Sindo creation myth
<imgur thumb="yes" w="300" comment="A Sindo ceremony honoring Chŏnjo's creation of the world. The white-and-blue robes represent the purity of heaven, while the lighting of a torch from a mirror represents the creation of order on earth from heaven.">9JSQXVw.png</imgur> The term Sindo creation myth refers to the dominant creation myth in Sindoism, which describes the process whereby the universe and earth were believed to have formed. While in ancient times a variety of creation myths existed across early Meng River Valley states, by the early Jun dynasty they had coalesced into a single version, which Jang Siji collected in his famous Gosagi. Until the late 19th century, Menghean court historians treated the creation myth as a historical account of past events.
While few Menghean citizens today take the young earth creationism described in this myth at face value, it retains a central role in Menghean culture. Modern scholars of literature consider it a form of national epic, valued for its role in describing the origins of the Meng people. Figures such as the Yellow Emperor and the Jade Emperor remain a deep symbolic importance as the forefathers of Menghean civilization, while Chŏnjo and Chŏnja establish a direct connection between the Menghean nation and the spirit world of heaven. Historically, the Gosagi myth was also influential because it established Lake Jijunghae, and by extension Menghe, as the center of the universe, and Menghe as the most civilized culture.
Origin of the myth
The standard version of the myth is described in the Gosagi (고사기 / 古事記), a semi-historical, semi-mythical record composed by Jang Siji in 745 BCE. A court historian for the newly established Jun dynasty, Jang Siji was commissioned by Emperor Mu to compile existing records and oral accounts into a complete account of the history of the known world, beginning with the world's creation and running up to the present. In line with Jun-dynasty conventions, Jang did not attempt to separate fact from fiction, but instead composed a deeply mythologized account that began with the world's creation and inserted divine beings into the history of prior kingdoms and dynasties.
As the Gosagi was originally written and transcribed on bamboo and wooden strips, no evidence of the original 8th-century BCE copies has survived to the present; the oldest preserved fragments date to the late Meng dynasty (c. 110 CE), and the oldest complete manuscript dates to 1674. From the Kang dynasty onward, fragments of the Gosagi have also been found inscribed on stone steles. Some modern historians have cast doubt on the degree to which later copies mirrored the original, noting that bronze inscriptions from the Jun dynasty and Warring States period contradict some of the contents of the more recent manuscripts. Most of the changes appear to have been made during the Meng dynasty, after which time there is greater consistency among fragments and references to the myth.
Jang Siji's account of creation also differs more substantially from scattered creation accounts dating to earlier in the history of the Meng River Valley. Inscriptions on bronze sacrificial vessels dating to the Gojun dynasty reflect a diverse range of creation and early-history myths, many of them referencing primordial gods that are omitted in the Gosagi. Most notably, bronze castings and stone reliefs from this period appear to depict a range of primordial gods dressed in fur or bearing animal features, something notably absent in Gosagi where the white-robed Sangje is the only deity to predate the world's creation. No uncovered Gojun creation passage is more than 200 characters long, however, making the Gosagi the earliest complete account of creation in Sindoism.
Synopsis
Primordial sea
According to the Gosagi, in the beginning the universe consisted of a formless cosmic egg. Over the course of ten thousand years, the soil and water sank downward and the air and light rose upward, much like the settling of sediment in a pond. Eventually, these formed a murky "earth" layer below and a "heaven" layer above.
On the ten thousandth year of this process, when the heaven layer reached its utmost purity, a god named Chŏnjo (천조/天祖, "heavenly ancestor") appeared from within a beam of light and stood alone in the heavenly realm. In contrast with primordial gods in past versions of the myth, Chŏnjo was humanlike in appearance with no animal features, and wore beautiful white robes embroidered in blue. In the myth and in subsequent religious texts, Chŏnjo is also known as Chŏnjo Sangje or simply Sangje, a title which translates to "Supreme Emperor" or "Emperor Above."
