The University of Chicago Press History of Religions

The Problem of Creation Mythology in the Study of Chinese Religion
Author(s): N. J. Girardot
Source: History of Religions, Vol. 15, No. 4 (May, 1976), pp. 289-318
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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N.J. Girardot THE PROBLEM OF
CREATION
MYTHOLOGY IN THE
STUDY OF CHINESE
RELIGION
There is no hierarchy of gods brought in to

world they made, no conclave on Mount Olym
the mortal soul by Osiris, no transfer of hu
passions and hopes, to the powers above; all he
embodied agencies or principles, and their w
as moving on in quiet order. There is no religio
all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting....
Christian missionary sinologist," quoted by
Myths and Legends of China (1922)]
My intention in this paper is to conside

problem of Chinese creation mythology; or
and more accurate perspective, I would like
of the absence of myth and religion in early
importance of this problem is that it bears
overall methodological confusion surrou
Chinese religion. Thus, my concern with th
apparent absence of any authentic cosmog
may be seen to embrace a whole range of
the unresolved debate over the unity an
tradition and the problem over the phi
nature of classical Taoism.'
Prepared for the session on Chinese religions, American Academy of Religion

October 24, 1974, Washington D.C.
1 On these issues see the symposium on Taoist studies in History of Religions
vol. 9 (November 1969-February 1970). Especially pertinent are Holmes H.
289
Chinese Creation Mythology
One of the most important methodological factors in the study

of the history of world religions is the interrelation between re-
ligion and mythology; or, conversely, as implied in the lead
quotation above, if there is no real mythology then "there is no
religion (1)."2 But this observation only serves to introduce
another myth with regard to China, namely (to borrow Laurence
Thompson's phrase), the "myth of Confucian China," in which
things all appear to be lacking imagination, religious spirit,
myth-"all is impassible, passionless"-in short, the imaginary
vision of China as a tradition of humanistic philosophy where all
moves "on in quiet order" rather than a tradition that manifests
it any essential way the significance of religion.3
This is the almost paradigmatic attitude in the history of
Western scholarship that tended to see China as a special case in
the history of world civilizations-especially in the sense that what
seemed to make China special, or even a welcome anomaly, was
its seemingly nonreligious and nonmythological nature. At the
very least, this view tended to assert that religion and myth did
not significantly impinge on the essence of the purely philosophical
"great tradition."4
Welch, "The Bellagio Conference on Taoist Studies," pp. 107-36, and Arthur F.
Wright, "A Historian's Reflections on the Taoist Tradition," pp. 248-55 (see also
my "Part of the Way: Four Studies on Taoism," History of Religions 11 [1972]:
319-37).
2 It should be noted that the passage is quoted disapprovingly by E. T. C.
Werner. Unfortunately, Werner's own studies of Chinese mythology-Myths and
Legends of China (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1922) and A Dictionary of
Chinese Mythology (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1932)-are to a great extent worth-
less for the study of ancient Chinese mythology. His theoretical perspective (see
chap. 1, "The Sociology of the Chinese," and chap. 2, "On Chinese Mythology,"
in Myths and Legends, where he tends to feel that the scarcity of Chinese myth
developed because Chinese "intellectual progress was arrested at a comparatively
early stage" [p. 61]) is wholly antiquated, and the sources he uses are all very
late encyclopedic compilations and novels (such as the Feng Shen Yen I and the
Hsi Yu Chi). Other early works, ostensibly on Chinese "mythology" (such as
Dor6's Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, Mayer's The Chinese Reader's
Manual, Burkhardt's Chinese Creeds and Customs, and Williams's Outlines of
Chinese Symbolism), are also generally useless for the study of the ancient mytho-
logical and religious tradition, especially since they rely almost entirely on the
rationalized interpretations offered by traditional Confucian scholarship.
3 On the "myth of Confucian China" see, e.g., C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese
Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); H. Smith, "Transcendence
in Traditional China," Religious Studies 2 (1969): 185-96; and A. Wright, "The
Study of Chinese Civilization," Journal of the History of Ideas 21 (1960):232-55.
The phrase "the myth of Confucian China" is taken from L. Thompson's un-
published manuscript of the same title.
4 See A. Wright's comments on the distinction between the "great" and "little"
traditions in "Rapporteurs' Notes of the Bellagio Conference," Xerox copy
(American Council of Learned Societies, Committee on the Study of Chinese
Civilization, 1969), pp. 33-37.
290
History of Religions
I cannot attempt to delineate all of the reasons for this charac-

teristic attitude here.5 I think, however, that the general problem
of Chinese mythology will be seen to be at the heart of the overall
fallacy concerning China's essentially nonreligious nature. More-
over, it may also be possible to say that one of the fundamental
problems associated with the "myth of Confucian China" is pre-
cisely the specific issue of China's apparently unique status with
regard to the absence of a creation mythology.
These preliminary considerations raise the further issue as to
the relationship between religion and myth, and, even more
important from my point of view, the relationship between myth
and cosmogonic myth.6 The perspective I am working from is that
understanding of myth put forward by Eliade, Pettazzoni, and
other historians of religion.7 This perspective emphasizes the phe-
nomenological and structural significance of creation mythology
and tends to assert that myth, as a basic mode of religious ex-
pression along with ritual, is ultimately cosmogonic in its essential
nature. Eliade for example, attempts to demonstrate the "pres-
tige" or "prototypical" nature of cosmogony as the basic structure
of meaning behind all myths. For Eliade cosmogonic myth in the
history of religions is shown to be not simply one type of myth but
"myth par excellence." Eliade remarks: "Since the creation of the
world is the creation par excellence, the cosmogony becomes para-
digmatic for every category of 'creation.' . . . Everything that
5 On the Confucian "self-image" which greatly influenced the development of

the scholarly "myth of Confucian China," see Wright, "Study of Chinese Civiliza-
tion," pp. 235 ff.
6 It is probably best to use the term "cosmogony" to refer to that kind of myth
concerned primarily with the sacred history of the origins of the cosmos, since as
K. Bolle says, ". .. is there not indeed something too specific in the word 'creation
myth ?' Does not the very word 'creation' have a biblical (and Koranic) ring to it ?
The word implies the figure of a creator who somehow fashions a world that is
something quite apart from himself. It does not suggest, for instance, the idea of
an organic process or a birth.... Although the act of creating the world is by no
means limited to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim heritage, the suggestion of
'creation' proper is much weaker or absent in the majority of myths. The more
general word 'cosmogony' may be preferable" (see K. Bolle's The Freedom of Man in
Myth [Nashville, Tenn.:Vanderbilt University Press, 1968], p. 20). The fact that
Chinese creation myth, especially the hun-tun myth of a primordial chaos, does sug-
gest more of the idea of a perpetual cyclic process-a creation that is self-contained,
self-generated, or the "idea of an organic process or a birth"-rather than the
idea of a "creator," is exactly the issue that will be seen to give rise to much of the
methodological confusion in the history of Western scholarship.
7 See, e. g., M. Eliade, Myth and Reality (New York: Harper & Row, 1963) and
"Structure et fonction du mythe cosmogonique," in La Naissance du monde
(Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1959), pp. 469-95; R. Pettazzoni, Essays on the History
of Religions (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), pp. 11-23; Charles H. Long, Alpha: The
Myths of Creation (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1963); and Bolle (see Bolle's
discussion of the differences between Eliade and Pettazzoni, pp. 17-20).
291
appears for the first time-an animal, plant, or institution-

implies the existence of the world.... The myths of beginnings
continue and complete the cosmogonic myth.... That place in
the cosmos which one inhabits, limited though it may be, that is,
the world; its 'origin' and its 'history' precede all other particular
forms of history."8 It is not possible here to offer an extensive
discussion of this methodological principle, but it should be recog-
nized that, at least for Eliade, the idea of the prestige of cosmo-
gonic mythology for religion is to be accepted as an empirical
observation regarding the information presented by religious
history.9
In relation to the prototypical nature and significance of cos-
mogony is the further principle of the paradigmatic function of
cosmogonic myth-that is, the particular "story" told about the
beginnings acts as the exemplary model for all significant human
activities. Although their interpretations of the ultimate meaning
of this paradigmatic function of myth differ, it would seem that
both Eliade and Malinowski generally agree that primitive
cultures tend to model, justify, or validate their actions in terms
of a prior sacred history-the mythic Urzeit or time of the gods.10
My final observation concerning Eliade's evaluation of the
prototypical significance of cosmogonic myth is that the paradig-
matic function is that which allows man to become fully human;
it is that which constitutes the religious or sacred dimension of a
8 Eliade, La Naissance, pp. 490-91, from Bolle's translation in his Freedom of
Man, pp. 19-20 (see also Eliade's comments in Myth and Reality, chap. 2, "Magic
and Prestige of 'Origins,"' pp. 21-38).
9 The centrality of cosmogony as an ethnographic reality is documented in
numerous writings by Eliade, but see especially his "Kosmogonische Mythen und
magische Heilungen," Paideuma 6 (1956):194-204. However, it should be acknowl-
edged that among anthropologists and sociologists Eliade's point of view is
unpopular and very often simply ignored as being "uncritical." For example, the
classicist G. S. Kirk (Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other
Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1970) remarks that "just as the performance of the ritual
actions is felt to impose a sympathetic compulsion on the event ... by a symbolic
rehearsal of regularity, so the reciting of the myth and the re-creation of the event's
mythical origins help to ensure its repetition. Mircea Eliade has given many
examples of the purposeful re-establishment of this 'first time,' although in
making that the function of virtually all myths he has exaggerated its probable
scope at the expense of other aspects" (p. 255).
10 For a discussion of this point in the methodologies of Eliade and Malinowski,
see Robert D. Baird, Category Formation in the History of Religions (Paris:
Mouton, 1971), pp. 69-71, 79-91 (see also A. Jensen's Myth and Cult among
Primitive Peoples, trans. Marianna Tax Choldin and Wolfgang Weissleder
[Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963], for a theory of myth that tends to
support Eliade's observations). Kirk (p. 255, n. 3) notices that the anthropologist
Percy S. Cohen (Man 4 [1969]:349 ff.) "outlines a theory of myth as 'anchoring
the present in the past' . . . in apparent unawareness of Eliade's not dissimilar
development of Malinowski."
292
primitive tradition. One is religious to the extent that the sacred

