Pangu Creates the World

In the beginning there was no shape. Heaven and earth were one. They were a closed black egg, the size of itself, and inside the egg was a creature called Pangu.

For eighteen thousand years Pangu slept inside the egg. As he slept, he grew. The shell of the egg held everything that would become the world, and Pangu was inside it like a child waiting to be born.

After eighteen thousand years he woke. He was confused. Everything was dark. He could not move his arms. The shell was too tight. He pressed against it. He felt for something. Beside him in the dark he found an axe. With one swing of the axe he split the shell of the egg.

What came out was the world. The light parts of it floated upward and became the sky. The heavy parts sank and became the earth. The two were apart now, but only just barely. They were still close enough to be confused for each other.

Pangu was afraid that they would close again. He stood between them. He pressed his head against the sky and his feet against the earth. He held himself there. Each day he grew taller. The sky rose with his head. The earth pressed down under his feet. The space between them widened, finger by finger, year by year, for another eighteen thousand years.

He grew nine feet a day, the old story says. Nine feet a day for eighteen thousand years. By the time he stopped, the sky was so high above the earth that no man would ever reach it. The two would not close again.

Pangu was now an old man. He had finished his work. He lay down on the ground and died.

What happened to his body became the rest of the world.

His breath became the wind and the clouds. His voice became the thunder. His left eye became the sun. His right eye became the moon. His four limbs and his five fingers became the four directions and the five great mountains. His blood flowed and became the rivers. The veins of his body became the roads. His skin and his hair became the grass and the trees. His teeth and bones became the metals and the stones. The marrow of his bones became the pearls and the jade. The sweat on his body became the rain and the dew. The lice on his body became the people.

That is how everything was made. The old story-tellers say it is humbling to remember it. The mountain you climb is one finger of him. The river you drink from is one of his veins. The stars at night, on a clear sky, are perhaps the dust of his body, scattered. We are walking always on his back, on his bones, in the spaces of him. The whole world is one body, his body. We have inherited it.