Creation of the world
After surveying the vast world around him, Chŏnjo descended to the earthen layer far below, which was separated from heaven by a thick layer of clouds and fog. There, he found an endless, murky sea born from the dregs of the primordial egg. Displeased by this chaotic and restless expanse, Chŏnjo extended a dipper into the muddy water and stirred it, separating ŭm and yang just as the universe before had separated heaven and earth. The divine disturbance caused a vast span of ocean to swirl around, and shook the soil in the ocean free of the surrounding water, causing it to separate into a ring of land which spread outward from the edges of the whirlpool. At the center, the water became pure and clear, and up above the mists dispersed into clouds and patches of open sky.
Pleased by the sight of the pure sea below, Chŏnjo lifted a dipper full of water from the surface and observed his reflection in it, then tipped the dipper over and poured the water back into the sea. There, it struck the surface at the center of the whirlpool just as a mound of rock was rising from below. From the splash emerged a vast multitude of gods and spirits, for the water had become imbued with divine energy when Chŏnjo's reflection appeared in it. The first generation of gods to appear included, in the following order:
- One sun and one moon, as well as the sun god and the moon goddess;
- The Five Elemental Deities, who were all male and human in appearance:
- Baeksin (白神), the "White God" of autumn and metal, who flew to the west;
- Hŭksin (黑神), the "Black God" of winter and water, who flew to the north;
- Changsin (蒼神), the "Green God" of spring and wood, who flew to the east;
- Jŏksin (赤神), the "Crimson God" of summer and fire, who flew to the south; and
- Hwangsin (黄神), the "Yellow God" of the earth and yearly unity, who remained in the center.
- The Wind Mothers, who were all female with human torsos and snakelike bodies:
- Umo (雨母), who commanded rainy winds, flew to the northeast;
- Hanmo (旱母), who commanded dry winds, flew to the northwest;
- Ryŏlmo (熱母), who commanded warm or humid winds, flew to the southwest;
- Sŏlmo (雪母), who commanded snowy winds, flew to the northeast; and
- Hwangmo (凰母), who kept the other four wind mothers at bay, remained at the center.
- One hundred "third-level spirits" controlling other natural phenomena and residing in mountains and forests;
- One thousand "fourth-level spirits," ranging from auspicious dragons and gilin to evil demons and giants;
- All natural animal and plant species in the world, with the exception of humankind.
Four of the Five Elemental Deities raced to the four sides of the earth, and four of the five Wind Mothers raced to its four corners; there, they each set up a pillar connecting the earth layer below to the heaven layer above. This bounded the earth layer in the shape of a perfect square, lying underneath a still-circular heaven. Due to the enormous power they required in order to support the heavens, the pillars emitted magical energy which shaped the climate of the world below. Due to the influence of the Wind Mothers at the corners, the southeast became an ocean, the northwest became a desert, the southwest became hot and humid, and the northeast became cold and snowy. From the very beginning, the four outer Wind Mothers quarreled with one another and vied for dominance, causing different weather systems to drift over the earth; the four outer Elemental Deities,by contrast, regulated their pillars in an orderly manner, causing a regular progression through the four seasons.
In the center, the Yellow God Hwangsin and the Phoneix Mother Hwangmo remained on the rock which had risen from the center of the whirlpool, where they built a palace for the earth spirits and ruled over the earthly beings as king and queen. In time, the other Elemental Deities and Wind Mothers would choose one another as consorts, forming five couples that matched the weather patterns of the seasons: Hŭksin and Sŏlmo, Jŏksin and Umo, Baeksin and Hanmo, and Changsin and Ryŏlmo. From these couples, and others down below, were born spirits and soldiers who would serve them in their kingdoms, but still no mortal humans.
Creation of humankind
Exhausted by the effort of stirring the ocean and establishing harmony in the world, Chŏnjo ascended back to heaven, where he sat down to rest. As he did so, a drop of sweat trickled down his forehead and fell on the floor (in some interpretations of this passage, it fell on the earth). From this drop emerged a younger god dressed in Chŏnjo's image. Chŏnjo named the new being Chŏnja (천자/天子, "Son of Heaven" or "Heavenly Son") and raised him as his child.
Chŏnja, like Chŏnjo, was a heavenly god of the first rank, having been "born" directly from Chŏnjo rather than from the chaotic seas below. Yet he had been brought forth by the effort and inspiration involved in creating the earthly world, and he longed to live among its mountains and rivers rather than in the pure but empty realm of heaven. Chŏnjo eventually gave in to his son's wishes, allowing him to travel down to the rock that had emerged from the sea where water from Chŏnjo's dipper struck the surface.
