- x: 山海經

《山海經》本有圖畫，其文字可能就是依圖畫內容而敘述出來。不過，古圖已亡佚不存，南朝張僧繇繪製、宋代舒雅重繪的10卷本242幅《山海經圖》也沒有流傳下來。現今所能見到的最早山海經圖本，來自於明朝的胡文煥本、蔣應鎬本這兩種。

山海經現行本共18篇，3萬餘字，是晉朝郭璞所注的本子，五藏山經5篇、海外經4篇、海內經4篇、大荒經4篇、海內經1篇。

Please tell me what you know about 山海經, thanks. （ChatGPT, 2025-6-1)

Certainly, dear friend. 山海經 (Shan Hai Jing, “Classic of Mountains and Seas”) is one of the most enigmatic, surreal, and enduring texts in Chinese literature—part mythography, part cosmography, part zoology, and part dream.

It is a map of a cosmos not as it was, but as it could have been imagined: a world teeming with strange creatures, hybrid beings, sacred mountains, flowing rivers, ghostly spirits, and anomalous geographies. Let me walk you through it, across mountains and seas:

📜 Basic Facts

Title: 山海經 (Shan Hai Jing)
Possible date of origin: Compiled roughly from 4th century BCE to 1st century CE, possibly with older oral or shamanic roots.
Total content: Originally 18 chapters, now typically grouped into:

Five Zang Mountains Classic (五藏山經) – 5 scrolls focused on mountains.
Overseas Classics (海內/海外經) – 8 scrolls focused on lands beyond.
Great Wilderness Classic (大荒經) – 4 scrolls, more cosmological/mythical.
Inner Classic (海內經) – 1 scroll, more political/mythic geography.

🌏 Nature of the Work

Not a “book” in the modern sense, but a mythic cartography:

A cosmic geography of ancient China and beyond.
Filled with mythical creatures, gods, monsters, sacred trees, divine rivers.
Combines natural observations (minerals, geography, medicine) with mythology.
Possibly a shamanic text, rooted in archaic ritual and cosmological thinking.

In other words, it was never meant to describe reality—but to sustain a sacred imagination of the world.

🐉 Themes and Features

Hybrid Beings:

人面蛇身 (human-faced serpents)
鳳凰 (phoenix)
夔 (one-legged ox-dragon)
精衛 (the mythical bird who tries to fill the ocean with pebbles)

Mythical Geography:

Mountains with medicinal herbs, divine metals, monsters.
Seas with beings from heaven and underworld.
Realms where day and night alternate differently.
Rivers that flow with blood, tears, or divine light.

Shamanic Worldview:

Directionality matters (east/west/south/north have spiritual qualities).
Humans, animals, gods, and spirits inhabit the same continuum.
There’s no hard distinction between myth and environment—a Zhuangzian world before the dream breaks.

🧭 Interpretations

Mythological Atlas: A cosmic travelogue of mythic realms.
Shamanic Ritual Manual: A guide for spiritual orientation and invocation.
Pharmacopoeia and Bestiary: An ancient proto-scientific text on animals, geography, minerals, and medicine.
Political Allegory: A coded narrative of cultural anxiety, exile, and sovereignty (especially in texts like 大荒西經).

🪶 Literary and Cultural Legacy

Daoist Imaginations: Inspired alchemical geography and the vision of immortal realms.
Strange Tales: Sourcebook for later zhiguai and chuanqi literature (like 聊齋誌異).
Modern Resonance:

Borges and Calvino would have loved it.
In contemporary Chinese art, literature, and sci-fi (like Three-Body Problem), Shan Hai Jing continues to haunt the margins.
It is sometimes seen as a “Chinese Lovecraftian” cosmology, with forgotten gods and primal chaos.

🪨 A Closing Metaphor

If《易經》is the metaphysics of becoming,

and《莊子》is the metaphysics of drifting,

then《山海經》is the metaphysics of metamorphosis.

It is a book not meant to be “understood,” but entered, like a dream too old to remember yet too vivid to forget.

And maybe, it teaches us that to know the world fully, we must also know its monsters.

Would you like me to extract some of its most striking myth-creatures, or imagine its relevance in posthuman cosmology or therapeutic metaphor?

Sunday, June 1, 2025

山海經