history revealed in the creation myth is reenacted; consequently,
myth has a soteriological power to sanctify the life of man. As
Eliade says: "One becomes truly a man only by conforming to the
teaching of myths, that is, by imitating the gods." 11
Obviously traditions such as Taoism or Confucianism are not
instances of myth "living" in the sense of a primitive culture, but
Eliade's further observation is that early philosophical and ide-
ological systems often can be seen to be embedded in, or modeled
on, archaic cosmogonic themes.12 The possibility of a structural
connection between philosophy and cosmogony allows, therefore,
for an interpretation that is sensitive to the very real religious
values or ideas that may be at the core of an ideological system in
a civilization such as China. In this way, the presence of mythic
motifs in a "philosophy" such as Taoism should not necessarily be
seen as extraneous factors or literary peculiarities; but that these
mythic and symbolic themes may signify a real religious intention-
ality.13 For example, the issue may not be so much whether (the)
Chuang Tzu literally believed in his various mythic stories and
allusions but whether these elements symbolically disguise a co-
herent structure of religious meaning, a pattern of meaning that
may be rooted in a particular cosmogonic theme.14
1 Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 100 (see also T. Gaster, "Myth and Story,"
Numen 1 [1954]:184-212, for a somewhat similar development of the point).
12 See Bolle's discussion (pp. 21-30) of this with regard to Eliade's methodology.
In referring to Eliade's article in La Naissance, Bolle remarks that "now we may be
able to see more clearly why the creation of a distance between the 'mythmakers'
and ourselves is a dubious undertaking. Since we can understand the great early
philosophical systems as truly 'embedded' in ancient mythical tradition, it becomes
virtually impossible to indicate a 'break.' Besides, why should it be necessary to
point to a 'break' by which man became separated from his mythical past ? There
is no reason to maintain any semblance of the idea of a 'primitive mentality.'
There is no evidence necessitating a distinction between the mythmakers and
ourselves, other than in terms or motifs and emphases. The difference is only
statistical; it concerns preferences for themes. The hypothesis of an essential
structural difference becomes less and less defensible" (p. 22) (see also the section
"Cosmogony and Taoist Philosophy" of this paper).
13 See Eliade's discussion of this in Myth and Reality, pp. 111-13. With regard
to a real religious intentionality to be found in Taoist "philosophy," the possibility
of mystic techniques of "initiation" would seem to be particularly important. On
the possible relation between cosmogonic themes and techniques of an initiatory
"return to the beginning" in traditions of mysticism, see Eliade, Myth and
Reality, pp. 79-84.
14 An obvious problem in the discussion of Taoism is the tendency to call
classical Taoism philosophical rather than religious in nature, but at the same
time adding the qualification that it represents a "mystic" philosophy. The agree-
ment that somehow early Taoism does represent a form of mysticism should have
allowed some discussion of a real religious element in the early tradition, and in
fact, H. Maspero (cf. Le Taoisme) and M. Granet (cf. La Pensee) did perceive the
legitimacy of such an interpretation of classical Taoism-that to speak of a mystic
293
But the above observations only point to the need for studies
that would test some of these ideas with regard to Chinese tradition.
It is in this provisional sense that the real importance of the prob-
lem of myth in early Chinese tradition is asserted here: not as a
proof of the sanctity of any one methodological perspective but
simply to suggest that broader comparative perspectives are
needed for a fuller appreciation of the nature of Chinese religious
tradition. Therefore, my concern in the following pages is, first, to
examine the general methodological problems associated with the
study of myth and cosmogony in China and then to see, in relation
to the history of Western scholarship, whether a reconsideration
of the problem of myth might clarify some of the general problems
related to the study of early Taoism as a "religious" and/or
"philosophical" tradition.
THE PROBLEM OF CHINESE MYTH
The religion of the Chinese seemed to have left the my

stage long before the time of Confucius. It seemed to b
and thoroughly unpoetical religion-full of sensible and
but a system of morality and of worldly wisdom rather t
ligious dogmas and personal devotion. [F. MAX MULLER, Last
Essays (1901)]
The issue over the nature and significance of mythology is one of

the most confused problems in the study of ancient Chinese
tradition. This is particularly apparent in comparison with other
ancient cultures which have generally left rather extensive records
of a mythological and legendary nature. With regard to China
there is the very real problem of the extreme paucity and frag-
mentation of mythological accounts, an almost total absence of
any coherent mythic narratives dating to the early periods of
philosophy is necessarily to leave room for a religious dimension. More commonly,

however, the problem over the dichotomy between "philosophical" and "religious"
Taoism tended to be rooted in the methodological narrowness of equating what is
religious with "supernaturalism" or a "doctrine of immortality" (see, e.g., H. G.
Creel, What Is Taoism? [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970], pp. 1-24,
37-47). But with the need for a broader understanding of religion (as well as
philosophy) in Chinese tradition, the issue of the mythological elements in early
Taoism becomes especially pertinent. For example, the mythic allusions in the
Tao Te Ching, Chuang Tzu, and the Lieh Tzu are often said to he expressive of
only a vague literary "delight in the marvellous" (A. C. Graham, Book of Lieh- Tzu
[London: John Murray, 1960], p. 17) that does not have any significant relation
(religious or otherwise) to the ideological content. This is an important considera-
tion, for, as Graham also says, these "marvellous" elements often seem to contra-
dict the "philosophy" and could lead to false connections with "religious" Taoism
(p. 16). There is no easy solution to this except to say that the mythic passages
may be symbolically reflective of more than a simple literary sensibility.
294
Chinese culture. This is even more true with respect to authentic

cosmogonic myths, since the preserved fragments are extremely
meager and in most cases are secondary accounts historicized and
moralized by the redactors of the Confucian school that was
emerging as the predominant classical tradition during the Former
Han period (206 B.C. to A.D. 8).15
Thus, one of the greatest problems in dealing with mythology
in China is that most of the ancient mythological narratives
handed down to modern scholarship had already passed through
the filters of the systematic Han effort to collect and edit all of the
ancient texts and make them fit into a pseudohistorical schema
concerning the civilizing activity of the sage kings, or culture
heroes, of antiquity. The texts that can be considered as predating
this period, what B. Karlgren calls the "free texts" of the Chou
period, are few and may represent only the fragmented and euhem-
erized products of different local cults attached to various ancestral
clans.16 For example, the collection of poems known as the Ch'u
Tz'u, one of the richest storehouses of authentic pre-Han myth-
ological material (particularly the "T'ien Wen" section), is already
in the form of aphoristic sayings and lacks any consecutive
recounting of coherent mythic units.'7
Therefore, the great difficulty in attempting to study myth in
China is that it is completely decomposed, degraded, and con-
sciously molded to conform with the standards of classical litera-
ture and history sanctioned by the humanistically inclined
tradition of Confucianism. Even more discouraging is that the
"popular" tradition of literature (including much of the Taoist
materials which may be said to have preserved more faithfully
the myths and legends of the archaic period) was consistently
maligned and ignored by the Confucian scholarly tradition.
Western scholarship, generally working out of the classical "great
tradition" of Confucianism and following the lead of Karlgren's
strict philological and historical principles of analysis, was inclined
simply to ignore the relevance of such popular (and Taoist)
15 The best general discussion of the problems associated with the study of
Chinese mythology is D. Bodde's "Myths of Ancient China," in Mythologies of the
Ancient World, ed. S. N. Kramer (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1961),
pp. 367-408 (see also M. Kaltenmark, "La Naissance du monde en Chine," in
La Naissance du monde [n. 7 above], pp. 453-68).
16 See B. Karlgren, "Legends and Cults in Ancient China," Bulletin of the
Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (Stockholm), no. 18 (1946), pp. 199-365.
17 See Chang Kwang-chih's discussion of the "T'ien Wen" section in his "Chung-
kuo ch'uang shih shen-hua chih fen-hsi yii ku shih yen-chiu" [Chinese creation
myths: a study in method], Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology, Academica Sinica,
no. 8 (1959), p. 47.
295
materials for the recovery of archaic Chinese mythological