Shortly after landing on that island, Chŏnja was greeted by Hwangsin and Hwangmo, who paid tribute to him as a representative of heaven and allowed him to stay in their palace. There, Chŏnja met Hwangnyŏ, the daughter of Hwangsin and Hwangmo, and was immediately captivated by her elegant beauty. For the next twenty years, Chŏnja searched for the most beautiful places in the world, but he still could not take his mind off of Hwangja. When he finally returned to the palace of the earth spirits to rest, he presented Hwangnyŏ with a poem "so beautiful that no mortal listener can repeat it, nor any mortal poet compare with it." Deeply moved by this gift, Hwangnyŏ cried tears of joy for nine months, and then gave birth to a son. She named this child Hwangje (黄帝), or "Yellow Emperor," and raised him in the earth palace with the help of her own mother and father.
As Hwangje was not a pure heavenly god, he could not ascend back to heaven with Chŏnja; yet as he was not a pure earth spirit, he could not continue to reside in Hwangnyŏ's palace. When he reached the age of 5, Hwangsin and Hwangmo put him on a raft and cast him off to the shore of the central lake so that he could live on the mainland. Initially, the divine couple had planned to leave him to his fate, but Hwangnyŏ was so distressed by this news that she threatened to drown herself in the lake. Chŏnja, saddened by the plight of his wife and son, sought permission from Chŏnjo to descend to earth again. Upon landing at the island of the earth spirits, he fiercely chastised Hwangsin and Hwangmo for abandoning their grandchild, and forced the divine couple to pledge to protect Hwangje and his descendants in the future.
Next, Chŏnja traveled to the shore where Hwangje's raft had landed. There, he found two earth spirits nearby and urged them to help the abandoned child. Taking pity on the young infant, the female spirit Nyŏwae sculpted 30,000 "god-shaped beasts" from the clay by the lakeside, and the male spirit Buhyi endowed them with life, consciousness, and the gift of language. Together, they tasked them with defending the young Hwangje from the beasts and demons that still wandered the wilderness. These "god-shaped beasts," Hwangje's first subjects, became the first humans.
Hwangje's kingdom
<imgur thumb="yes" w="300" comment="A 15th-century illustration depicting Hwangje in the type of crown and robe worn by Emperors in the Meng Dynasty.">vmoj8ar.png</imgur> The earthly world in the time of Hwangje's childhood was a perilous place. When Chŏnjo dropped a dipper full of water into the lake, some of its divine energy permeated deep into the lowest depths of the earth, where the darkest and dirtiest matter had gathered during the settling of the cosmic egg. There, it awakened hideous monsters and demons, who began digging their way to the surface. Soon, the earth which had been pure and pristine during Chŏnja's travels was infested with evil beings who sought to overthrow the heavenly order and return the earth to its previous muddled chaos.
True to their mission, the first 30,000 humans stood guard over the young Hwangje as he grew from a boy into a young man. Yet their lives were filled with hardship as they struggled to fight off the demons that attacked their camp. With no shelter or tools beyond the spears in their hands and the animal skins on their backs, many died in the harsh conditions or were devoured by wild beasts. Morale sank, and increasingly large numbers began to doubt their original mission, deserting the Yellow Emperor to set up what would become the first barbarian tribes.
As the Yellow Emperor came of age, he felt great pity for the suffering humans tasked with guarding him, and sought ways to improve their lives. Using knowledge he had gained early in life from Hwangsin, he taught them how to weave clothing, build shelters, sow grains, and tame wild animals. He also introduced a calendar, a writing system, and a wide range of other inventions, from the cart wheel to a form of football. He built temples and made sacrifices to the Five Elemental Deities, who thanked him by teaching him the secrets of agriculture (Hwangsin), irrigation (Changsin), fire (Jŏksin), metalworking (Baeksin), and weaponry (Hŭksin).
