mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== *Chi You = Chhih-Yu *(m.) • The Yellow Emperor /cut off his hair, mounted it in Heaven, and called it 'Chi You's Banner.' /Chi You's banner was the name of a type of comet. • /… the ritual commemoration of the cosmic combat between the Yellow Emperor and Chi You figured prominently in exorcistic festivities which preceded the New Year during the Qin and Han Dynasties./ • Chhih-Yu's army was paralysed by the sound of a drum, made from the skin of the /kui /beast, striking nine times, /which caused the valleys and the mountains to quake and the sky to change color. /The /kui /… /was grey and looked like an ox without horns. Although it had only one leg, it sometimes rushed out of the sea leaving violent storms in its wake. It would open its mouth to roar like thunder, and its body shone like the sun and the moon /(Bamboo Annals). *Chuan Hsü = Chuan Hsu *(m.) • /Long ago Kung Kung fought with Chuan Hsu to be God. In his fury he knocked against Pu-chouMountain. The pillar of Heaven broke and the cord of earth snapped. Heaven tilted toward the northwest, and that is why the sun, moon, and stars move in that direction /(Huai-nan Tzu, /T'ien wen,/ 3. 1a-b). • The monstrous Kung-Kung ruled the earth. Chu Yung was sent to fight him, but failed. Then Chuan Hsü, sometimes called Chu Yung’s son, fought and defeated Kung Kung, who fled. In his flight, the monster broke the northwest column of heaven with his horns, displacing sun, moon, and stars and causing a flood on earth. Greenland is NW of China and Central Asia *Chu** Lung *(m.) • /Beyond the northwestern sea, north of ScarletRiver, is Pied-TailMountain. It has a god with a human face and a snake's body, and it is scarlet. His vertical eyes are straight slits. When he closes his eyes it grows dark. When he looks out it grows bright … He is called Torch Dragon [//Chu// Lung] /(Shan hai ching, /Ta huang //pei// ching,/ 17. 7a-b). *Ch'ung *(m.) • /In the vast wastes there is a mountain. Its name is Sun-and-MoonMountain and it is the pivot of Heaven … Old Child gave birth to Ch'ung and Li. The god ordered Ch'ung to raise his hands up against Heaven and he ordered Li to press down against earth /(Shan hai ching, /Ta huang hsi ching,/ 16. 4b-5a). *Feng Huang = Fong-Whang *(m.?) # Phoenix is compared with Simurgh, the Talmudic bird Chol, and the Chinese Fong-Whang. • /In August that year /[during the Wei dynasty] /there were several mysterious signs in the country of the Wei dynasty, to wit: the Feng Huang flew about in the sky over Sog'ub, Girin appeared in the castle Imchi, and a yellow dragon was seen in the city //Ob/(Na gwan Dzhung, /Sam guk chi yan'ü /or /The three kingdoms)/. • /The phoenix, /feng huang, /was the sacred fire bird. It was truly a magnificent creature to behold, and it had the features of several different animals. It had the head of a swan; the throat of a swallow; the beak of a chicken; the neck of a snake; the legs of a unicorn; the arched beak of a turtle; and the stripes of a dragon. Its feathers were made up of the five sacred colors: black, white, red, green, and yellow./ *Fu Xi = Fu Hi = Fu Hsia = Fu-Hsi = Fu-hsi = Fo-Hi = Fu-Hi = Fu-hi *(m.) • Fu Xi /could come and go between Earth and Heaven on the tree of Jianmu that linked the two realms … It had long and tangled roots, but above ground grew straight up without branches for miles into the sky … At the very top, far above the Earth, there was a proliferation of branches. The plain of Duguang where the tree of Jianmu grew was said to be the very centre of the Earth and was itself a paradise …./ • Nü Wa and Fu Xi are depicted coiled around one another in a caduceus-like fashion, with four coils and wings at the top. • Fu-Hi had no father, but only a mother. • Fu-Hsi was born in a pool associated with dragons. • Fu-hi, the first emperor of China, had a fish tail. • Fu Hsi is considered the Chinese Adam. • Fu Hsi taught civilisation to man. • Fu Xi was the brother and spouse of Nu Kwa. • Fo-Hi was the legendary first ruler of China, identified with the planet Saturn. • Fo-Hi was depicted as half-man and half-serpent. • Fo-Hi was the inventor of the ancient system of hieroglyphics. • Fo-Hi’s kingship is associated with a cataclysmic deluge. • Fo-Hi instituted the rites of sacrifice. • /Fu-Hi was succeeded by his sister-wife, Niu-Kua, whose voice ‘caused the stars to dance’./ • Marriage was instituted by Fu-Hi and his sister Niu-Kua. *Hsi Wang Mu = Si Wang Mu *(f.) # Si Wang Mu was identical with Seiobo. • Hsi Wang Mu /dwells in a palace on the K'un-lun Mountain, which is surrounded by fragrant flowers, battlements of jewels, and a garden wall of gold./ • Si Wang Mu had a garden, in which the tree of life grew, a peach tree. • Si Wang Mu was queen of the immortals. • Si Wang Mu was mother of the Western king and ‘royal mother of the West’. • Si Wang Mu’s paradise included the pearl or jade mountain. • Si Wang Mu granted the archer a jade cup with the dew of immortality, but his wife drunk it and because of that this wife was changed into a frog and imprisoned in the moon. • Si Wang Mu had disheveled hair. • Si Wang Mu had a panther tail. • Si Wang Mu inflicted and cured diseases. • Si Wang Mu rode on a white dragon. • Si Wang Mu is associated with the white tiger. • Si Wang Mu is associated with the blue stork. • Si Wang Mu is associated with the deer. • Si Wang Mu’s paradise was entered through the golden gate. • Si Wang Mu had tiger teeth. • Si Wang Mu had a sister. • Si Wang Mu is associated with the