themes.l8
For such scholars as Granet, Maspero, Hentze, Koster, and
Eberhard (and especially the important early contributions of Ku
Chieh-kang and the more recent opinions of Chang Kwang-chih)19
who have dared to break with classical convention and treat mytho-
logical materials, the problems indicated above can be overcome,
with varying degrees of success, by using historical, sociological,
and anthropological methods of analysis-that is, by reconstruc-
ting coherent mythological themes and their corresponding cultural
situations by comparatively analyzing the fragmentary traces of
myth found in both popular and classical sources. The work of the
great iconoclastic modern Chinese historian, Ku Chieh-kang, for
example, has sought to correct the classical theory of the historical
nature of the sage emperors and has demonstrated that figures such
as Yao, Shun, and Yii were all separate divine beings associated
with independent archaic mythological traditions.20
Putting aside the relative merits of the above scholars' particular
theories and reconstructions, what is significant is that they have
demonstrated the importance of a methodological approach allow-
ing for the relevance of mythological studies in the understanding
and interpretation of early Chinese culture. Karlgren, however, has
been severly critical of such efforts as being overly extravagant. He,
therefore, tends to disparage the importance of myth in general,
and especially to discount the possibility of knowing anything
18 See M. Granet's discussion of these points in his Danses et legendes de la Chine
ancienne (Paris: University of France, 1959), pp. 1-59, and W. Eberhard's
discussion of the relevance of materials coming from "local cultures" and "chains"
of popular myth and legend in The Local Cultures of South and East China (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1968), pp. 1-31.
19 Some of the more important works are the following: M. Granet, Danses et
legendes and his La Pensee chinoise (Paris: Albin Michel, 1968); H. Maspero,
"L6gendes mythologiques dans le Chou king," Journal Asiatique 205 (1924):1-100;
K. Hentze, Mythes et symboles lunaires (Anvers: Editions de Sikkel, 1932) and
Das Haus als lVeltort der Seele (Stuttgart: Klett, 1961); H. Koster, Symbolik des
chinesischen Universismus (Stuttgart: Hierseman, 1958); and W. Eberhard, Local
Cultures and Typen chinesischen Volksmdrchen (Helsinki: Folklore Fellows Com-
munications, 1941). On the significance of Ku Chieh-kang's contributions see
Bodde's comments, pp. 403-4. See Ku Chieh-kang, ed., Ku shih pien [Symposium
on Chinese ancient history] (Peking: Pu She, 1927-41). See also the articles on
mythology by Wen I-to, Wen I-to ch'uan chi [Collected works of Wen I-to]
(Shanghai: K'ai Ming Book Store, 1948), 1:13-46. On Chang Kwang-chih, see
below.
20 See J. Gates, "Model Emperors of the Golden Age in Chinese Lore," Journ
of the American Oriental Society 56 (1936):51-76; and Lawrence A. Schneider's
excellent discussion of Ku Chieh-kang's methodology, "From Textual Criticism
Social Criticism: The Historiography of Ku Chieh-kang," in China, ed. John A
Harrison (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1972), pp. 167-84. Finally, se
Ku-Chieh-kang and Yang Hsiang-kuei, San-huang k'ao [History of the "thre
emperors" in ancient China], Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies, Monograph
Series no. 8 (1936).
296
about genuine archaic myths other than what is presented in the

fragments found in the earliest and uncontaminated "free texts" of
the Chou. For Karlgren, there can be no value in treating mythic
remains embedded in later Han classical and popular texts because
these are only imaginary and folkloric products of the Han period
and have no authentic relation to the earliest forms of myth in
China.21
While at times the elaborate efforts of Granet, Maspero, Eberhard,
and particularly Hentze22 to reassemble coherent mythic and
symbolic themes for cultural and sociological analysis are overly
provisional and speculative, I believe that Derk Bodde is justified
in his criticism of Karlgren's rigidly historicist and "overly mech-
anical" criterion (the date 221 B.C.) for totally separating what can
or cannot be treated as authentic mythological material.23 It also
seems evident that it will be necessary to consider cautiously yet
sympathetically "provisional contexts" of interpretation based on
mythic and cultural reconstruction if we are to move toward a
fuller appreciation of a tradition such as Taoism. Eberhard, like
Granet before him, has pointed out that the existence of mythic
fragments in the oldest free texts of the Chou does not necessarily
mean that these fragments themselves are any earlier or more
primitive sources for archaic Chinese mythology than the compara-
tively later texts after the founding of the empire in 221 B.C. That is,
despite the rationalistic concerns of the Han editors, they
were still drawing upon a long-existing popular oral tradition that
would tend to preserve archaic mythological themes. Even more
important is that mythic materials appear prominently in Taoist
texts, both pre- and post-Han, and these texts would generally
seem to have drawn more extensively upon popular traditions
which avoided the more extreme systematizing redactions of the
Han elite.24
21 Karlgren (pp. 346 ff.) is especially critical of Granet, Maspero, and Hentze.
22 Hentze's work is surely the most flamboyant of the efforts to reconstruct
archaic Chinese culture. As C. L6vi-Strauss remarked (Structural Anthropology
[New York: Basic Books, 1963], p. 246), Hentze's work resembles cultural "scrape
collecting."
23 Bodde, p. 381 (see also Eberhard's review of Karlgren's "Legends and Cults"
in Artibus Asiae 9 [1946]:355-64).
24 As Eberhard points out, Karlgren's euhemeristic theory "is at variance with
modern ethnological and sociological theory. If this opinion were correct, Chinese
mythology would be the greatest exception hitherto known in the whole field of
ethnology: the Chinese would first have created heroes and later only have made
them into gods or even animals!" (quoting from Bodde, p. 381). The preservation
of archaic mythological themes in popular and Taoist materials is the basis for
Eberhard, Granet, and Maspero's work-see especially Bodde's discussion of
Eberhard's methodology in "Myths of Ancient China," pp. 378-82, and Kalten-
mark's remarks in "La Naissance," pp. 463 ff.
297
THE PROBLEM OF COSMOGONIC MYTH
In contrast to other nations the Chinese have no mytholog

cosmogony. [A. FORKE, The World Conception of the Chinese (
Beyond these general methodological issues concerning m

is the more specific problem of the relevance of cosmogo
ology both for Chinese thought in general and for
particular. Thus, it has often been said that the compar
cosmic giant or P'an-ku myth is the only true creation
found in China and that its importance must be discred
its appearance is too late to have affected the great crea
of Chinese thought at the end of the Chou. Moreover, it
the P'an-ku myth appears to be an obvious intrusion of f
rents of thought related to southern "barbarian" cultur
My concern here is not so much with the particular p
trying to assess the role and meaning of the P'an-ku myt
the more damaging tendency to see this myth as the on
myth or cosmogonic theme evident in Chinese tradi
P'an-ku seemed to represent a late foreign importati
served to demonstrate the complete absence of any tr
cosmogony.26
It is true that the specific creation myth of P'an-ku does not
appear until a relatively late date (ca. third century A.D.), but the
feeling that this fact demonstrates the total absence of an early
Chinese cosmogony can certainly be questioned. It would really
seem that the theory of the absence of an early Chinese cosmogony
is, to a great extent, only a particular instance of the common feeling
in Western scholarship that somehow China is a special case in
comparison with other ancient cultures more blatantly caught up
in the throes of religion and myth. A. Forke characteristically states
this axiom when he says that "in contrast to other nations the
Chinese have no mythological cosmogony."27 Even more recently
this attitude has been perpetuated by Bodde when, in an otherwise
25 See Bodde, p. 383; Kaltenmark, pp. 456-59; and Hsuan Chu, Chung-kuo
shen-hua yen-chiu [Studies on Chinese mythology] (Shanghai: World Book Store,
1928), 1:29.
26 If there is a fundamental absence of creation mythology in Chinese tradition,
it could be asked why the particular P'an-ku myth did assume such a prominent
role in late popular Taoism ? Influence from Buddhism is not the complete answer,
since as A. Seidel shows (La Divinisation de Lao tseu dans le taoism des Han (Paris:
Ecole francaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1969) the P'an-ku myth is especially related to
the divine prehistory of Lao Tzu as a savior god (which does manifest traits of the
Bodhisattva) but is also linked to the earlier, pre-Buddhist mythology of hun-tun
as the primordial chaos or cosmic egg.
27 A. Forke, The World Conception of the Chinese (London: Probsthain, 1925),
p. 34.
298
enlightened article on Chinese mythology, he concludes that "It is

rather striking that, aside from this one myth [i.e., the P'an-ku
myth], China-perhaps alone among the major civilizations of
antiquity-has no real story of creation. This situation is paralleled
by what we find in Chinese philosophy, where, from the very start,
there is a keen interest in the relationship of man to man and in the
adjustment of man to the physical universe, but relatively little
interest in cosmic origins."28
It is perhaps more striking that, while there is a certain amount
of truth to these claims, especially in regard to the relative obscurity
of strict cosmogonic themes in the classical Confucian sources, the
Taoist texts surely tend to invalidate the overly generalized
statement that early Chinese thought had "little interest in cosmic
origins." The Tao Te Ching's evocation of the Tao as a cosmic
principle of the beginnings would seem to make little sense without
seeing the possibility that it was rooted in the symbolic remem-
brance of archaic mythological, especially cosmogonic, themes.29
Therefore, it would seem that the relatively late occurrence of the
specific P'an-ku myth has only minor importance in determining
its significance as a cosmogonic theme in China, since it can be
seen to be structurally connected with several earlier creation
themes found embedded in early Taoist literature.30
Methodologically the issue over the significance of cosmogony is
complicated by the fact that some of the defenders of the legiti-
28 Bodde, p. 405. Frederick Mote has most recently restated this thesis by
saying that "the Chinese, amongst all peoples ancient and modern, primitive and
advanced ... [are] apparently unique in having no creation myth . ." ("The
Cosmological Gulf between China and the West," pp. 3-21 in Transition and
Permanence: Chinese History and Culture, ed. David C. Buxbaum and Frederick
W. Mote [Hong Kong: Cathay Press, 1972], p. 7). Mote seems to feel that everyone
should have know this by 1956 when J. Needham discussed the relation between
creation myths and the origins of science in the second volume of Science and
Civilisation in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). What is
interesting here, of course (and something that Needham does seem to overlook), is
that the origins of ancient science in China are generally linked to Taoist tradition
-that tradition in China which seems to preserve memories of a creation mythol-
ogy. The presence or absence of creation mythology has even become an issue for
the writing of textbooks on China as witnessed by J. Mirsky's approval of John
Meskill's new book, Introduction to Chinese Civilization (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1973), which notes the "remarkable creation-less nature of
Chinese cosmology" (see J. Mirsky, "Writing Textbook History: Two Current
Examples," Journal of Asian Studies 33 [1973]:91).
29 Cf. chaps. 1, 14, 25, and 42 of the Tao Te Ching (see also M. Kaltenmark,
Lao Tzu and Taoism [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1969], pp. 22-46).
30 For a discussion of the structural and symbolic linkage between the P'an-ku
myth and the earlier hun-tun myth, see Eberhard, Local Cultures, pp. 442-43.
Bodde (p. 385) also refers to Granet's work (Danses et legendes, pp. 540 ff.), which
tends to show that because of its connection with the hun-tun theme the "cosmo-
gonic conception underlying the P'an-ku myth (and not, of course, the myth as
such) possibly goes back to early times."
299
macy of using mythological data for an understanding of Chinese