As their conditions improved, the Yellow Emperor's people stopped fleeing, and before long they had grown in number to form a great kingdom by the lakeside. Evil demons, who coveted Hwangje's prosperity and his respect from the gods, responded by intensifying their assaults. Having gathered an army of skilled warriors and mastered his godlike powers, Hwangje set off to defeat the greatest demons one by one. With the help of the earthly deities, he succeeded in killing Chiwu at the end of a long battle and sealing the headless Hyŏngchŏn beneath Mount Taesan. After driving away a thousand demonic armies, Hwangje left the central areas of the known world safe for human habitation, his final great contribution to humankind.
The Three Emperors
Having vanquished the strongest of the demons, the 124-year-old Yellow Emperor returned to his kingdom by the lakeside. There, he saw to his dismay that in his absence the people of his kingdom had grown disobedient and disorderly, quarreling amongst themselves and deserting their posts as they had done in the past. Upset at the loss of harmony, he saw that he himself was to blame for departing, and that the kingdom by the lakeside could not continue to exist in its present state. He gathered his three sons in the palace courtyard and told each of them to gather 30,000 followers and set off to found a new kingdom, where they were to rule justly and never abandon their people. After the three brothers and their followers departed, those who did not join scattered themselves across the earth, abandoning the kingdom. Only the Yellow Emperor remained behind, to meditate by the lakeside. Chŏnjo, having watched the whole ordeal from heaven, took pity on him, and granted him the status of a second-level god so that he could return to his mother and grandparents in the palace of the earth spirits.
Meanwhile, each of the three brothers searched far and wide for a place to found their new kingdom. The eldest bother, the Jade Emperor (玉帝, Okje), led his followers southwest across the Haenam Plain until they encountered a lush mountain valley with a powerful river at its center. There, they established a new kingdom known as the State of Ha (夏). The middle brother, the Stone Emperor (石帝, Sŏkje), crossed the mountains to the northwest, parting Bukgwallyŏng Pass so that his followers could survive the treacherous crossing. Beyond the mountains, he found a fertile river valley, and built a kingdom known as the State of Yŏn (燕). The youngest brother, the Metal Emperor (金帝, "Kimje", sometimes translated "Gold Emperor"), followed the lake's shore to the east in pursuit of the rising sun, and founded a kingdom known as Chok (蜀). While the origin story is mythical, these areas directly correspond to the ancient Meng River Valley, proto-Chikai, and Haedong Culture civilizations, respectively, all of which are well-documented and emerged after 3200 BCE.
From this point onward, the story of the Jade Emperor's kingdom is mostly historical, in the sense that its general span of the rise and fall of states aligns with Meng-dynasty court historians' records and with modern-day archaeological evidence. In broad strokes, the Gosagi tells of the spread of villages in the Meng and Ryongtan valleys, their unification under King Mu in 1602 BCE, the kingdom's fragmentation into warring states in 1046 BCE, and the emergence of the Jun dynasty in 784 BCE. Jang Siji's account remains interspersed with references to divine intervention and battles against demons, but subsequent examination of the text has confirmed that the place names, mortal kings' names, and dates given mostly correspond to those in other records.
Perhaps more interesting is the Gosagi's account of what happened to the other two kingdoms. The State of Yŏn, founded by the Stone Emperor, flourished for two thousand years and built many great temples, nearly outshining the Meng kingdoms to the south. Yet as time went on, its kings grew more self-important, building grand tombs which towered over their temples and suspending sacrifices to the gods in favor of grand festivals honoring the monarchy. Finally, in 1105 BCE, the King of Yŏn mocked the appearance of Hanmo, known to be the plainest of the five Wind Mothers. Infuriated, Hanmo gathered the arid winds and condemned the state of Yŏn to suffer a thousand-year drought, driving away any rain, snow, and mist that the other Wind Mothers sent. With their wells dry and its fields barren, the people of Yŏn perished. The time period given roughly corresponds to the sudden decline and collapse of the proto-Chikai civilization, a phenomenon some scholars have attributed to global climate changes which reduced the amount of rainfall delivered to the upper Baek river valley. This suggests that Jang Siji was at least aware of the recent decline and disappearance of the kingdom to the north when he wrote the Gosagi, and may have heard oral accounts of a lasting drought in the centuries past.