turtle. *Hwang-Ti = Huang-Ti = Huang Ti = Huang-Di = Huang Di = Huang-ti = Houang-ti *(m.) • Huang Di invented the first wheeled vehicle. • Huang Di's mother became pregnant after witnessing /a great flash of lightning /around the star Dubhe, part of the Big Dipper in Ursa Major. • Huang Di could speak at birth. • Huang Di was 'dragon-like' and had four faces (Bamboo Annals). • Huang Ti /taught the arts of divination and mathematics, composed the calendar, invented musical instruments of bamboo, taught the use of money, boats, and carriages, and the arts of work in clay, metal, and wood. /He built the first temple and the first palace, studied and taught the properties of healing herbs. • Huang Ti had special concern for the accurate astronomy (Ssu-ma Ch’ien, /Historical Records,/ 1^st century B.C.). • Huang-ti was taken up to heaven by a bearded dragon, with his wives and councillors, seventy people in all. • Hwang-Ti was an early king. • Hwang-Ti’s name means ‘yellow god’. • Hwang-Ti was the son of the thunder god. • When Hwang-Ti died, he became a dragon. • Huang-ti, the ‘Yellow Emperor’, ruled over a paradise. • Huang-ti was considered the father of the Taoist religion, he was the creator, a universal lawmaker and founder of arts and civilisation. • Huang-ti was a mortal. • Huang-ti’s fruitful era vanished upon his death. • Huang-ti is acknowledged to be the planet Saturn. • Huang-ti was the first to use the wheeled chariot. • Huang-ti had four eyes. • Huang-ti resides within the folds of a serpent, dragon, fish or crocodile. • Huang-ti was the first to sail in a ship. • Huang-ti’s vehicle was both a ship and a chariot. • Upon Huang-ti’s death, his soul ascended and became the star T’ai I. *K’au-fu *(m.) • K’au-fu, a dragon, was a son of Kung Kung. • K’au-fu once wanted to journey across the sky with the sun. /He overtook it in the Valley of the Setting Sun, but he was exhausted. He was so thirsty that he drained the Yellow River and River Wei. Still his thirst was not quenched, and he hastened toward the north to drink the GreatSwamp, but he died of thirst on the way./ *K’ing Tu *(f.) • Yao, a great Chinese monarch, was the son of the princess K’ing Tu, who gave birth to him fourteen months after seeing a dragon: no father is mentioned. *K’uei *(m.) • The primeval god K’uei was one-footed. • K’uei was a one-legged, hornless green ox who caused wind and rain. *Kung Kung = Kung-Kung = Kong-kong = Gong Gong *(m.) # Kung Kung was equated with the dragon slain by Nu-kua. • /Long ago Kung Kung fought with Chuan Hsu to be God. In his fury he knocked against Pu-chou Mountain. The pillar of Heaven broke and the cord of earth snapped. Heaven tilted toward the northwest, and that is why the sun, moon, and stars move in that direction /(Huai-nan Tzu, /T'ien wen,/ 3. 1a-b). • Kung Kung had /a snake's body with a human head and bright scarlet hair /and had a prominent horn on his head. • /When Gong Gong (Spirit of the Waters) blundered into the Buzhou Mountain … he not only made a hole in the firmament but also caused the whole sky to tip so that the Pole Star was no longer in its center./ • K’au-fu, a dragon, was a son of Kung Kung. • Kung Kung was a horned monster, which lost a battle for power with one of the five ancient kings. Because of this, he flew into a rage and flung himself at Mount Pu Chou. Then /the column of the sky was broken, the link with earth was cut. In the north-west the sky collapsed. Hence the sun, moon and stars slipped toward the north-west and the earth tilted to the south-east. Thereupon the waters spread and flowed to the south-east./ • The monstrous Kung-Kung ruled the earth. Chu Yung was sent to fight him, but failed. Then Chuan Hsü, sometimes called Chu Yung’s son, fought and defeated Kung Kung, who fled. In his flight, the monster broke the northwest column of heaven with his horns, displacing sun, moon, and stars and causing a flood on earth. *Lan** Lung *(m.) • /One ancient authority tells us that there is a class of these great saurians which are known as ‘lazy dragons’. These do not like to exert themselves in the task of directing clouds which carry rain over the surface of the earth. They sometimes make themselves small in size, drop to the surface of the earth and hide in trees, under roofs of houses, and even in the clothing of unsuspecting countrymen. The Thunder God, learning of their desertion from their posts of duty, sends his messengers to search for them and when he discovers their location, kills them with thunderbolts during an electric storm, after the manner of Zeus. /‘Lazy dragon’ in Chinese is /Lan// Lung./ *Nu Kwa = Nü Gua = Nü Kua = Nü-Wa = Nu-kua = Niu-Kua *(f.) # Nu Kwa was the same as Jokwa. # Kung Kung was equated with the dragon slain by Nu-kua. • /In remote antiquity, the four poles collapsed. The Nine Regions split up. Heaven could not cover all things uniformly, and earth could not carry everything at once. Fires raged fiercely and could not be extinguished. Water rose in vast floods without abating … /Then Nü Kua /severed the feet of a giant sea-turtle to support the four poles … The four poles were set right. The surging waters dried up /(Huai-nan Tzu, /Lan// ming,/ 6. 