tradition also feel that cosmogonic myth per se is of little impor-
tance in China. Granet, for example, feels that the absence of a
cosmogonic sensibility is one mark of China's uniqueness in relation
to other civilizations-that is, China's special sociopolitical em-
phasis prevented any sort of cosmogonic speculation from gaining
prominence. Of course, he does not go so far as to deny the exist-
ence of cosmogonic myth but, rather, demeans its significance for
Chinese thought. He says that
it is necessary to notice the privileged place given to politics by the Chinese.
For them, the history of the world does not start before the start of civiliza-
tion. It does not originate by a recitation of a creation or by cosmological
speculations, but with the biographies of the sage kings. The biographies
of the ancient heroes of China contain numerous mythic elements; but no
cosmogonic theme has entered into the literature without having undergone
a transformation. All of the legends pretend to report the facts of a human
history.... The predominance accorded to political preoccupation is accom-
panied for the Chinese by a profound repulsion for all theories of creation.31
In line with these remarks, J. Needham states that "on the

whole the Taoist avoided the elaboration of a cosmogony, wisely
considering that the original creative operations of the Tao must
remain forever unknowable."32 Granet's feeling that because of
their political preoccupations the Chinese displayed a "profound
repulsion for all theories of creation" and Needham's similar views
with regard to Taoism generally reflect the common scholarly
fashion to uphold the singularity of China's highly developed sense
for humanistic and sociopolitical concerns. There can be no argu-
ment that even the Taoist texts, particularly the Tao Te Ching, do
display an uncommon concentration on the problems of man and
the human world in comparison with the usual religious documents
31 Granet, La Penseee, p. 283 (my translation). It should be recognized that

because of Granet's Durkheimian methodology he necessarily assumes the
priority of ritual over myth. In this sense, myth or cosmogony has no special
relevance except as a way back to the original ritual-social context. Therefore,
because of the ultimate social and ritual genesis of religious symbolism and myth,
it becomes very easy to demonstrate the extreme "utilitarian" nature of Chinese
thought. For criticism of these Durkheimian assumptions concerning China, see
Smith (n. 3 above), pp. 186-87. On the overall problem of the interrelationship of
myth and ritual, see Hans Penner, "Myth and Ritual: A Wasteland or a Forest
of Symbols?" On Method in the History of Religions: Studies in the Philosophy of
History 8 (1968):46-57. Given the idea of the "prestige" of cosmogonic myth,
Eliade tends to argue for the priority of myth and symbol: "Symbol and myth
will give a clear view of the modalities (of the sacred) that a rite can never do
more than suggest. A symbol and a rite are on such different levels that the rite
can never reveal what the symbol reveals" (Patterns in Comparative Religion
[Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1958], pp. 9-10).
32 Needham, 2:77-78. It should be noted that Needham generally follows
Granet's lead in the sociopolitical interpretation of Taoism.
300
of other cultures which are concerned more exclusively and ex-

plicitly with the creative and salvational activities of gods and
supernatural beings. This fact, however, does not negate the
possible presence of an ideological structure essentially modeled
on cosmogonic themes.
It is also somewhat curious that Needham, who stresses the
Taoist obsession with cosmic time, cyclic transformation, and
metamorphosis-as well as the apparent importance of the hun-
tun theme of primordial chaos and its specific relation to a cosmic
egg mythology-still finds it impossible to see the significance a
cosmogonic scenario might have for such theories. I can agree that
there is a relative submergence of any explicit cosmogony in
Chinese thought, but Granet and Needham are certainly over-
stating the case when they suggest that there is a wholly unique
avoidance or even a "profound repulsion" for all theories of
creation.33
There are scholars who have seen not only traces of cosmogonic
myth in the early Chinese texts but also that it is of particular
import for early or "classical" Taoism. Scholars such as Kalten-
mark, Eberhard, Erkes, Chang Kwang-chih, and others have
generally called attention to the real and significant presence of
cosmogonic themes in the pre-Ch'in period. Indeed, even as early
as 1912, Laufer felt compelled to contest the more orthodox view
that held there is simply no suggestion of cosmogonic speculation
in early Chinese thought.34 And Maspero, a few decades later,
demonstrated that from the comparative standpoint of the history
of religions the conventions of pseudohistory found in the Shu
Ching really mask a complex assortment of archaic creation myths,
although, as he points out, when compared to the myths of the
T'ai Blanc tribes of Indochina, the Chinese accounts appear to deal
33 A problem here is the overly narrow understanding of "creation" mythology,
since, as I remarked in the introduction, cosmogony, or the story of the origin of
the world, need not necessarily imply a "creator" and may be essentially linked to
the idea of cyclic or embryological growth. It also should be pointed out that
Granet speaks of "cosmogonic themes" but he says that they had all undergone a
substantive "transformation." There certainly was a transformation (or philoso-
phizing) of archaic cosmogonic themes in Chinese tradition, but this does not
always mean the end of the cosmogonic or religious intentionality. In fact, the
progressive transformation of cosmogony into more human and historical terms
is a common phenomenon in the history of religions and does not, therefore,
demonstrate any unique characteristic of Chinese tradition. See, e.g., Eliade's
discussion of this in Myth and Reality, pp. 92-113, and "Cosmogonic Myth and
Sacred History," in The Quest: History and Meaning in Religion (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1969), pp. 72-87.
34 Berthold Laufer, Jade: A Study in Chinese Archaeology and Religion, Field
Museum of Natural History Publication no. 154 (Chicago: Field Museum of
Natural History, 1912), pp. 146-47.
301
primarily with stories of the deluge theme and the creation of man
rather than strict cosmogonies of world foundation.35
Even more suggestive is the work of Erkes which, while highly
speculative and controversial on many counts, points to the special
relevance of a certain kind of cosmogonic theme in early Taoist
literature. Working from a comparative standpoint and drawing
upon ethnographic parallels, he is able to delineate traces of myth
that seem to show a structural relation among such broad cosmo-
gonic categories as the chaos myth of hun-tun, cosmic egg myths,
primordial couple myths, and other fragments concerning a P'an-
ku-like cosmic giant-all of which are to be found in Taoist
materials.36 Erkes goes so far as to speak of "eine P'an-ku mythe
der Hsia-zeit" which, considering the documentation offered, was
pushing the possibilities of reasoned speculation rather far.37 But
he does provide sufficient evidence to allow for the strong possi-
bility that, typologically speaking, the P'an-ku myth may be pre-
figured by much earlier Chinese myths of an essentially similar
cosmogonic intentionality. Most important as a corollary implica-
tion is that the mythological traces seem particularly to reveal
a structural and paradigmatic connection with early Taoist
ideology.38
35 Maspero, "L6gendes mythologiques," pp. 47 ff. Again, it should be noted

that, according to Eliade, deluge myths are modeled on a cosmogonic structure of
meaning and essentially imply a "new" creation of the world (see Myth and
Reality, pp. 54 ff.). Thus, e.g., the southern deluge myths cited by Maspero (and as
Eberhard and Kaltenmark show, they are connected with the P'an-ku and hun-tun
cycle of myths) seem to manifest the symbolism of the cosmic egg in terms of their
reference to the salvation of a primal couple from the flood through the use of a
magic gourd, egg, drum, or boat (see Kaltenmark, La Naissance, pp. 457-58).
36 See the following articles by E. Erkes: "Die Anfange des Taoismus," Sinica
3 (1928):124-33; "Spuren chinesischer Weltschopfungsmythen," T'oung Pao 28
(1931):355-68; and "Spuren einer kosmogonischen Mythe bei Lao-tse," Artibus
Asiae 8 (1940):16-35. The classic expression of the chaos (world egg?) or hun-tun
mythic theme is found in chap. 7 of the Chuang Tzu. This passage states that "the
Emperor of the South Sea was called Shu. The Emperor of the North Sea was
called Hu. And the Emperor of the Center was called Hun-tun. Shu and Hu at
times mutually came together and met in Hun-tun's territory. Hun-tun treated
them very generously. Shu and Hu, then, discussed how they could reciprocate
Hun-tun's virtue, saying: 'Men all have seven openings in order to see, hear, eat
and breathe. He alone doesn't have any. Let's try boring him some.' Each day
they bored one hole, and on the seventh day Hun-tun died" (see Chuang Tzu
yin-te [A concordance to the Chuang Tzu], Harvard Yenching Institute Sino-
logical Series, supplement no. 20 [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1956], chap. 7, p. 21, lines 33-35).
37 E. Erkes, "Eine P'an-ku-Mythe der Hsia-Zeit ?" T'oung Pao 37 (1942):159-73.
38 See especially Erkes's "Die Anfange des Taoismus," where he concludes that
"die taoistische Philosophie . . .eine Tochter der Mythologie ist" (p. 131). As
Granet also noted in his earlier Danses et legendes: "I1 me parait certain que la
mythologie dite taoiste a des sources profondes" (p. 518). Finally, see Kaltenmark's
similar conclusions with regard to Taoism, La Naissance, pp. 456-58, 463-67.
302
It might be said that, due to the influence of Levi-Strauss,

