Shanhaijing illustration of Nüwa

Shanhaijing illustration of Nine-tailed Fox, companion of Xi Wangmu

The Shan Hai Jing (Chinese: 山海經/山海经; pinyin: Shānhǎi Jīng; Wade-Giles: Shan Hai Ching; literally "Classic of the Mountains and Seas") is a Chinese classic text that is at least 2,000 years old. It is largely a fabled geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China as well as a collection of mythology. The book is about 31,000 words long, and is divided into eighteen sections; it describes over 550 mountains and 300 channels.

Authorship

The exact author of the book and the time it was written at is still undetermined. It was originally thought that mythical figures such as Yu the Great or Boyi wrote the book. However, the consensus among modern Chinese scholars is that this book was not written at a single time by a single author, but rather by numerous people from the period of the Warring States to the beginning of the Han Dynasty.

Its first known editor was Liu Xiang^{[citation needed]} from the Western Han, who was connected to several works on Confucian classics. Later Guo Pu, a scholar from the Western Jin, made a further annotation to it, including a few others.

Overview

The book is not a narrative, as the "plot" involves detailed descriptions of locations in the cardinal directions of the Mountains, Regions Beyond Seas, Regions Within Seas, and Wilderness. The descriptions are usually of medicines, animals, and geological features. Many descriptions are very mundane, and an equal number are fanciful or strange. Each chapter follows roughly the same formula, and the whole book is extremely repetitious in this way.

It does contains many short myths, and most rarely exceed a paragraph. The most famous ancient Chinese myth from this book is that of the ancient Chinese figures, such as Great Yu, who spent years trying to control the deluge. The account of him is in the last chapter, chapter 18, in the 2nd to last paragraph (roughly verse 40). This account is a much more fanciful account than the depiction of him in the Classic of History. In Anne Birrell's translation, Nüwa is not present in a flood story, but another account of her is very briefly touched on in chapter 16.

Evaluation

Generally, the book is considered mythological classic. Earlier Chinese scholars referred to it as a bestiary, but apparently assumed it was accurate. In the field of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, one author, Henriette Mertz (1972) daringly proposes that the Shanhai jing records ancient Chinese travels in the Americas, and associates the mythical Fusang with Mexico.

Contents

The Shanhaijing has 18 chapters (巻). Chapter 4 has 12 subsections (次一), 2 and 4 have four, and chapters 1 and 3 have three.

References

• Birrell, Anne. 2000. The Classic of Mountains and Seas. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-044719-9
• Fracasso, Riccardo. 1996. "Libro dei monti e dei mari (Shanhai jing): Cosmografia e mitologia nella Cina Antica." Venice: Marsilio. ISBN 88-317-6472-1
• Mathieu, Remi. 1983. "Etude sur la mythologie et l'ethnologie de la Chine Ancienne." Vol I, "Traduction annotee du Shanhai Jing." Vol. II, "Index du Shanhai jing." Paris: College de France, Institut des hautes etudes Chinoises.
• Mertz, Henriette. 1972. Pale Ink: Two Ancient Records of Chinese Exploration in America. 2nd ed. Swallow Press. ISBN 0-8040-0599-0
• Schiffeler, John Wm. 1978. The Legendary Creatures of the Shan hai ching. Hwa Kang. ASIN B0007AP1OI
• Strassberg, Richard. 2002. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21844-2

External links

• The Original Text (in Chinese)
• Shanhaijing 山海經, ChinaKnowledge

comparisons of this Classic of Mountain and Seas with :- Chifa` Yoginii-s 1001 Nights Matthew Codex Borgia Codex Vindobonensis 1-13 Codex Vindobonensis 14-52

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Shanhaijing (in Chinese)

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