Accounts of the Metal Emperor's kingdom vary between earlier and later versions of the myth. Among all versions, there is a general agreement that just as the Stone Emperor's people became skilled stoneworkers and the Jade Emperor's people became skilled jade-workers, the Metal Emperor's people became skilled metalworkers, making extensive use of bronze from the beginning and mastering iron working around 900 BCE. Accounts of the Haedong origins of Menghean iron working are accurate, though the bronze timeline is not, as the earliest bronze tools found in the Haedong area date to 1600 BCE. Much like the state of Yŏn, however, the people of Chok became overconfident in their achievements, and set out to wage wars of aggression against their neighbors. The complete Myŏn manuscripts then describe how they attacked the State of Meng and were repulsed, then placed under the leadership of a Meng Emperor - real historical events which took place in the 2nd century BCE, 500 years after the Gosagi was first written, and were added to the standard version of the text by later scholars or commentators.
Cultural legacy
Connection to real places
As early as the Meng dynasty, imperial scholars traced the description of the world's creation to Lake Jijunghae, the vast freshwater inland sea lying in what is now eastern Menghe. The palace of the earth spirits was placed at Haejungdo, the island in the center-south of the lake. Meng dynasty cartographers, who believed Haejungdo was centered in Lake Jijunghae, selected it as the center of the square earth, with rightful Menghean lands forming a ring around it. This led to the words Jungguk (中國, "middle kingdom") and Junghwa (中華, "middle civilization"), early geographic terms referring to Menghe as the civilized culture surrounding the center of the world.
Meng Emperors considered Haejungdo to be a sacred place and forbade any mortal, including members of the royal family, from setting foot on its shores. During the Jin dynasty, the law was relaxed, and local boatmen set up fishing villages on the island to help them venture further afield. An imperial expedition to Haejungdo in the early Kang dynasty failed to locate the mythical palace of the earth spirits, leading the Emperor to conclude that the gods had hidden it beneath the ground and concealed its door with magic; in tribute, he built a temple complex to Hwangsin and the Earth Gods at the island's south shore, and subsequent dynasties have maintained and refurbished it up to the present day.
There has been less agreement about the most important location in Menghean history, the site where the young Yellow Emperor was cast ashore. The Gosagi is vague about this location, which also saw the creation of humankind and the Yellow Emperor's kingdom by the lakeside. The most specific passage mentions that it was beneath the island, because the Yellow Emperor looked up and saw the sun above the island in the distance. Meng scholars interpreted this as placing the landing site directly to the south, where they built a temple at what was believed to be the site of the lakeside kingdom's ruins. The Kang Emperors, dismissing this site as too unremarkable, chose the city of Haegu, today known as Sapo, and built a larger temple complex nearby. The first Sŭng Emperor moved the capital to Hwasŏng, upriver from Sapo, in a greater act of honor. Yet Emperor Taejo of Yi reportedly disagreed with the Kang and Sŭng scholars' reasoning, concluding that if the sun were "directly above" Haejungdo, it must have been to the east in the morning, with the lakeside kingdom to the west. At the lake's westernmost river mouth, he established the port city of Chŏnmun (today Gyŏngmun) and further upriver the new capital city of Junggyŏng, or "Central Capital."
Origin of the Meng people
<imgur thumb="yes" w="200" comment="A statue of the Yellow Emperor in the city of Donggyong.">0hRZoQ7.png</imgur> Apart from its religious role, the Gosagi's account of creation retains great cultural importance because it describes the origin of the Meng people and Menghean civilization more broadly. Even though his existence as a real historical figure is widely doubted, the Yellow Emperor remains enormously important as a symbol of Menghean civilization, and statues and temples in his name are spread around the country. A summarized version of the Gosagi legend is taught in Menghean schools, where it serves as a historical allegory and lesson in national pride.
By the time of the Yi dynasty, scholars studying the Gosagi had reached the following general framework on the origin of different peoples in the myth:
- All tribes (族, jok, later translated as "ethnic group") of people were created by Nyŏwae at the shores of Lake Jijunghae.
- "Barbarian" peoples are descended from the humans who deserted the young Yellow Emperor during his early years. This is why they lack civilized ways and loyalty to the Menghean polity.
- "Semi-civilized" peoples are descended from the humans who served the Yellow Emperor throughout his reign but deserted him, or followed the Stone and Metal Emperors, during the breakdown of his kingdom.
