Human Imagination at Full Play in Mythical Era

洪荒时代的想象

Painting of BaiZe at Dunhuang frescoes敦煌壁画中的白泽

Chinese mythological creatures are sometimes misinterpreted in the west. In this picture, a Chinese dragon was depicted as a western dragon, which breathes fire and has wings.在西方的绘画中，中国神兽也面临着奇异的重构。以中国龙为例，德国教士基歇尔在《中国图说》中把中国龙描绘成了西方的有翼喷火龙。

Drawing of Onelegged monster Kui by Jiang Yinghao. Blockprinted edition in the period of Emperor Wanli's reign in Ming Dynasty.夔。明万历二十一年刻本《山海经图绘全像》，蒋应镐绘。

One day, around 4,000 years ago, when the legendary Yellow Emperor was on a tour to inspect his territory, he encountered a mythical beast in the Eastern Sea. The creature, named Baize, could talk like a human. Yet the appearance of the beast itself has remained controversial throughout history: some say that it looks like the qilin (a mythical hooved chimerical creature); some say that it resembles a lion.

In a good mood, Baize told the stunned emperor of a large underground population of monsters and ghosts in the world and of how to overcome their attacks. Upon hearing this precious information, the Yellow Emperor took notes on everything the beast said (a total of 11,520 creatures were mentioned), charting a guide to a previously unknown realm of mythical creatures. The guidebook was named Bai Ze Tu.

The guidebook is one of the fi rst works in the literary genre of zhiguai (accounts of the strange) in Chinese history. Unfortunately, the book no longer exists. In comparison, the Chinese classic Guideways Through Mountains and Seas is more like an encyclopedia of Chinese mythical creatures with accounts of the nine-tailed fox, tiangou (“heavenly dog”), yayu (a predacious red ox) and many more.

Not only do the mythical creatures included in the text come in great numbers, but they also come in a great variety of forms and shapes – body parts of the same or different species of animals are often lumped together to create some of the most weirdlooking beasts that human brains can ever imagine.

In the chaotic days of the universe when the lines between humans and beasts were still blurred, all forms of energy burst with their greatest might and interacted with each other. Amid the interactions, human imagination was made to run wild – hence the abundance and great variety of mythical creatures, which offers meaningful insights into Chinese civilisation in its infancy when the spring of life began to fl ow for thousands of years to come.

Misinterpreted Natural History

The origin of Chinese mythical creatures could largely