-hé.
Birds in Chinese mythology and legend are of numerous types and very important in this regard. Some of them are obviously based on real birds, other ones obviously not, and some in-between. The crane is an example of a real type of bird with mythological enhancements. Cranes are linked with immortality, and may be transformed xian immortals, or ferry an immortal upon their back. The Vermilion Bird is iconic of the south. Sometimes confused with the Fenghuang, the Vermilion Bird of the south is associated with fire. The Peng was a gigantic bird phase of the gigantic Kun fish. The Jingwei is a mythical bird which tries to fill up the ocean with twigs and pebbles symbolizing indefatigable determination. The Qingniao was the messenger or servant of Xi Wangmu.
Chinese mythological geography refers to the related mythological concepts of geography and cosmology, in the context of the geographic area now known as "China", which was typically conceived of as the center of the universe. The "Middle Kingdom" thus served as a reference point for a geography sometimes real and sometimes mythological, including lands and seas surrounding the Middle Land, with mountain peaks and sky above, with sacred grottoes and an underworld below, and even sometimes with some very abstract other worlds. Chinese mythological geography is very important because it involves a lot of mythology, history, and social science concepts of current usage as well as during previous uncounted millennia.
Legendary weapons, arms, and armor are important motifs in Chinese mythology as well as Chinese legend, cultural symbology, and fiction. Weapons featured in Chinese mythology, legend, cultural symbology, and fiction include Guanyu's pole weapon. This non-factually documented weapon has been known as the Green Dragon Crescent Blade. Other weapons from Chinese mythology, legend, cultural symbology, and fiction include the shield and battleax of the defiant dancer Xingtian, Yi's bow and arrows, given him by Di Jun, and the many weapons and armor of Chiyou, who is associated with the elemental power of metal. Chinese mythology, legend, cultural symbology, and fiction features the use of elemental weapons such as ones evoking the powers of wind and rain to influence battle.