7b-8a). • /The goddess /[NüWa; MAS] /was usually depicted as a human-headed dragon or snake …./ • Nü Wa and Fu Xi are depicted coiled around one another in a caduceus-like fashion, with four coils and wings at the top. • /Fu-Hi was succeeded by his sister-wife, Niu-Kua, whose voice ‘caused the stars to dance’./ • Nu Kwa battled with the giants and demons who had caused the flood, the demons of water and fire. Then a gigantic warrior upset one of the heavenly pillars which caused the flood. Nu Kwa restored the pillar and placed a turtle under it and created the four guardians of the world: Black Turtle in the North, Blue Dragon in the East, White Tiger in the West and Red Bird in the South, as well as Golden Dragon in the centre.). • Nu Kwa created the dragons and jade. • Nu Kwa was empress of China. • /Other early members of the Chinese pantheon appear as partly animal and partly human - for example, the creator couple Fu Xi and Nü Gua may be portrayed with combined human and serpentine bodies./ • Nu-kua slew a Black Dragon. • Niu-Kua is by some authors transformed into a man. • Marriage was instituted by Fu-Hi and his sister Niu-Kua. *P’an Ku = P’an-ku = Pan-Ku = Pan Gu *(m.) • P'an Ku's /four limbs and five extremities became the four cardinal points and the five peaks /(Wu yun li-nien chi, in Yi shih, 1. 2a). • /Heaven and earth were in chaos like a chicken's egg, and P'an Ku was born in the middle of it. In eighteen thousand years Heaven and earth opened and unfolded. The limpid that was Yang became the heavens, the turbid that was Yin became the earth. P'an Ku lived within them, and in one day he went through nine transformations … Each day the heavens rose ten feet higher, each day the earth grew ten feet thicker, and each day P'an Ku grew ten feet taller /(San Wu li chi, in Yi-wen lei-chü, 1. 2a). • /Despite the fact that he grew to such a size, images of Pan Gu show him as a dwarf wearing a bearskin or a dress of leaves, often with a horned head …./ • /Pan Gu stood with his feet on the Earth and the sky resting on his head … Every day the sky grew higher by one /zhang /(three metres) and the Earth grew one /zhang /thicker; Pan Gu increased in size at the same rate … By the end of this time /[18,000 years] /Pan Gu was vast almost beyond imagining, stretching like an endless pillar from the ground to the furthest reaches of the sky./ • The world was made from Pan’ku’s body. • Pan Gu appeared from the cosmic egg. • The Nothing split into two halves, masculine and feminine, and these progenerated two smaller objects and these called P’an Ku into existence. • W/ hen the divine ancestor Pan Gu had grown inside the shell for 18,000 years, the egg exploded into two parts, the light half forming the heavens, the dark half forming the earth./ • Pan Gu created the world. • Pan Gu was the world giant and out of his body, which was cut into pieces, the world was created. • Pan Gu is sometimes depicted as a giant. • Pan Gu /became so huge that he could span the distance between earth and heaven./ • Pan Gu is sometimes depicted as a dwarf. • Pan Gu worked with tools. • Pan Gu’s blood formed the sea. • Pan-Ku was demiurge. His body provided the material for creation. • Before creation, the primeval chaos looked like a hen’s egg. After a very long period of time, this egg opened up and P’an-ku was born. It was from the body of P’an-ku that the world was said to have come into being (San-Wu Li-Ki, 3^rd century). • There was a time when /P’an-ku came forth in the midst of the great chaotic void,/ and we know not his origin; he knew the rationale of heaven and earth, and comprehended /the changes of the darkness and the light /and having /existed before the shining of the light./ /After the chaos cleared away heaven appeared first in order, then earth. /It was then that /the order of time was gradually settled,/ for before then /the day and night had not yet been divided,/ but, eventually, /day and night were distinguished from each other /(Compendium of Wong-shi Shing). *Shang Ti = Shang di = Shangdi = Shang-ti = Shang-te = Chang-Ti *(m.) • The Yellow Emperor was likened to Shangdi: /… he had the face of a dragon … the constellation that bears his name had the body of a yellow dragon and ruled thunder and rain, and … he departed on a dragon at the end of his life./ • The circumpolar zone was called the 'forbidden polar palace' and the emperor was believed to rule over the north pole in imitation of Shang di (China). • Shang Ti is invoked as /dwelling in the sovereign heavens, looking up to the lofty /nine-storied azure vault (prayer). • /The Polar Star is the Centre of Heaven. /And: /Shang-te’s throne is in Tsze-wei,/ /i. e., the Polar Star. /And: /Immediately over the central peak of Kwen-lun appears the Polar star, which is Shang-te’s heavenly abode. /And: /In the central place the Polar star of Heaven, the one Bright One, the Great Monad, always dwells /(China). • /Within the seas, in the valleys of Kwen-lun, at the northwest is Shang-te’s /Lower///Recreation//Palace//. It is eight hundred /le /square, and eighty thousand feet high. In front there are nine walls, inclosed by a fence of precious stones. At the sides there are nine doors, through which the light streams, and it is guarded by beasts. Shang-te’s wife also dwells in this region, immediately over which is Shang-te’s Heavenly Palace, which is situated in the centre of the heavens, as his earthly one is in the centre of the earth./ • /In Kwen-lun is Shang-te’s lower recreation-palace … Shang-te’s wife dwells in this region, immediately over which is Shang-te’s heavenly palace, which is situated in the centre of the heavens, as his earthly one is in the centre of the earth … The Queen mother dwells alone in its midst, in the place where the genii sport./ • The sky god is called T’ien, ‘sky’, ‘sky god’, and Chang-Ti, ‘lord highness, lord on high’. • Shang-ti was the supreme