Nüwa Repairs the Sky

By the Zhengjian Chinese Culture Textbook Team

PureInsight | October 21, 2008

[PureInsight.org] In Chinese mythology, Nüwa is a mythological character best known for creating or remaking the Chinese people in her own image after a great calamity destroyed the world most of the people.

In a distant past, the four pillars that supported the world collapsed, and the earth cracked and split open. The sky could not cover the entire earth and the earth could not sustain all lives. Fire burned fiercely and continuously. Vast floods poured down incessantly and unstoppably. Fierce beasts ate people. Large vicious birds caught the elderly and the children.

Afterward, Nüwa made stones of different colors to mend the sky, cut off the four legs of a giant tortoise and used them to replace the fallen pillars, killed the black dragon to save the State of Ji, and piled up ashes to stop the flood. As a result, the sky was repaired, the four pillars were re-erected, the flood waters retreated, the State of Ji became stable again, and the fierce beasts were eliminated, so people could live again. Once again, the sky was round and the earth was flat; spring became gentle, summer hot, autumn gloomy, and winter a season of closure; everything changed according to the rules of nature as well as Yin and Yang. When Yin and Yang were congested anywhere, Nüwa would clear the blockage away and stop any Qi that was harmful to lives or prevented people from accumulating wealth.

Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2007/3/19/42847.html

 

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