anthropology has rediscovered myth; and most significant for my
purpose is that recently a number of cultural anthropologists
without Erkes's extreme speculative tendencies 39 have pointed out
the importance of archaic cosmogonic themes for the study of
Chinese thought and cultural institutions. Most outstanding is
Chang Kwang-chih, who has studied Chinese creation myths and
concludes that, despite the difficulties, such studies are not only
possible but very important for a more complete and balanced
understanding of Chinese cultural history.40 He discusses, for
example, the traditional position as expressed by Hsiian Chu, who
would want to maintain that a true creation myth of world founda-
tion only begins to be found in the Three Kingdoms period (A.D.
220-80) text called the Wu-yun li nien chi, by Hsii Cheng.41 This is
the P'an-ku mythology I have already mentioned. Chang, basically
corroborating much of the earlier speculations of Erkes, shows that
although the cosmic giant, P'an-ku, does not appear as an identi-
fiable mythological personage before this period in extant texts,
the structure and mythological content of this myth does definitely
appear in pre-Han texts. Thus, for Chang the "T'ien Wen" chapter
of the Ch'u Tz'u is not really so negative in regard to creation
mythology and, in fact, implies a certain kind of viewpoint con-
cerning the creation and structure of the universe.42 Most suggestive
is his assertion that the hun-tun theme of chaos constitutes an
extremely important archaic cosmogonic structure or, as he calls
it, a fundamental mythological theme (or "mythologem") in early
39 There are certainly all sorts of problems with Erkes's ultimate interpretation
of ancient Chinese civilization, especially since he tends to polarize Chinese
civilization into a Northern "Confucian" tradition and a Southern "Taoist"
tradition as well as trying to establish the presence of an ancient matr
China. For criticism of the North-South theory with regard to Chinese m
P. Pelliot's review of W. Kopper's Der Hund in der Mythologie der zirkum
Volker, T'oung Pao 28 (1931):463-70; and for a discussion of the implaus
of the archaic matriarchy hypotheses, see Eberhard, Local Cultures, pp
40 Chang Kwang-chih (n. 17 above), pp. 58 ff. It should be noted tha
highly appreciative of Levi-Strauss's important contributions to the
myth but favors more of a content analysis of mythic themes such as ex
in different ways by Stith Thompson and Eliade (pp. 53-54).
41 Ibid., p. 47. Hsii Cheng's writings (Wu-yun li nien chi and San-wu
only known through the quotations recorded in the T'ai-p'ing yii-lan (c
and the I shih (chiian 1).
42 Chang, p. 47. Chang states that the mythological "typology and conceptual
structure of the P'an-ku myth can be found in pre-Ch'in classical materials...
[and] the 'T'ien Wen' [does seem] to manifest a particular cosmogonic understand-
ing of the birth and structure of the cosmos" (my translation) (see also Chang's
"Shang chou shen-hua chih fen-lei" [A classification of Shang and Chou myths],
Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology [Academia Sinica], no. 14 [1962], pp. 81-82
[in Chinese with English summary]).
303
Chinese texts (especially the early Taoist texts) that is suitable for
analysis and comparison.43
Chang's comments are really a methodological prolegomenon to
the study of Chinese creation myths, and, consequently, he does not
extensively develop the particular cosmogonic significance of the
hun-tun myth or other early units concerning the cosmic giant or
primordial couple themes. However, his work and extensive study
of the hun-tun theme in early sources by Lo Meng-ts'e44 make it
clear that the particular cosmogonic theme of hun-tun is closely
linked with Chinese thought of the classical period (particularly
Taoist thought) and that it is richly complex and meaningful in its
symbolic associations, transformations, and combinations.
THE HIDDENNESS OF COSMOGONY IN TAOISM
Chaos [hun-tun] is a favorite subject with the Tauists

is the nearest thing to nothing and to Tau. [China Re
If there is a strong possibility that the presence

theme in early Taoism betrays the presence of an a
gonic mythologem and, indeed, seems to be closely
the main thrust of Taoist ideology, then it is intere
the problem of why this factor has remained so obs
ship about Taoism. In fact, it seems that there is a ce
WVestern scholarship concerning this problem, a h
some respects gave rise to an avoidance of the p
Taoist ideology based on a cosmogony involving
principle of "chaos." There would almost seem t
artificial "hiddenness" of the hun-tun theme that g
distorted manner in which the West, in its various
counter with Chinese culture, attempted to make se
a foreign phenomenon as Taoism. It appears that
difficulties for early Western scholars dealing with T
those working out of the missionary tradition of t
century, was the fact that Taoism somehow had
fortune of dismissing a doctrine of creation with a r
43 See Chang, "Chung-kuo ch'uang shih shen-hua," pp. 51 ff
term "mythologem," indicating a basic mythic unit, theme,
found in Jensen, pp. 92, 105, 106.
44 For Chang's discussion of the significance of the hun-tun t
most important early cosmogonic units, see "Chung-kuo ch'ua
pp. 55, 59, 61 ff. On the overall importance of the hun-tun th
tradition, see Lo Meng-ts'e, "Shuo hun-tun yii chu-tzu chin
ta-hsiang" [The primeval state and ideas of creation in early
and classics], Journal of Oriental Studies (Hong Kong) 9 (Ja
1971):15-57, 230-305.
304
God as a first causal principle and had the pagan audacity to speak
of an atheistic or pantheistic notion of chaos as the creative principle.
An example of this is found in an anonymous nineteenth-century
article on "Tauism" found in the China Review.45 What is most
interesting is that, while there is an effort to force Taoism into som
sort of Christian trinitarian mold, the fact that Taoism ultimatel
rests its doctrine of creation on the most uncongenial notion o
chaos was reluctantly acknowledged. As the article says: "Chao
[hun-tun] is a favorite subject with the Tauists. It (or he) is th
nearest thing to nothing and to Tau." 46 Finally, in recounting th
hun-tun passage from chapter 7 of the Chuang Tzu, the anonymou
author of this article recognized the cosmogonic nature of the stor
but disappointedly commented that it "looks somewhat like
burlesque of the Scriptural account of Creation which the seventh
day saw completed, Chaos being reduced to order." 47
These views are indicative of the fact that the presence of chao
as the "nearest thing to nothing and to Tau" was extremely difficul
for the early missionary scholars to reconcile with their own pre
suppositions. A Christian reconciliation could be effected for early
Taoism in terms of such lumen naturale theories as logos, trinity
primitive monotheism, or a primordial divine revelation;48 bu
more commonly it was the disconcerting problem of chaos in Taois
ideology that gave rise to the aversion toward or, at times, outrigh
abhorrence of aligning such a principle with Christian ideas o
creation and a rational creator God.
This abhorrence was especially directed against the role of P'an-
ku as the basic creation divinity in later "religious" Taoism. I
could almost be said that here was part of the reason for som
scholars making such a rigid distinction between an early philo
sophical Taoism and a later corrupted superstitious Taoism. Eve
though it was recognized that the hun-tun theme of classical Taoism
had relations to the later P'an-ku myth, it became necessary t
overlook its role as much as possible and make a case for a "pur
philosophy" or, at least, a purely rational natural religion that did
not really concern itself with such heathen ideas. Remusat charac-
teristically states this view when he remarks that Lao Tzu's
45 Anonymous, "Tauism," China Review 1 (1873):209-20.
46 Ibid., p. 215.
47 Ibid.
48 For some of the history of the various Western interpretations of the "Tao"
see Creel's article "The Great Clod," in his What Is Taoism? (n. 14 above), pp.
29-30 (see also Hans Steininger's discussion in "Religions of China," in Historia
Religionum, vol. 2, ed. C. J. Bleeker and G. Widengren [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971]
pp. 512 ff.).
305
"opinions on the origin and constitution of the universe show

neither ridiculous fables nor a scandalous want of sense; they bear
the stamp of a noble and high spirit; and in the sublime views which
they disclose show a remarkable and incontestable agreement with
the teaching which the schools of Pythagoras and Plato exhibited a
little later." 49 If the hun-tun theme of chaos was present in early
Taoism, then it was only an irrelevant pagan residue of myth that
was unfortunately seized upon by the later corrupt versions of
Taoism.
In this vein, the theory of an originally pure monotheism (seen
in the figures of Shang Ti and/or T'ien) became particularly popular
among missionary scholars to demonstrate the universality of the
Christian God. Since both Confucianism and early Taoism might be
seen to participate in a dim awareness of the one true God or rational
divine principle of logos, something could be salvaged for them that
was worthy of study-although usually Confucianism was deemed
more worthy than Taoism. Early Taoism, despite its assumed
philosophical "purity" which could appeal both to the positivistic
scholar and to the Protestant missionary, was seen to be more
obviously tainted with elements of paganism and superstition (such
as the trappings of the hun-tun myth) which finally led to the
abominations of later Taoism.
There is no better example of this attitude than the great nine-
teenth-century expositor of the Chinese classics, James Legge, who
tried so desperately to prove the existence of an original monotheism
in the ancient worship of Shang Ti. Legge's missionary sensibilitie
led him to the conviction that "the mind recoils shuddering from
the thought, that generation after generation has descended to th
grave without one individual ever having had the thought of God
in his mind, or the name of God on his lips." 50 Consequently, Legge
believed that the Chinese fell away from an original monotheistic
belief in God but at least Confucianism and early Taoism had the
virtue of remaining philosophically neutral, even in some way
vaguely preserving a remembrance of the true creator God. Th
classical philosophical traditions did not fall so completely into the
gross superstition manifested in later Taoism, Buddhism, and
Chinese folk religion.
For Legge, and this is in many respects the prevailing scholarly
49 Remusat, Asiatic Miscellanies, 1:8, quoted by F. Max Miiller, Last Essay