polar god. His seat was ‘the Pivot’. • The imperial city of Shang-ti coincides with the paradise of Kwen-lun. • Shang-ti was the first king. • Shang-ti’s palace is called /Tsze-wei,/ ‘a celestial space around the North pole. • The centre post of a roof was a /ki,/ and the chief upright, /ki,/ of the local dwelling symbolised the /Tai-Ki /or ‘Great Ki’ in heaven, the central support of the turning cosmos. The ‘Great Ki’ was Shang-ti. • Kwen-lun was the abode of Shang-ti. • Shang Ti was king of the gods. • Shang Ti was the supreme god. • Shang Ti was a pillar god. • Shang Ti was married to Kwai-Yin. *Shû King *(m.) • The ancient Shû King had a transverse jade-tube: /He examined the pearl-adorned turning sphere, with its transverse tube of jade, and reduced to a harmonious system the movements of the Seven Directors./ *Shun *(m.; historical) • Shun was born with double eyes and had the countenance of a dragon with a large mouth and black body. • During Shun's reign clouds were seen. /They were like smoke, and yet not smoke; like clouds, and yet not clouds; brilliantly confused; twisting and whirling … When the essential brightness was exhausted, the clouds shriveled up and disappeared./ • Shun could fly. • Shun performed many tasks. • Shun was an early king. • Shun made pots. *T'ai Hao *(m.?) • /Beyond the SouthSea … there are nine hills bounded by rivers. /The names of the hills are given. /There is a tree with green leaves, a purple trunk, black blossoms, and yellow fruit called the Chien-mu tree. For one thousand feet upward it bears no branches, and there are nine tanglewoods, while underneath there are nine root twinings … T'ai Hao used to pass up and down by it /(Shan hai ching, /Hai nei ching,/ 18. 3a-4a). *Tao *(m.) • The universal order is called Tao. • The Tao was located about the celestial pole which was considered to be the seat of power because all revolves about it. • The first principle was the Tao, issued forth from the god. • Chinese /tao /also conveys the idea ‘to speak’. • The polar god became the mystic Tao, the motor of the cosmos. • The word /Tao /combines the sign for ‘stand still’ with the sign ‘to go’ and ‘head’. • Tao is called /the light of heaven /and /the heart of heaven./ • Tao was the way or path. • /There is something chaotic yet complete which existed before heaven and earth. Oh how still it is and formless, standing alone without changing, reaching everywhere without suffering harm. Its name I know not. To designate it I call it Tao /(Lao-tze). *Tien = T’ien = Ti *(m.) • The supreme god is Ti, ‘the sky’ (China). • Tien died for the world. • The sky god is called T’ien, ‘sky’, ‘sky god’, and Chang-Ti, ‘lord highness, lord on high’. • The Emperor is /T’ien Tsu,/ the ‘son of heaven’. He guarantees order and the fertility of the earth. *T’ien-Hsing *(m.) • The Chinese /tien /signifies both the high god and ‘heaven’. • T’ien-Hsing, the name for the planet Saturn, is associated with the element earth. *T’ien Mu = Tao Mu = Tou Mu = Tien Mu = T’ien-Mu *(f.) • /T’ien Mu controlled the lightning. She made it flash by using two mirrors to deflect the light from the celestial sphere down to earth through a hole in the sky. The Chinese regarded lightning as female because they believed it came from the earth, part of the yin, or the female, principle. T’ien Mu sent her lightning to earth and set fires with /it. • /‘Tou Mu’ = T’ien Mu = Tao Mu. /She was goddess of the North Star and Queen of Heaven. /Her honorary title is Tou-Mu T’ien-Tsun, Heaven-honoured Mother of the Pole Star./ She lived with her husband and their nine sons at the pole. • /Tien Mu: Goddess of lightning. Chinese./ • /Lei Kung: Chinese thunder-god;... His wife /T’ien-Mu /made the lightning with two mirrors./ • /In Chinese myth, the Mother of Lightning, Tien Mu, was a divinity magnificently robed in blue, green, red, and white. She held a mirror in each hand. Where the reflections of the two mirrors crossed, lightning would crackle and flash./ *Yahu = Yau = Yao = Yâo = Yahou *(m.; historical?) • Yao's mother was impregnated by a red dragon. • Yao was of giant stature and had the virtue of a sage. • Under the rule of emperor Yâo a great flood covered China (Shu-King, 3^rd century BCE). • Yâo’s rule would have started in 2357 BCE. Yu finally controlled the waters. • For ten days the sun did not set, after a great catastrophe during the reign of Emperor Yahou. • The world was in flames and the waters almost flooded the earth during Emperor Yahou’s reign. • At the time of the flood, the Emperor of China was named Yau. • During the reign of Yahou /a brilliant star issued from the constellation Yin./ • A /brilliant star appeared in the days of Yahu./ • During the catastrophe under Yahou multitudes of vermin were bred in the land. • Yao, a great Chinese monarch, was the son of the princess K’ing Tu, who gave birth to him fourteen months after seeing a dragon: no father is mentioned. *Yang *(m.) • In the Circle of Yin and Yang when the golden-coloured heavenly messenger disappeared, four Genii flew to the spot from different quarters. • /Long ago, before Heaven and earth existed, there were only images but no forms, and all was dark and obscure, a vast desolation, a misty expanse, and nothing knew where its own portals were. There were two gods born out of chaos who wove the skies and designed the earth … Then they divided into Yin and Yang and separated into the Eight Poles /(Huai-nan Tzu, /Ching shen,/ 7. 