- "Civilized" peoples are descended from the servants of the Yellow Emperor who later followed the Jade Emperor to the Meng River Valley, for they learned civilized ways from both the Yellow Emperor and the rightful bloodline of the Jade Emperor who inherited from him the mandate of heaven.
In the Yi worldview, which most clearly crystallized elements present from the Meng dynasty onward, this hierarchical division of humankind was a fluid one: all people had been shaped from the same clay, and what determined their cultural identity was their actions in life, namely their decision of which sovereign to serve. By extension, all peoples could become part of the Menghean cultural sphere, as long as they joined the rightful dynastic polity and adopted civilized practices. Yet this process would be especially long and difficult for outlying barbarian peoples, who had committed a sort of "original sin" by abandoning the young Yellow Emperor and also had the most to learn in order to close the gap.
Yellow Emperor calendar
In 1872, Tyrannian historian Sir Arthur Farrell traveled to the State of Namyang and attempted to calculate, from available records, the exact Gregorian years in which selected events in the Gosagi had taken place. By adding up tables of the years for which individual emperors ruled, beginning in the Myŏn dynasty and working all the way back through Menghean history, Farrell calculated that the Yellow Emperor would have been born in 3289 BCE and would have arrived on the shore of Lake Jijunghae in 3284 BCE, had he in fact been a real person. This placed the Menghean "moment of creation" at 3310. At the time, Menghean scholars generally accepted his findings, though a wide array of independent estimates nevertheless proliferated.
Beginning in the late 19th century, some radical reformers and nationalists in the states of Sinyi and Namyang began dating documents and publications using Farrell's estimates as their "year zero" points. Prior to that time, it was conventional to use the current Emperor's regnal year, or the year of their era name if the Emperor divided his reign into multiple eras. Namyang officials selected the abdication of the last Myŏn emperor as their reference year, while Sinyi officials continued to count reference years under their own claimants to the throne, but scholars in both states sought the modern convenience of a standard base year which could be used across multiple changes in leadership. The Yellow Emperor's arrival on the shores of Lake Jijunghae, which brought with it the creation of the first humans and symbolically the foundation of the Menghean nation, served as an ideal reference point.
After the formation of the Federative Republic of Menghe, when the signing of the union agreement in 1901 was selected as the provisional calendar reference point, the nationalist historian Sun Gwang-sik challenged Farrell's research and declared in 1907 that the arrival of the Yellow Emperor on the shore of Lake Jijunghae should instead be dated to 3,300 BCE. This conveniently made 1901 into the year 5201, such that the last two digits of any year date would be the same between the two calendars. It is unclear how Sun Gwang-sik arrived at this figure - his calculation tables were never published - and many historians today speculate that he rejected Farrell's findings and substituted more convenient ones of national bias. Nevertheless, Kwon Chong-hoon successfully pushed for the adoption of this calendar in 1927, and while Menghean government agencies conventionally adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1945 and have not abandoned it since, symbolic date markings in the Yellow Emperor calendar continue to use Sun's reckoning.
Variations and discrepancies
Identities of Hwangsin and Hwangje
In the ancient oracle bone script from which Gomun characters are descended, the character 黃 (Hwang) means "Archer," not "Yellow," such that 黃帝 is better read as "Archer Emperor." From this and other references, it appears that the character Hwangje as the father of the Meng people predates the Gosagi considerably, and possibly predates the Gojun dynasty. In the earliest forms of the myth, he was likely named for his invention of archery, and over time, possibly after the addition of the other four Elemental Deities named for colors, 黃 took on the meaning of "yellow."
Similarly, there is a widely held theory among historians of ancient Menghean mythology that Hwangje, the Yellow Emperor and ancestor of the Meng people, and Hwangsin, the Yellow God of the earth, were once different names for the same figure. A bronze inscription dating to the 14th century BCE mentions a raging battle fought between Hwangje and Yŏmje (炎帝, "Blaze Emperor"), apparently the same figure as Jŏksin and possibly the same figure as Sinnong, the god of agriculture. It appears that the present cast of characters only crystallized in the Wind and Rain period, and conflicting versions may have existed right up to Jang Siji's composition of the Gosagi.
