Talk:Pangu

Organization

I remove information that is chaotic and disorganized. An encyclopedia is a place for organized data. Besides, source documents have no place in Wikipedia. The place that it ought to be at is at Wikisource. In fact, your rewrite is confusing to any non-Chinese readers. Mandel 09:38, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Mandel, Thank you for a direct response over an overwrite. My apologies for incorrectly using the email. That was entirely my fault (This refers to another discussion).

1) Following your criticism, I went to WikiSource and read this: "While Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wikisource is a library". Apparantly, Wiki thinks the Pangu narrative itself belongs in WikiSource. Not to worry... I did not remove your contribution. Please do not remove mine, especially over a style issue.

2) It is clear you found my contribution confusing. What was not clear is what you would have needed to make this easier to digest. How could showing the development of this myth and its place in history be more straightforward? Exactly how is it confusing to you?

4) Pangu IS a relatively recent addtion to the Chinese pantheon. It may be entirely post-Han Daoist in origin. If this is not true, I would want to know where and how an alternate view is perpetuated. Showing the development of this myth describes China's view of origins far better than one undocumented story told without context. Not everybody wants the fairy tale, nor do they use them the same way.

Again, thanks for the dialog.

--mamgeorge 20:42, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

Translation

Since translation is a very subjective process (except for babelfish :-), I have restored the original delete text here in case some linguists want to improve the translation in the article:

天地渾沌如雞子，盤古生其中。萬八千歲，天地開辟，陽清為天，陰濁為地。盤古在其中，一日九變，神於天，怪於地。天日高一丈，地日厚一丈，盤古日長一丈。如此萬八千歲，天數極高，地數極深，盤古極長。 《藝文類聚》卷一引《三五歷記》

首生盤古，垂死化身。氣成風，聲為雷霆，左眼為日，右眼為月，四肢五體為四極五岳，血液為江河，筋脈為地里，肌膚為田土，髮髭為星辰，皮毛為草木，齒骨為金石，精髓為珠玉，汗流為雨澤，身之諸蟲，因風所感，化為黎甿（黎民百姓）。 《繹史》卷一引《五運歷年記》陽清為天 Kowloonese 23:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Heh...I don't think including the Babelfish translation is all that helpful. :P I guess I'll leave it, though...

Furrykef 11:28, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What a mess! Could someone help do something about this? We don't need all this babelfish gibberish in Wikipedia.

Mandel 22:45, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese should be moved to WikiSource; the English is short enough to keep. However, can anyone confirm the source document title in English? It looks like 繹史 Yishi chapter 1; but I have not yet identified Wuyun Linianji (五運 歷年記, pinyin: wu3yun4 li4nian2ji4). The Yishi (繹史, pinyin: yi4 shi3) is probably referring to the 7 volume anthology by Qing Dynasty (清朝) scholar Ma Fu (馬蚨, pinyin: ma3 fu2); but I can not verify this. Can anyone help?

mamgeorge 18:23, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Years?

Are those numbers meant to be years in the Original source documents section? If should +0220 AD +0265 AD be read as the span of years 220-265? --Dschwen 22:17, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Dschwen, Yes, they were; I copied them from material I wrote and formatted earlier before being familiar with the Wiki Manual of Style. This should be resolved now. I am still learning; let me know of any other mistakes. My apologies if that was confusing. mamgeorge 17:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Label

Hi Mamgeorge. I took a look at your contributions at Pangu. I'm thinking that perhaps you (or someone else) could add more information about what the Pangu myth is, rather than when,who or how it was recorded? I think that a user approaching an encyclopedia such as Wikipedia would be more interested in finding out what Pangu is, rather than debates about when or how the legend came about? --Sumple (Talk) 11:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Sumple, Thanks for the dialog first. Glad to see not everyone interperets "Be Bold!" as "Act Uninformed; Be Rude!" Mandel may have been alluding to the "what" in his earlier comments; I may have misunderstood his intent by the focus on organization (see above). In any case, I think the most accurate description of Pangu is: "a Daoist anthropomorphism for a creator developed during the Three Kingdom period". This is my opinion. However, the current definition: "Pangu was the first living being and the creator of all in Chinese mythology" is patently wrong on at least three accounts:

1) Pangu was not the first. See the Shangdi article and notice the dates. This is why the dates were so important. Shangdi appears hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before the first mention of Pangu. Pangu is hardly the first, and was not the last (See Jade Emperor).

2) Pangu may have been intended as an allegory. This depends on whether the author was intending to represent his account of a "true" story, an intentional fiction, a fanciful representation of an earlier myth, or an anthropomorphism of creation. Do you know which it is?

3) Pangu does not relate to all Chinese mythology. This seems to be the way this myth is often interperated. That is patently wrong, as the sources show; this is clearly Daoist in origin. If you argue that "he" is now, or was to Xu Zheng, a syncretism, then it is not "all", and the development becomes more crucial.