1a). • In the beginning Yang and Yin were coexistent and indistinguishable, then they were separated. • Yang was identified with the penis. • Sacrifices were made to Yang. • Yin and Yang were probably twins. *Ying-Huo *(m.) • The planet Mars is called Ying-Huo, ‘fire planet’. *Yü Wang = Yu *(m.; historical?) • Xiangyao /was ravaging an outlying district /of Yu's realm. /The beast had a serpent's body and nine heads, each of which spat forth a venom so noxious that it laid waste all the land around. It was huge in size, and when at rest it wrapped itself round nine separate hills. /Yu slew it. • Yu established the heaven of nine divisions after a deluge. • /… at the time of [King] Yu the five planets were strung together like a string of beads … Using computers to back-compute the planetary orbits, Pang and colleagues settled on a date in late February 1953 BC when Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn came within only five degrees of one another (close enough that they could be blocked out by a thumb held at arm's length)./ • Yü Wang was able to end the great flood only after he had succeeded in capturing the dragon, who was responsible for the deluge. • The smith 'The Great Yu' regularly performed a ritual dance on one leg. • Yu's mother became pregnant after seeing a falling star go through the Pleiades. Yu was born from his mother's back, and he had a tiger's nose and a large mouth. • Yu was born from the male Kwan in the shape of a dragon. • Yâo’s rule would have started in 2357 BCE. Yu finally controlled the waters. • Yu, son of Khwan, was able to drain the land after the flood. • Yu became Emperor of China after he had drained the land. • Yu was the founder of a dynasty. • Sinag-liou was slain by Yu. • Yu was the engineer employed by the Emperor Shun to drain the land from the flood caused in the time of Yao. • Yu was an early king. • Yu was the hero of the flood. *folklore**, symbolism, science and traditions * • The axis mundi or /ti-chung /was /the place where earth and sky meet, where the four seasons merge, where wind and rain are gathered in, and where /ying [sic!] /and /yang /are in harmony /(Chou-Li). • It was the emperor's role /to stand in the center of the earth and stabilize the people within the four seas /(Mencius, VII. A. 21. 2). • /At the beginning of remote antiquity, who was there to pass down the tale of what happened? … The round sphere and its ninefold gates, who planned and measured them? /(Ch'u Tz'u, /T'ien wen,/ 3. 1b-4a). • /Beside T'ang Valley there is the Leaning Mulberry, where the ten suns are bathed …and where they stay in the river. There is a large tree, and nine suns stay on its lower branches while one sun stays on its top branch /(Shan hai ching, /Hai wai tung ching,/ 9. 3a-b). • /In the middle of the great wasteland, there is a mountain called Nieh-yao Chün-ti. On its summit there is a leaning tree. Its trunk is three hundred leagues tall; its leaves are like the mustard plant /(Shan hai ching, /Ta huang tung ching,/ 14. 5a-b). • A picture of the Leaning Mulberry is given. The trunk of the tree is a double spiral, which in a caduceus-like fashion, produces a double helix with seven loops of different sizes (funerary stone bas-relief, Wu Liang Shrine, Chia-hsiang county, Shantung, A. D. 151). • /The Chien-mu /[a tree; MAS] /is in Tu-kuang. All the gods ascended and descended by it. It cast no shadow in the sun and it made no echo when someone shouted. No doubt this is because it is the center of Heaven and earth /(Huai-nan Tzu, /Chui hsing,/ 4. 3a-b). • There are many world-trees in Chinese mythology, all representative of the /Axis Mundi./ Examples are San-sang or the Trinity Mulberry; Hsun-mu or the Search Tree; Jo-mu or the Accord Tree; and Fu-sang or the Leaning Mulberry. • /When the five planets consort, this is a change of phase: the possessor of virtue receives felicitations, a new Great Man is set up to possess the four quarters, his descendants flourish and multiply; but the one lacking in virtue suffers calamities to the point of destruction /(Sima Qian, Chinese astrologer). • /… the five planets, Sun, and Moon were in conjunction at a time zero before the cycles of Heaven, Earth, and Man were set in motion /(Han astronomy). • /The ancient /Zhuan Xu /calendar began at dawn, in the beginning of spring, when the Sun, Moon, and five planets gathered in the constellation /Yingshi (Liu Xiang, commentary on 'Book of Documents', 1^st century BCE). This would have been in 1953 BCE. On the type of conjunction: /not merely massed in one lunar mansion, but literally stacked at a precise degree of longitude./ • /By late Zhou times it has become axiomatic that the 'Mandate' is actually tied up with 'five-planet conjunctions'../ • The planet Venus was conceived as a male warrior (China). • The planet Jupiter was called /Soui-sing,/ ‘year planet’. • The planet Mars was called /Ying-houo,/ ‘shaky light’ or ‘unstable light’, /Tch’i-sing,/ ‘red planet’, and ‘genie of the red sovereign’, /Tchí-p’iao-nou,/ ‘berserk of the red meteor’, name of the god of the south and the fire. It was also called /Fá-sing,/ ‘punishing star’, /Tchí-fá,/ ‘judge’, and also ‘messenger of heaven’. • The planet Saturn was called /T’ien-sing,/ ‘perpetual planet’. /Saturne était aussi l’image de la /femme. And it was called /Tchou-niou-tchi-chin,/ ‘genie of the pivot’, the name of a small star in Ursa Minor. • The planet Venus was called /T’ai-pé,/ ‘great white one’, /Ying-sing,/ ‘brilliant star’, /Ming-tang,/ ‘temple of light’, /Yin-sing,/ ‘flourishing star’, and /Vénus préside à la guerre … elle est l’image dur Grand-Duc Général suprême de