Stone Emperor as the eldest brother
A Jun-dynasty sacrificial vessel uncovered in 2011 contained an inscription referencing the divergence of the Three Emperors in a way broadly consistent with the Gosagi version, with the notable exception that the Stone Emperor is specifically identified as the eldest brother and the Jade Emperor as the middle brother. This discrepancy would be consistent with contemporary perceptions by Jun-dynasty scholars that proto-Chikai was the largest and oldest of the three early Menghean civilizations, and other favorable references to it can be found scattered throughout Jun bronzes. This would also be consistent with the broader cultural belief that stone is the oldest of the rocks, jade younger and more refined, and metal younger still.
Modern historians consider it likely that Meng-era writers switched the ages of the Stone and Jade emperors when transcribing their official copy of the Gosagi. As the Meng Dynasty had recently unified much of what is now Menghe, its rulers were eager to find ways to justify their subjugation of the other states, and to emphasize the legitimacy of their descent from the Yellow Emperor. Modern scholars also believe that most unfavorable references to the Metal Emperor were added to the text during the Meng Dynasty in order to justify their recent conquest of the State of Yang, though as the earliest surviving fragment of the complete Gosagi dates to the late Meng dynasty, it is impossible to verify these theories.
Fate of the Metal Emperor's tribe
The account of the kingdom of Chok is one of the few passages present almost in its entirety in the fragmentary 2nd century CE Meng dynasty manuscript, a fortuitous outcome which has allowed direct comparison between earlier and later texts. This comparison has also made it one of the most controversial. The complete Myŏn manuscripts, and fragmentary manuscripts dating back to the Kang dynasty, present a generally favorable account of the people of Chok (Haedong and Yang), describing them as strong warriors who became possessed by their own self-importance and set off on a war of conquest. In the end, they are defeated by the Meng dynasty and brought back under the control of a Menghean emperor, adding their talents to the new dynasty and restoring balance to the universe.
The fragmented Meng manuscript, however, gives a harsher account: in one of the few surviving pages, the people of Chok are said to ally with demons from the underworld in a plan to take over the earthly realm and challenge Chŏnjo in heaven. As the Chok-Yang army pushes into the Meng river valley, threatening to overthrow the state of Meng, Chŏnja descends from heaven on a silver chariot and guides King Ri Gong, later Emperor Mu of Meng, to repel the invading armies and unify the land of Menghe. This passage was almost certainly composed during the Meng dynasty to justify the subjugation of the State of Yang and glorify Emperor Mu's campaign against the invading armies. Like other Meng-era records, it names the people of Chok using the character 蜀, which contains the "insect radical" 虫, a common practice in written Menghean intended to denigrate "barbarian" groups.
Jun-dynasty references to the Metal Emperor and his people appear only a few times in bronze inscriptions and are mostly loose references to the Gosagi rather than detailed descriptions. They are also hard to distinguish from factual, contemporary accounts of the people living east of Lake Jijunghae, as both accounts referred to these people as the descendants of the Metal Emperor. These gaps in the historical record make it difficult to assess whether this attitude predated the Yang-Meng wars of the 2nd century BCE.
Hu Yi Shooting the Suns
In the separate myth of Hu Yi Shooting the Suns, there are ten suns at the moment of the world's creation, not one. At first, they only rise in the sky one by one; but one day, on a dare from Hanmo, Mother of Drought, they all rise at once, creating a searing heat that dries up the rivers and scorches the landscape. Hu Yi, a talented archer, then draws his bow and shoots down nine of the ten suns, restoring the world to its previous climate. As a reward for restoring harmony to the earthly world, Chŏnjo grants him an elixir of immortality, which he humbly refuses; however, after a jealous subordinate poisons his wife Jang'a, Hu Yi gives her the elixir to save her life. After drinking it, she is pulled up into the heavens as a divine being, and becomes the goddess of the moon.
The Hu Yi myth is typically set during the reign of the Yellow Emperor, and some versions of it include the Yellow Emperor as a minor character. Yet the Gosagi only mentions one sun and one moon at the moment of creation, and states that they already have their own god and goddess. It also makes no mention of the ten suns and the scorched earth, though it does allude to a wide range of serious trials which the kingdom by the lakeside had to endure.