This challenges a very popular, and I believe, a very erroneous view that Pangu is China's "original" creator. The "who, when, how" appear to be essential in understanding the "what" in this case; unless you exclusively believe Xu Zheng. The inclusion of the story alone neglects the context of its development. In my view, an encyclopedia is supposed to provide that context; WikiSource provides the citation.

Last note: The obvious change back and forth over what god was said to be in Chinese history is an interesting and very pertinent topic to Pangu. The source materials were not intended to foster "debate"; they were intended to accurately enlighten.

If anyone got this far, thanks for your patience. Please let me know what you think. What would you propose for the opening line? Do you think this organization is effective?

mamgeorge 17:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mamgeorge. I agree with you that the description is not very accurate. However, in terms of some of the points you raised above, I think that

(1) When Pangu is described as the "first living thing" what it means is that, in the myth relating to Pangu, he was the first creature. This does not have to imply that he is the first living thing ever recorded/mentioned in literature. For example, Shangdi does not appear in the Pangu myth, so it does not have to clash with Pangu's "firstness".

(2) Although it may have been a part of Daoist philosphy, Daoist mythology, or simply an allegory, Pangu is accepted as a "real" myth today, so I think it is a part of the Chinese mythology.

Yes, I agree with you that the how and when is important. Which is why I've changed the organisation of the page slightly, so that readers first get an idea of what the myth roughly is, then go on to read about its creation and development.

Sumple (Talk) 22:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Sumple, Hello. Thanks for the reply.

1) The point about "firstness" relates to my understanding of how he is percieved in the common culture. Yes, the myth describes him that way, but in addition to that, a ton of websites and a number of books add to that the implication of "firstness". Since there are a number of claimed "firsts", (Shangdi, Yu Huang, Pangu, et.al.), I feel the description could perpetuate the misinformation. With this in mind, do you still feel it is clear?

2) I agree that Pangu is definitely Chinese Mythology.

3) The format is fine with me. I tried to track down the reference for the specific quote (an English reader could have just paraphrased it or made up parts) since it is presented as a citation. I have seen the story enough that I believe it is a fair representation of the myth, but that is not the point. See Translation above. Technically it is still unreferenced. Do you have a specific citation?

4) Do you still feel more "what" is needed in the explanation? How about the development of the concept of god? This is alluded to in Chinese Mythology & Shangdi; do you think more should be added here?

mamgeorge 13:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mamgeorge, on your points:

1) perhaps, "Pangu is described in some myths as the first creature ..."?

3) I believe, from memory, that the current "myth" section is translated from two sources mentioned above (in the Translation section). I will check through again.

4) The "What" is okay, I think. Perhaps something about his association with Nuwa?? I look forward to seeing anything you might write about the development of the concept of god.

--Sumple (Talk) 06:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I am thinking, at this time, these reflections make more sense in the Chinese Mythology section. Please see the articles on the talk page under "Anthropomorphizing" and "Dating Myths"

mamgeorge 19:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Parasites

According to the article of the french wikipedia and another book i've read "Mankind was made from the parasites on Pangu's body"...

Can anyone help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.74.61.140 (talk) 18:23, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

the fleas on his fur became animals

As I see it, the section in which this appears is supposed to be mainly based on Xu Zheng's account:

身之諸蟲。因風所感。化為黎甿。 This (黎甿)is universally understood as "they became the common people". Not animals.

Furthermore, the section goes on to the myth of creation by Nüwa, which (a) is not in Xu Zheng (I think) (b) is not relevant to the topic. If some source *does* link the story of Pangu and Nüwa, please reference it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.214.21.64 (talk) 17:48, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Possibly misspelled/nonstandard spelling in other articles

Is this the "P'an Hu" in Lycanthropy and Therianthropy?

Hatnote

If you look at the page views over the past 30 days, this article has been viewed 5000 times, Pangu Team about half that, at around 2500 views. But Pangu (disambiguation) only has some odd ~100 views and all of the other articles have around that much. Clearly there are a good number of readers who are very much looking for information on the iOS jailbreak tool when they type in "Pangu" and I think a specific mention should be made for it. Comments? hbdragon88 (talk) 08:25, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

My preference is to have the hatnote as clean as possible, but I'm okay with re-adding Pangu Team to the hatnote if it's so popular. -Zanhe (talk) 20:48, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Three Kingdoms period = 194?

The times in the following sentence do not seem to make sense:

"The first writer to record the myth of Pangu was Xu Zheng during the Three Kingdoms period. Recently his name was found in a tomb dated 194 AD."

Can this be clarified? --BLebow4500 (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Relationship to Ymir

Pangu reminds me of Ymir Nyarlat 1920 (talk) 14:19, 8 March 2022 (UTC)