Identifier: middlekingdomsu02will (find matches)
Title: The Middle Kingdom; a survey of the geography, government, literature, social life, arts, and history of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants
Year: 1900 (1900s)
Authors: Williams, S. Wells (Samuel Wells), 1812-1884
Subjects:
Publisher: New York Scribner
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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lives in space, ineffable, formless; but the firstbeing, Pwanku, had the herculean task to mould the chaoswhich produced him and chisel out the earth that was to con-tain him. One legend is that the dual powers were fixedwhen the primeval chaos separated. Chaos is bubbling turbidwater, which enclosed and mingled with the dual powers, likea chick in ovo, but when, their offspring Pwanku appeared theirdistinctiveness and operations were apparent. Pwan means a basin, referring to the shell of the egg ; ku means * solid, tosecure, intending to show how the first man Pwanku washatched from the chaos by the dual powers, and then settledand exhibited the arrangement of the causes which producedhim. The Rationalists have penetrated furthest into the Daedalian 1 Chinese Repository, Vol. III., p. 55. CHINESE COSMOGONY. 139 mystery of this cosmogony,1 arid they go on to show whatPwanku did and how he did it. They picture him holding achisel and mallet in his hands, splitting and fashioning vast
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Pwanku Chiselling Out the Universe. masses of granite floating confusedly in space. Behind theopenings his powerful hand has made are seen the sun, moon,and stars, monuments of his stupendous labors; at his right 1 For the Buddhist notions of cosmography and creation, see Remusat,Melanges Posthumes, pp. 65-131. 140 THE MIDDLE KINGDOM. hand, inseparable companions of his toils, but whose generationis left in obscurity, stand the dragon, the phoenix, and the tor-toise, and sometimes the unicorn, divine types and progenitorswith himself of the animal creation. His efforts were continuedeighteen thousand years, and by small degrees he and his workincreased ; the heavens rose, the earth spread out and thickened,and Pwanku grew in stature, six feet every day, till, his laborsdone, he died for the benefit of his handiwork. His headbecame mountains, his breath wind and clouds, and his voicethunder; his limbs were changed into the four poles, his veinsinto rivers, his sinews into the undulatio

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