l’armée./ It was also called /Mié-sing,/ ‘star of destruction’, /Ta-choai,/ ‘great decline’, /Ta-hiao,/ ‘the great roarer’, /Liang-sing,/ ‘the star of embankments’, /T’ien-ho,/ ‘the celestial flood’, and /Koung-sing,/ ‘planet of the palace’. I find no sign in Schlegel’s text to the effect that the planet was deemed female. • The planet Mercury was called /Chin-sing,/ ‘hour planet’, and /Siao-wou,/ ‘the little warrior’. • The name of the planet Venus means ‘eye of the ancestor’. • Once the planet Venus attacked the ‘Wolf-Star’, which was apparently Mars. • Venus once rivalled the sun in brightness. • The planet Saturn is called the /Genie of the Pivot,/ exactly the same name as the pole star has. Saturn was believed to have his seat at the pole. • The pole star is the /star of the Pivot./ • Saturn is the planet of the Emperor. As Saturn occupied the central place in the sky, even so the Emperor was at the centre of his realm on Earth. (Ssu-ma Ch’ien, /The rulers of the heavens,/ 2^nd century BCE). • The planet Saturn was called the planet of the ‘earth’. • /Mercury is the planet of the element water, the element of the north; Venus of metal, the element of the west; Mars of fire and the south; Jupiter of wood, which is east; and finally Saturn, the planet of the element earth, which is of the center /(China). • The pole star is called /t’ien-tchou,/ ‘pivot of the sky’, as are two stars in Draco, and Saturn is called /tchou-niou-tchi-chin,/ ‘genie of the pivot’. • The pole is the fifth, immovable direction. • The pole is the /central palace /around which the cardinal points are spaced. • The planet Mars was the fire-star, said to portend /bane, grief, war, and murder./ • The planet Mercury was called the ‘water star’. • The planet Venus was called the ‘metal star’. • The planet Jupiter was called the ‘wooden star’. • The planet Saturn was called the ‘earth star’. • The planet Mars was known as /the bringer of justice /and represented as a judge. • The planet Venus was called /Yin-sing,/ ‘the flowery star’. • The sun is depicted as an enclosed dot. wow! • The term /chhang-keng,/ ‘long path’, was used both for a comet heralding the outbreak of war, described as like a roll of cloth extending across the heavens, and for the planet Venus (/Chin Shu,/ 7^th century). • One of the commonest terms for comet, /po,/ appears also in the name of the planet Venus: /Tai-po./ The planet Venus once changed into a comet like a celestial dog. • The planet Venus announces war. • /Comets are vile stars. Every time they appear in the south, something happens to wipe out the old and establish the new./ • The Milky Way is known as the /Red River./ • The equilateral cross represents the earth (China). • /… in Chinese mythology the storm-bird is described as ‘a bird which, in flying, obscures the sun, and of whose quills are made water-tuns.’./ • /The God of Thunder is ‘almost the only Chinese mythological deity who is drawn with wings. The cock’s head and claws, the hammer and chisel, representing the spitting peal attending a flash, the circlet of fire encompassing a number of drums to typify the reverberating thunder and the ravages of the irresistible lightning, present a grotesque ensemble … His present bird-like form would appear to have been evolved, through the medium of Buddhism, from the Indian Garuda /… Reference is made to Williams, /Middle Kingdom,/ II. 109. • It is only since the new order of things has come about that the stars move from east to west (China). • The infinite One was regarded /as a fixed point of dazzling luminosity, around which circled in the supremest glory of motion the souls of those who had succesfully passed through the ordeals of earth /(China). • The ‘Altar to Heaven’ in Beijing, that already existed in 1200 BCE, had a platform /laid with marble slabs, forming nine concentric circles; the inner circle consists of nine stones round the central stone, which is a perfect circle./ • The Chinese called their land /Tschung Kwo,/ ‘middle kingdom’. • /… the cosmos was likened to the flat plastron and rounded carapace of a turtle, the latter arching over the former like the firmament overarching the square earth /(China, from the Neolithic onwards). • Games of kickball and 'horn butting' were performed /explicitly in commemoration of the cosmic combat which led to the introduction of warfare and weapons /(China). • The game of cosmic kickball involved /a round ball and square walls /and imitated the round heaven over the square earth and the moons rushing against each other in the cosmos (China). • The emperor had to ritually climb /from the ground level, that represented the earth, to the top of the Round Mound … His ascent brought him physically closer to the sky, and the platform – open to the air – exposed him directly to heaven … Numerous architectural details at the Round Mound symbolize heaven and its relation to earth. The outer enclosure wall is square. This is the shape of earth … and it originates in the Chinese emphasis on the significance of the four cardinal directions … A second enclosure wall, circular to signify the sky, suggests that the north-south promenade really is a highway to heaven … Cardinal stairways provide access to the stack of three elevated decks, and each section of staircase has nine steps. Nine is heaven's special number at the Round Mound. The pavement on the upper terrace is laid out in concentric rings, and the number of stones in each ring increases as a multiple of nine around the central disk. These rings presumably symbolize the