(London: Longmans, Green, 1901), pp. 284-85.
50 Quoted in C. Dawson's "Western Conceptions of Chinese Civilization," in
The Legacy of China (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 25.
306
position today,51 there was an absolute disunity between classical

Taoism and the later Taoist religion, so that "any relation between
the two things is merely external, for in spirit and tendency they
are antagonistic."52 He characteristically goes on to state that
"there is not a word in the Tao Teh King, of the sixth century B.C.,
that savours either of superstition or religion. In the works of
Lieh-tsze and Chwang-tsze, followers of Lao-tsze, two or three
centuries later, we find abundance of grotesque superstition, though
we are never sure how far those writers are sincere and really
believed the things they relate; but their beliefs, if we can say that
they had beliefs, had not become embodied in any religious
institutions." 53
It is pointless to comment on this other than to remark that
Legge's views (allowing for the relative ignorance of the technical
problems of dating and authorship of the period) are suggestive of
most of the difficulties still plaguing the study of Taoism--that is,
that there is a necessary separation to be made between "grotesque
superstition" (which may be read as a more obvious presence of
mythological elements) and philosophy which, as seen in the Tao
Te Ching, savors neither of "superstition [n]or religion."
Only with the later "religious" Taoism does the extent of the
corrupting influence of "grotesque superstition" and myth become
clear in the prominence given to P'an-ku or chaos as a creative
deity. This is reflected in Legge's recoiling with righteous horror
when discussing the Taoist deities of the san-ch'ing witnessed in a
Taoist temple. In comparing these deities to the Buddhist theory of
the "three precious ones," he says:
The first of the three [the san-ch'ing or the "three pure or holy ones"],
"The Perfect (literally, Gemmeous) Holy One, who was at the first begin-
ning, the Heavenly and Honoured," is also called "P'an-ku, or Chaos
[hun-tun]." P'an-ku is spoken of by the common people as "the first man,
who opened up heaven and earth." It has been said to me in "pidgin"
English that "he is all the same your Adam"; and in Taoist picture books I
have seen him as a shaggy, dwarfish, Hercules, developing from a bear
rather than an ape, and wielding an immense hammer and chisel with
which he is breaking the chaotic rocks.54
Becoming somewhat indignant at this point, Legge continues by

remarking that "you may think that I am caricaturing the repre-
61 See, e.g., Creel's discussion on early "philosophical" Taoism and the later
"hsien" or "religious" Taoism in What Is Taoism? pp. 1-24.
52 James Legge, The Religions of China (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1881), pp. 159-60.
53 Ibid., p. 164.
54 Ibid., pp. 167-68.
307
sentations in this highest department of Taoism, but I am not

conscious of doing so. The utmost I can discern in them is the crude
notion of a gross mind that the present visible universe-'the
heavens and the earth and all the host of them'-was fashioned
somehow out of a previously existing chaos." 55 He finally conclud
with the declaration that "when Taoism ranks Chaos, 'anarch old,
as one of its Trinity of Great Gods, we are prepared to find what
fantastic and unreasonable in its system. Is Chaos any better than
Chance, 'that unspiritual God and miscreator'?"56
In a very real historical sense, then, the exact problem of
creation theory of chaos, hun-tun, or P'an-ku-"that unspiritu
God and miscreator"-may be seen to have been a particula
affront and obstacle to Western minds tending to hinder th
scholarly appraisal of Taoism. One way out of this difficulty was t
make classical Taoism exclusively "philosophical" in nature an
ignore the other messy details, those disturbing elements of myt
and "grotesque superstition" that might show points of continuit
with archaic forms of animistic idolatry and the later corruption
of the Taoist religion. For Legge-and his influence certainly
affected the later development of sinological studies-the fact tha
the later "religious" Taoism chose to deify chaos was reason enoug
to demean it as a fit subject of scholarly concern.
One final example of this characteristic tendency to avoid th
problem of the presence of a cosmogonic theme of chaos in early
Chinese literature is seen in a protracted debate carried on in the
pages of the China Review during the 1870s. This centered around
the efforts of a certain Canon McClatchie who, in a series of article
tried to show that early Chinese literature harbored a cosmogonic
theme wherein "all things have their origin from a primeval mal
and female energy originally quiescent in Chaos." 57 A final rebutt
55 Ibid., p. 167.
56 Ibid. Thus, the compulsion toward seeing the P'an-ku myth as a wholl
foreign element in Chinese tradition. Other early scholars tended to think that t
P'an-ku myth was taken over from the Indian myth of "Manou" (or Purusa) wi
the coming of Buddhism; this, then, accounts for the corruption of the originall
pure idea of the Tao (as logos or reason) found in the Tao Te Ching. See, e.g
M. G. Pauthier, Chine ou description historique, geographique et litteraire (Par
Didot Freres, 1839), p. 22, and Leon de Rosny, Le Taoism (Paris: Ernest Leroux
1892), pp. 11 ff. For a comparative consideration of the P'an-ku myth within t
Indo-European tradition of the cosmic giant, see Hoong-son Hoong-sy-Quy, "L
Mythe indiene de l'homme cosmique dans son contexte culturel et dans son
evolution," Revue de l'histoire des religions 175 (1969):133-54, and Bruce Lincol
"The Indo-European Myth of Creation," History of Religions 15 (1975):121-45.
57 Quoted by anonymous ("S"), "Cosmogony and Religion," China Review
(1875):10. Canon McClatchie's articles include "Confucian Cosmogony," Chi
Review 4 (1875):84-95, and "Phallic Worship," China Review 4 (1876):257-61.
308
to these disconcerting assertions, made with the blessing of the

editors of the journal, was offered in a later article entitled "Cos-
mogony and Religion" authored by an anonymous "S."58 What
was repugnant to the Victorian sensibilities of this author was the
provocative claim by McClatchie that the chaos myth was in fact a
"sexual system of the universe" having links with the hermaphro-
ditic principles of Egyptian and Orphic cosmogonies as well as the
androgyne of Plato. McClatchie even speculated further that all of
this added up to the presence of "phallic worship," a topic that was
popular at the time in the newly developing tradition of "compara-
tive religions."59
It was this last charge that particularly raised the hackles of
"S," who declared that "if this is not to fasten upon China a charge
from which even her idolatrous sons shrink with horror, we do not
know what it means."60 Proceeding from his feeling of shocked
incredulity rather than offering any substantial counterargument,
this author maintained that there was not, and could not be, the
"faintest trace" of any such cosmogony in China; for, above all
else, China must be seen as a special case in the history of world
religions since there was never any "deification of sensuality," as,
for example, is shown by the fact that "yin and yang never
degenerated into the vile worship of linga and yoni."61 He rhetori-
cally concluded: "How comes it to pass that China has escaped
this pitfall of the nations? It is certainly not from an individual
love of virtue on their part, for they are an extremely licentious
people in word and deed-yet their literature, their religious
worship, and their public life are singularly pure when contrasted
with all other heathen nations."62 His final admonition was
directed toward the need for all scholars to "adopt the Eng
method however tame the results."63
It is not my intention to say that McClatchie's loose specula-
tions of "phallic worship" were any more correct than the opposing
view but simply to suggest that there was seemingly an uncon-
scious collusion on the part of the developing tradition of sinology
and the guidance offered by Confucian scholarship that made it
extremely difficult to do other than defend the virgin purity of
58 "Cosmogony and Religion," pp. 10-13. As a preface to one of McClatchie's
articles, the editors of the Review included a note of warning concerning his
repugnant views and pleaded for someone to refute his "immoral" arguments.
59 "Cosmogony and Religion," p. 11.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., p. 12.
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid., p. 13.
309
classical Chinese tradition. There is little doubt, either, that the

"English method," or Anglo-American tradition of sinology, has
been singularly successful in protecting the inviolate philosophical
purity of Chinese civilization, especially from the challenge of the
French school of sinology, which more frequently dared to break
with convention and seriously consider the role of religion and
myth.64
COSMOGONY AND TAOIST PHILOSOPHY
To know the Primordial Beginning is to be bound to the