Two islands in the center lake
Written copies of the Gosagi, including Myŏn-era ones, are clear that Chŏnjo only poured water from his dipper once, creating a single island in the center of the divine lake. This corresponded with the belief of Meng Dynasty cartographers that the island of Haejungdo was located at the exact center of lake Jijunghae. By the time of the Sŭng dynasty, however, Menghean charts of the lake had improved, and it was clear that the island was actually much closer to the southern shore.
This apparent aberration led to an innovative adaptation of the myth, which is documented at least as early as 1204 CE: after lifting his dipper once, Chŏnjo dropped half of the water in the north side of the lake, creating an island for the heaven spirits, and half of it in the southwest, creating an island for the earth spirits. This formed two islands at opposing ends, representing the shape of a Taegŭkdo. According to a well-documented but potentially falsified account, an adventurous would-be priest spread this legend in order to raise funds for an expedition to find the lost sacred island, but after crossing the area many times, he failed to uncover it, and eventually he was detained by Emperor Taejo of Yi for swindling the common people out of their money.
Nevertheless, stories of the "lost island of the heaven spirits" persisted throughout the Yi dynasty, eventually coalescing into a legend that the island had in fact existed at the moment of creation, but that it had lifted up into the air after being attacked by water demons. Held aloft by magical energy and cloaked in swirling clouds, the lost island then drifted across the skies of the world, appearing in some myths as the colossal chariot of Chŏnja when he descends to earth to drive away evil.
An alternative explanation, popular in the late Sŭng dynasty, holds that Hwangsin moved the island closer to the shore in order to more easily ferry the young Yellow Emperor to land.
Debate over historicity
While Menghean academic associations universally reject as mythical the young earth creationism presented in the Gosagi, there remains a lively debate over the historicity of content following the landing of the Yellow Emperor on the shores of Lake Jijunghae. This debate stems from the mixed mythical-historical nature of the Gosagi in its accounts of the Gojun and Jun dynasties, which present a basically accurate account of place names and the succession chain but insert supernatural interactions as a sort of dramatization.
Scholars who identify themselves with the Neo-Revisionist school have argued that earlier events in the Gosagi, specifically the Yellow Emperor's kingdom by the lakeside and the exodus of Meng people after its collapse, may describe a real neolithic culture peppered with similar supernatural dramatization. This school of thought gained traction in 1997 after an irrigation project in Sangsuk county turned up 31st century BCE painted pottery south of Lake Jijunghae. Members of the Neo-Revisionist school have argued that there is a strong resemblance between the painted patterns on the Sangsuk pottery and pottery from later Meng River Valley finds, possible evidence that the same neolithic culture was present at both sites. Other scholars have cast doubt on this theory, contending that the similarity in painted patterns is exaggerated and likely coincidental. As most written records, if any were made, were composed on bamboo strips which have since decayed, there is no surviving written evidence from either site.
Alien origins theory
The Maracaiban historian and conspiracy theorist Marcos Seco interpreted the early passages in the Gosagi as a distorted but still accurate human account of an alien descent to earth. In his book Traveling Gods: The Secret Origins of the Central Hemithean Civilizations, he proposes the "splash" at Lake Jijunghae was in fact the landing of a colossal alien spaceship, and the "gods" who sprang out of it represent either alien beings or the inventions they presented to mankind. Seco and his followers assert that the Yellow Emperor himself was an alien being, his crown designed to mask an elongated skull and his robes designed to mask wiry limbs. The account of the lakeside kingdom represents aliens' efforts to transfer knowledge and technology to early humankind, setting them on the path toward organized civilization.
A more ambitious "alien origins" theory holds that all of humanity disembarked from the alien spaceship at Lake Jijunghae, under the leadership of a powerful and technologically advanced alien overlord. Supporters of this theory have supported it with the claim that human migration across the remaining water barrier in the Strait of Portcullia would have been difficult even with lower sea levels, meaning that humankind must have originated in Hemithea.
The Menghean Institute of National Ancient Research firmly maintains that all theories linking the Gosagi to alien lifeforms are "not worthy of credible investigation except for the purpose of refutation," and in a public statement released in 2015, it suggested that alien-influence theories are part of a coordinated effort by Western governments to ridicule or discredit ancient Menghean history. Somewhat ironically, tightened restrictions on the content of early Menghean research has only intensified speculation among conspiracy theorists.