nine heavens, and the ninth and outermost ring has 9 x 9 = 81 stones … A moat surrounds the platform, probably a reference to the deep watery trench imagined sometimes to surround the earth and connect with the vault of the sky /(Beijing)/./ • /Before heaven and earth had become separated from each other, everything was a great ball of mist, called chaos. At that time, the spirits of the five elements took shape, and then developed into five ancients … Now each of these five ancients set in motion the primordial spirit from which he had proceeded, so that water and earth sank downward; the heavens soared aloft and the earth became fast in the depths /(China). • Tong was a tree in the centre of the Garden of the Gods on the summit of Kwen-lun. It grew /hard by the closed Gate of Heaven./ • The tree on the top of the mountain of Paradise /seems to take the place of the ark /: /one extraordinary antediluvian saved his life by climbing up a mountain, and there and then, in the manner of birds plaiting a nest, he passed his days on a tree, whilst all the country below him was one sheet of water. He afterwards lived to a very old age, and could testify to his late posterity that a whole race of human beings had been swept from the face of the earth /(Tauism). • The paradise of Kwen-lun was the abode of the gods. It was round in form and it was ‘the mount of assembly’. It is described as a garden with a marvelous tree in the midst, and with a fountain of immortality, from which proceed four rivers, which flow in opposite directions toward the four quarters of the earth. The water contains ambrosia. This paradise is located at the North pole. /Here is the great pillar that sustains the world, no less than 300,000 miles high./ • Kwen-lun was a stupendous heaven-sustaining mountain, marking the centre of the earth: /The four quarters of the earth incline downwards … On this vast plain or mount, surrounded on all sides by the four seas, arise the mountains of Kwen-lun, the highest in the world …./ • Kwen-lun, the world mountain, is often called /the pearl mountain./ On its top is paradise, with a living fountain from which flow in opposite directions the four great rivers of the world. Around it revolve the visible heavens, and the circumpolar stars are the abodes of the inferior gods and genii. • /According to legend, the terrestrial or mortal battle was paralleled by another battle of gods, spirits and immortals. The events are recorded in the Book of the Making of Immortals, and the Catalogue of Spirits and Immortals, both of which are Taoist books compiled several centuries after the historical events /(Derek Walter, /Chinese mythology)/. • Bi /is the symbol for the circular sky or Heaven and the hole at the centre corresponds to the /lie kou /through which the lightning flashes./ • /A DRAGON COLUMN. This remarkable monolith stands near the entrance to the famous Ming Tombs, thirty miles north of Peking. A huge dragon, surrounded by clouds, wraps itself closely about the tall shaft. There are two of these columns at the Ming Tombs, one on either side of the Spirit Road./ • /Dr Isaac Taylor says that the primitive Chinese symbol for light was the sun on a tree./ • /A ball, sometimes with a spiral decoration, is commonly represented in front of the Chinese dragon. The Chinese writer Koh Hung tells us that ‘a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of lightning’ …./ • /As to the enormous dragon, made of linen, bamboo and paper, and carried in procession through the streets on the 15^th of the first month, a red ball being carried in front of him, this was formerly explained by De Groot as an imitation of the Azure Dragon, the head of which (a star) in remotest ages in the beginning of spring rose and set at the same time as the sun (the fiery ball), as if it persecuted this celestial globe and finally succeeded in swallowing it./ But later the ball was explained as the thunder: /… the ball carried in front of the dragon on that day might be also explained … as thunder belched out by the dragon … The ball between the two dragons is often delineated as a spiral, and in an ancient charm represented in Koh Hung’s /Pao P`oh-tsz? /(17^th section) “a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of lightning.”./ • Two dragons /flying with open mouths towards a ball or spiral between them - this is the most frequent and apparently the most ancient representation./ A Chinese subscript identified the ball as the moon. /Difficult points in the moon theory are the /red /colour of the ball and its /spiral/ -shaped form. /De Visser then offers the connection with a pearl. • The ball associated with the dragon as /the luminous pearl, which was believed to have fallen from the sky, was homologized with the thunderbolt /(China). This ball has a red colour and has a spiral pattern upon it. • There is /a miraculous tree which grows at the center of the universe … It is called /Kien-Mou /(the ‘upright’ or ‘standing wood’) and it unites the Nine Springs with the Nine Heavens /(China). • /The symbolism of the tope or stupa from the crowning spire of which the (Chinese) /pagoda /originates, is, like that of all other sacred edifices, intended to figure out an idea of the world or universe ruled over or occupied by one supreme Spirit or Being./ • /The objects of Chinese architecture with which the European eye is most familiar are the taas, or nine-storeyed pagodas, as they are usually called. In the south they generally have that number of storeys, but not always, and in the north it