Te Ching, chap. 14]
The possibility that there is a specific cosmogonic the

Taoism is certainly an issue that merits careful an
investigation, or, as Needham points out, the probab
a cosmic egg or hun-tun scenario of creation in the
requires "detailed comparative examination and e
Unfortunately, such a consideration tends to go agai
of the assumption concerning the purely philosop
early Taoism. In the broadest sense, what is real
methodological attitude that immediately includ
priori insistence on the philosophical nature of class
a refusal to take mythological elements seriously sinc
closely wedded to a religious consciousness. This at
to have credence because the Taoism of Lao Tzu an
is clearly not an instance of a living mythological
but rather a stage in the secondary intellectual
reflection on an archaic legacy.66 From the tradit
64 As Wright points out, it has always been the Continental,
French, scholars who have been open to methodological innovat
more heed to a cross-cultural and comparative approach to Ch
This is especially so with regard to the more sympathetic appreci
the history of religions has to play in the interpretation of C
phenomena, e.g., the great sinological heritage extending from C
Maspero, Pelliot, and D6mieville to Stein and Kaltenmark. On
"Study of Chinese Civilization," 241:11.
65 Needham, 2:78. This statement, of course, implies a certain contradiction of
Needham's view concerning the total absence of a Taoist cosmogonic conception.
This confusion is especially perplexing in that he says there is "apparently a
connection" between the cosmic egg cosmogony and the idea of hun-tun "which is
of great importance" for Taoism, (p. 78 n. c). In fact, Needham goes on to establish
the idea of hun-tun as a "cardinal technical term" in early Taoism (pp. 107 ff.).
66 The point being, however, that something like early Taoism did not appear
full blown out of nothing; or, as R. Stein remarks, Taoism should be viewed as a
movement that "reclaimed" myths and symbols from "fonds ancien" ("Jardins en
miniature d'Extreme-Orient," Bulletin de l'ecole franQaise de l'Extreme-Orient 42
[1942]:100); see also his comments on the unity and diversity of "philosophical"
and "religious" Taoism in his "Remarques sur les mouvements du taoisme
politico-religieux au IIe siecle ap. J.-C.," T'oung Pao 50 (1963):40.
310
view, then, Taoism (like Confucianism and the other schools of the
classical period) is said to represent a complete break with a
previous religious supernaturalism expressed in mythology. From
this perspective, later religious or hsien Taoism represents some-
thing of a degeneration or reversion back to the archaic periods of
superstition, leaving classical Taoism standing between these two
eras as a beacon of philosophical sanity.
The view that there is necessarily a radical break between
philosophical and mythological thought can, however, be ques-
tioned. Indeed, a case can be made not only for the development of
philosophical speculation out of mythology but also for the sur-
vival of an archaic mythological consciousness at the very center
of Taoist ideology and its speculations on the Tao as a creative
"first principle." The anthropologist Levi-Strauss, for example,
has brilliantly shown through his studies of primitive cultures that
mythological thought is not necessarily in essence (or in terms of
"structure") any less intellectual or "logical" than philosophical
or scientific thought.67 From a different methodological perspec-
tive, historians of religion like Eliade have pointed out that it is
especially the narrative content or symbolic intentionality of
cosmogony that constitutes a kind of primitive ontology-a kind
of presystematic philosophical concern for the "why" of being and
existence, a symbolic system of first principles that gives reality
and truth to the way things are in the world.68
Eliade treats this point with much insight in that he feels that
while philosophy can be viewed as an instance of "demythicization,"
early forms of philosophical speculation are often founded on a
mythic concern for origins and are structured according to a domi-
nant cosmogonic conception. Early philosophical thought, then,
such as early Greek philosophy, is not a complete rejection of a
mythical vision of the "beginning time" but rather is a disguised
transposition of the cosmogonic vision onto a more profane level
of comprehension. In this way, Eliade says, "the earliest specula-
tions derive from mythologies: systematic thought endeavors to
identify and understand the 'absolute beginning' of which the
cosmogonies tell, to unveil the mystery of the Creation of the World,
in short, the mystery of the appearance of Being." 69
67 C. L6vi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1966). For an excellent critical discussion of L6vi-Strauss's understanding of
mythic thought, see Kirk (n. 9 above), pp. 42-83.
68 Eliade, Myth and Reality, pp. 92-113; and Pettazzoni (n. 7 above), pp. 11-36
(see also Bolle's discussion of Eliade and Pettazzoni in Freedom of Man, pp. 14-30).
69 Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 112.
311
The real break with the mythic vision of the possibility of going
back to the absolute cosmic beginnings, the vision of a cyclic
"eternal return," arises not so much with the development of syste-
matic philosophical speculation but with the rise of a concern for a
historical conception of man that turns away from an ontological
concern with cosmic origins. Thus, in various philosophical tradi-
tions-and the Confucian tradition with its "golden age" idea
attached to the genealogical lore of the sage kings or culture
heroes is a good example-there is a moment when "the 'essential'
was not fixed at the Creation of the World but after it, at a certain
moment of the mythical period. A mythical Time is still involved,
but it is no longer the 'first' time, what we may call the 'cosmogonic'
time. The 'essential' is no longer bound up with an ontology (how
the World-the real-came into being) but with a History."70
If we may speak of a rupture with mythological thought in China,
it is primarily represented by the Confucian vision of "the begin-
nings" from not a philosophical but a historical perspective which
"places" the creation in the semimythical or "heroic" time of the
ancestral sage emperors who ordered human civilization. In dis-
tinction to this, I think it is possible to say that Taoist philosophy
displays much less of an essential break with an archaic mythologi-
cal concern for cosmic origins and is somewhat like early Greek
philosophy which "did not consider that History could become an
object of knowledge" and "accepted the essence of mythical
thought, the eternal return of things, the cyclic vision of cosmic and
human life."71 As with the early Greek philosophical tradition,
Taoism seems to display a continuity between myth and philosophy
and, consequently "could employ and continue" the cosmogonic
and religious "vision of cosmic reality and human existence."72
If, for example, Wright is correct in his observation that one of
the basic characteristics of early Taoist thought is that, rather than
a concern with a golden age of ancient civilization established by
the culture heroes, it "exalted nature unalloyed ... as a model for
the re-creation of harmony on earth" 73-does this not also suggest
that Taoist philosophy may be modeled on archaic cosmogonic
70 Ibid. p. 108.
71 Ibid., p. 112.
72 Ibid. I also want to remark that the Taoist reversion to more of a strict
cosmogonic conception in contrast to the Confucian idea of the historicized
culture heroes may demonstrate the persistent element of "subversion" displayed
in the resurfacing of cosmogonic themes in other cultures; see, e.g., the provocative
article by Judith N. Shklar, "Subversive Genealogies," in Myth, Symbol and
Culture, ed. Clifford Geertz (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1971), pp. 129-54.
73 Wright, "A Historian's Reflections," pp. 252-53.
312
notions concerning the Tao as a principle of the absolute beginnings ?

As Wright says:
In late Chou the various "schools" drew upon ancient lore and practice
in developing their several recipes for the salvation of man and society. This
was the beginning of a self-conscious great tradition as well as the begin-
ning of formal thought dealing with political and moral principles, the
nature of man, the making of a good society, and so on.... But if "philo-
sophic" expressions are, as I believe, only the formal statement of problems
that have been felt and sensed by groups within a society for some time,
what would have been the backgrounds and milieus of these texts ?74
Of course, at the present time a specific answer to these questions

is impossible, but certainly a preliminary response would require a
sympathetic consideration of the mythological and religious charac-
ter of the archaic milieu. In this way Wright even felt it necessary
to suggest that some of Granet's reconstructions of this archaic
background to the classical period deserve to be cautiously resur-
rected since "treated as a body of hypotheses and not as immutable
insights" his reconstructions of the early religious life of China
provide at least a "provisional context" for a fuller evaluation of
Taoism.75 I would only add that my own suggestions as to the
possible significance of a cosmogonic theme for early Taoist
ideology be examined in the same spirit.
It is important to reiterate that the philosophical nature of
Taoism is not necessarily compromised by the presence of mythol-
ogical or religious elements; in fact, as Eliade has suggested in a
general way and Wright more specifically, such factors may be
crucial for ultimately coming to grips with full meaning and signifi-
cance of something like early Taoist philosophy. It is interesting
that Izutsu, for one, recognized the essential continuity between
myth and philosophy in early Taoism and that it was primarily the
cosmogonic myth of hun-tun that could be seen as the basis for that
continuity. If we reserve judgment concerning Izutsu's conviction
concerning the southern shamanic nature of this myth,76 we can
find agreement with Izutsu's feeling that the sense of distance
between religion and philosophy in early Taoism
74 Ibid., p. 252.
76 Ibid., p. 253.
76 See T. Izutsu, The Key Philosophical Concepts in Sufism and Taoism (Tokyo:
Keio Institute, 1967), 2:1-27. Izutsu is convinced that the "key" to early Taoist
thought is its derivation from the shamanic tradition of the southern state of
Ch'u. Shamanism is certainly a factor in Taoism, but early shamanic tradition in
China is much more complex than Izutsu would have it; see, e.g., Eberhard's
discussion of various strains of shamanic tradition that may have affected Taoism,
Local Cultures, pp. 77 ff., 304 ff.
313
would be alleviated to a considerable extent if we place between the two

terms of the relation the cosmogonical story-a product of the same
mythopoeic mentality-which purports to explain how Heaven and Earth
came into being. It is not exactly a "story"; it is a "theory" and is meant
to be one. It is a result of a serious attempt to describe and explain theoreti-
cally the very origin of the world of Being and the process by which all
things in the world have come to acquire the forms with which we are now
familiar. The cosmogony constitutes in this sense the middle term-
structurally, if not historically-between the crude shamanistic myth and
the highly developed metaphysics of the Way.77
Izutsu goes on to say that "structurally" the cosmogonic and

religious elements in Taoism "furnish a connecting link between
myth and philosophy, pertaining as they do to both of them and
yet differing from them in its spirit and structure. The cosmogony
discloses to our eyes in this sense the mythopoeic background of the
metaphysics of the Way as formulated by Lao-tzu and Chuang-
tzu."78 For Izutsu the cosmogonic myth functions as a root
structural and symbolic principle in early Taoist thought; in this
way the mythic theme of chaos must finally be seen to be "of
profound importance" for an interpretation of Taoist ideology
since "the philosophical idea symbolized by it directly touches the
core of the reality of Being."79
I think it is legitimate to say, then, that based on the above
perspective concerning the possible continuity between myth and
philosophy-especially cosmogonic and philosophical speculation-
the traditional view seeking to have philosophy and religion,
literature and myth as polar opposites needs to be questioned as a
valid methodological premise. There is reason to call early Taoism
a philosophical or intellectual movement, but, at the same time,
this does not necessarily preclude a mythic intentionality of
religious significance.80 Most important is the recognition that
77 Izutsu, 2:21.
78 Ibid., 2:23.
79 Ibid., 2:5 (see also his article "The Absolute and the Perfect Man in Taoism,"
Eranos-Jahrbuch [1967] [Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1968], pp. 379-441).
80 Creel (p. 15) favorably quotes Granet's statement that the Chuang Tzu is
"more intellectual than mystic." Unfortunately, this does not really support the
case Creel is trying to make against Maspero's interpretation of early Taoism as a
form of mysticism. First of all, Granet is primarily referring in a footnote to a
false mystification of Hsun Tzu, and, second, while he does not go to the extent of
Maspero, he still is generally asserting the thesis that there are real religious and
mystical elements in early Taoism. Indeed, Granet states that "c'est admettre
implicitement que le Taoisme a pour point de depart, non la pure speculation,
mais des usages religieux" (La Pensee, p. 413); see also Granet's "Remarques sur
le Taoisme ancien," in Etudes sociologiques sur la Chine (Paris: University of
France, 1953), pp. 412 if.). Although Creel attempts to document his theory of
disunity, there is always the implicit assumption that there must be some neces-
sary and logical separation between things "intellectual" (or "philosophical") and
things religious, mythical, or mystical.
314
cosmogonic myth frequently seems to act as the basic model for

the systematic elaboration of later philosophical and religious
thought in Taoism.
CONCLUSION
"But China obscures," you say; and I reply, "China obscur

there is light to be found. Look for it." [BLAISE PASCAL,
no. 397 (159)]
To conclude, I only want to remark that it is going to

ingly necessary for Chinese specialists to go back a
examine their historical and methodological legacy, a le
has particularly served to distort the history of Chine
It is my feeling that the overall problem of the "Chin
case" fallacy concerning the unique absence of religion
especially cosmogonic myth, needs to be reexamined in
the comparative findings put forth by such disciplines
pology, sociology, and the history of religions. Wr
marked that, because of the past, "Chinese studies
retarded and underdeveloped field of Western scholars
this is especially true with regard to the methodologica
simple "benign neglect" associated with the study
religion and myth.
The "problem" of mythology in China is not so much
of the real absence of myth or cosmogony in ancient C
of methodological confusion. Furthermore, it is no
problem of methodological distortion or misconception
the more damaging one of neglect and narrowness
perspective. Consequently, there is a need for the spec
of philological and historical research to be coupled
expansive synthetic and theoretical perspectives-p
that must take into special consideration the possible r
religion and myth for the study of Chinese culture.
In fact, it is somewhat ironic that while the early sch
nineteenth century are the agents for much of the lat
over the study of Chinese religion, there was nev
recognition of the importance of creation mythology fo
standing of early Chinese tradition. Ordinarily, as I ha
out above, the concern for the study of Chinese cosmo
part of the missionaries resulted in a frustration over
81 Wright, "Study of Chinese Civilization," p. 253 (see also h
Studies in Chinese Thought [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19
315
anything that resembled the Christian doctrine of a rational

creator God-or, as W. H. Medhurst remarked, Chinese cosmogony
was "hopelessly materialistic" and Chinese religion suffered
because "'no first cause' characterizes all the sects; and the
Supreme, self-existent God is scarcely traceable through the entire
range of their metaphysics." 82
There were others such as Legge who found this impossible to
accept and tried to discover something that came closer to the
creation doctrines of Christianity, but these efforts were always
more forced than convincing. Especially when the missionary
motivations were no longer the driving force of Chinese scholar-
ship, this kind of agonized theorizing became clearly outdated.
That the three religions of China "resemble each other in athe-
ism"83 was not a problem for secular scholarship. In fact, it was
something to be embraced. With the rise of a wholly secularized
discipline of sinology, it seemed to be much easier and more
objectively scientific to avoid all of the messy theologically
oriented issues with the implicit axiom that China was culturally
unique with regard to the absence of religion and myth.
To some degree it is worthwhile today to go back and reexamine
some of the discussions of Chinese mythology so prominently dis-
played in the pages of such nineteenth-century journals as the
China Review and the China Expository; for amidst the theological
Sturm und Drang there are at times surprisingly suggestive dis-
cussions of the problem and significance of Chinese mythology.
One such article that deserves to be resurrected is the short dis-
cussion on Chinese mythology by J. Chalmers appearing in the
China Review of 1885.84
In response to a series of articles by another prominent scholar
of the time, J. Edkins, who maintained that China "had little or
nothing of what we call mythology" and that, from the perspective
of the Indo-European hypothesis, everything mythological in
China, "must have come from the west or been invented at some
time later than B.C. 820," Chalmers states that it is surely "more
reasonable to suppose that the Chinese like other nations had their
own 'early mythology.'"85 For Chalmers, therefore, it was
necessary to reverse the more commonly held opinion that China
was conspicuously lacking an early mythological tradition. There
82 W. H. Medhurst, China: Its State and Prospects, with Especial Reference to
the Spread of the Gospel (Boston: Crocker & Brewster, 1838), p. 181.
83 Ibid.
84 J. Chalmers, "Chinese Mythology," China Review 14 (1885): 33-36.
85 Ibid., p. 33.
316
were a number of factors that led him to this conclusion-including

the fact that "foreign students of Confucian literature fall naturally
into the puritanic groove" and consequently "studiously ignore
mythology," and that for such Taoist works as the Chuang Tzu
"one is misled into supposing the whole of what might otherwise be
taken as mythical lore to be original allegory."86
Chalmers does feel that the Tao Te Ching "contains almost
nothing of a mythological nature" but, more significantly, that
other works, especially Taoist texts like the Chuang Tzu and the
Lieh Tzu, "contain mythical or legendary matter"-"legends or
myths have been gathered up from different localities at different
dates, and have found a place in the general literature of the
country after surviving perhaps for ages as unwritten traditions."87
He specifically notes that "the name P'an Ku, for example, which
cannot be traced further back than Koh Hung (died A.D. 350),
may have been handed down by unwritten tradition in southern
China from a much earlier period. Thus, though having a distinct
origin from the Chaos of Chwangtsz with whom he has been identi-
fied, P'an Ku my [sic] be equally entitled to a place among the
ancient myths of China with Chaos or Hwun-tun."88
Chalmers goes on to make a number of specific methodological
suggestions some of which, allowing for the time, are still valuable.
More important, however, is the spirit of his general conclusion to
the effect that, if his view of the significant role of mythology in
early Chinese culture is correct, it "points to a wide field of research
for Sinologists which has scarcely yet been touched. The mythol-
ogy of China may be studied methodically and reduced to some
kind of order, and from it may be deduced proofs and confirmations,
or it may be refutations, of doctrines of ethnology and anthropol-
ogy of common interest to all lovers of science."89 These words
could certainly be repeated today, for the whole issue raised by
Chalmers is still a subject which, except for a handful of modern
scholars, has "scarcely yet been touched."
Some of the most debilitating factors in the study of early
Chinese tradition, especially the Taoist tradition, have been those
factors in the history of scholarship that have served to mask,
avoid, or deny the significance of mythology-especially the role
of cosmogonic themes. For the missionaries the idea of a chaos
86 Ibid., p. 34.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Ibid.
317
cosmogony in early Taoism was too unchristian to be taken

seriously, while the more secularized sinologists found it too
"unreasonable," and therefore irrelevant for the study of Chinese
philosophy. For both, it was preferable to maintain China's
"singular purity" with regard to all such issues.
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The Problem of Creation Mythology in the Study of Chinese Religion

There is no hierarchy of gods brought in to

My intention in this paper is to conside

Prepared for the session on Chinese religions, American Academy of Religion

One of the most important methodological factors in the study

I cannot attempt to delineate all of the reasons for this charac-

5 On the Confucian "self-image" which greatly influenced the development of

appears for the first time-an animal, plant, or institution-

primitive tradition. One is religious to the extent that the sacred

THE PROBLEM OF CHINESE MYTH

The religion of the Chinese seemed to have left the my

The issue over the nature and significance of mythology is one of

philosophy is necessarily to leave room for a religious dimension. More commonly,

Chinese culture. This is even more true with respect to authentic

materials for the recovery of archaic Chinese mythological

about genuine archaic myths other than what is presented in the

THE PROBLEM OF COSMOGONIC MYTH

In contrast to other nations the Chinese have no mytholog

Beyond these general methodological issues concerning m

enlightened article on Chinese mythology, he concludes that "It is

macy of using mythological data for an understanding of Chinese

In line with these remarks, J. Needham states that "on the

31 Granet, La Penseee, p. 283 (my translation). It should be recognized that

of other cultures which are concerned more exclusively and ex-

35 Maspero, "L6gendes mythologiques," pp. 47 ff. Again, it should be noted

It might be said that, due to the influence of Levi-Strauss,

THE HIDDENNESS OF COSMOGONY IN TAOISM

Chaos [hun-tun] is a favorite subject with the Tauists

If there is a strong possibility that the presence

"opinions on the origin and constitution of the universe show

49 Remusat, Asiatic Miscellanies, 1:8, quoted by F. Max Miiller, Last Essay

position today,51 there was an absolute disunity between classical

Becoming somewhat indignant at this point, Legge continues by

sentations in this highest department of Taoism, but I am not

to these disconcerting assertions, made with the blessing of the

classical Chinese tradition. There is little doubt, either, that the

COSMOGONY AND TAOIST PHILOSOPHY

To know the Primordial Beginning is to be bound to the

The possibility that there is a specific cosmogonic the

67 C. L6vi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

notions concerning the Tao as a principle of the absolute beginnings ?

Of course, at the present time a specific answer to these questions

would be alleviated to a considerable extent if we place between the two

Izutsu goes on to say that "structurally" the cosmogonic and

cosmogonic myth frequently seems to act as the basic model for

"But China obscures," you say; and I reply, "China obscur

To conclude, I only want to remark that it is going to

anything that resembled the Christian doctrine of a rational

were a number of factors that led him to this conclusion-including

cosmogony in early Taoism was too unchristian to be taken

University of Notre Dame

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