ranges from three to thirteen. As before hinted, these are nothing but exaggerated tees of dagobas …./ • /Porcelain Tower, Nanking … Commenced in the year 1412, and finished in 1431, it was erected as a monument of gratitude to an empress of the Ming family … It was octagonal in form, 236 ft. in height, of which, however, about 30 ft. must be deducted for the iron spire that surmounted it … From the summit of the spire eight chains depended, to each of which were attached nine bells …./ (picture tower3) • The pottery motifs of the double ax, spiral and swastika, meander and polygonal designs, concentric circles and checker patterns, wavy-water lines, angular zigzags and organisations of bands are found (Yangshao complex, 2200-1900). • The unicorn, dragon, tortoise and phoenix are the benevolent animals of paradise (China). • /The Chinese ‘celestial dog’ is similarly a thunder and lightning deity, and there are many references to it in the Chinese books, including the following: ‘When dark clouds covered the sky everywhere at night, a noise of thunder was heard in the north … This was what people call a descent of the celestial dog …’ ‘It has a shape of a large moving star, and produces a noise. When it descends and reaches the earth it resembles a dog. Whatever it falls upon becomes a flaming fire; it looks like a fiery light, like flames flaming up to heaven …’ ‘The celestial dogs live on the top of high mountains …’ The dogs are mentioned ‘as a kind of badgers living in the mountains, or as birds or plants …, or dragons.’./ • Trilithons are found, serving as gates for rebirth (China). • The winged disk was placed on top of gates (China). • The mother goddess was the solar boat. • The celestial Yellow River was the Milky Way. • On the sacred pine trees - and on temples and ship masts - shines sometimes a bright light: this is the celestial boy with souls of the dead (China, Japan). • The dead soul is carried to paradise by a bird, most a crane or stork (China). • Dragons cause wandering lights on mountains (China, Japan). • Eyes were depicted on the boughs of junks. • The Western paradise was in the centre of the world or behind the horizon. • The mother goddess appears variously as a woman, a dragon, a woman on a dragon, half woman half fish, half woman half snake. • /In the age of perfect virtue, they attached no value to wisdom... They were upright and correct, without knowing that to be so was righteousness; they loved one another, without knowing that to do so was benevolence; they were honest and leal-hearted without knowing that it was loyalty; they fulfilled their engagements, without knowing that to do so was good faith; in their simple movements they employed the services of one another, without thinking that they were conferring or receiving any gift. Therefore their actions left no trace, and there was no record of their affairs /(Kwang Tze, 400 BCE). • /The paradisical state of the early ages had been disturbed by lawmakers. Decadence set in... and continued until the people became ‘perplexed and disordered, and had no way by which they might return to their true nature, and bring back their original condition’ /(Kwang Tze, 400 BCE). • Dragons chase a /huoh chuh,/ ‘fire pearl’, a word which also means ‘meteorite’. • There is (or was) a thing confusedly formed, born before heaven and earth. Silent and void, it stands alone and does not change, goes round and does not weary. It is (or was) capable of being the mother of the world (Tao Te Ching). • In the /age after the chaos, when heaven and earth had just separated, that is, when the great mass of cloud just lifted from the earth, heaven showed its face./ • The Chinese distinguished ten /kis /or world ages until Confucius. Transition from one age to another happens in a violent way. • In the earliest age the purest pleasure and tranquillity reigned throughout all nature. Mankind suffered neither hunger nor pain, nor sorrow. /The whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness... all things grew without labour; and a universal fertility prevailed./ • The Chinese kingdom was a copy of a celestial empire. • Kwen-lun was /Tze-wei,/ ‘a celestial space around the north pole’, the polar mountain, the highest mountain in the world, lying at /the centre of the earth./ On its summit lay a shining circular plain, recalled as a celestial homeland whose /sparkling fountains and purling streams contain the far-famed ambrosia./ • In the paradise on the summit of Kwen-lun is a living fountain, from which flow in opposite directions the four great rivers of the world. • The planet Saturn "corresponds to the center". The four other planets represented the four cardinal points; Saturn was placed at the pole, and the entire stellar sphere was said to revolve around it. Just as Saturn occupied the central position in the sky, so the imperial palace and the emperor occupied the central location. • Mount Kulkun is designated as the /king of the mountains, the summit of the earth, the supporter of heaven and the axis which touches the pole./ • A dragon ascending from the earth to the clouds can serve as the whirling column, which accounts for so many dragons on pillars. • /The ether emanates and rises, and its splendorous essence floats above, and rolls in a sinuous current which has been named the heaven-River or torrent, and the vaporous stream or pure River /(Yang Hiung). • The hieroglyph for ‘ether’ was an enclosed orb set atop three luminous streamers (China). • The world egg is bisected into black and white semicircles.