山海經（繁體中文版）（中華傳世珍藏古典文庫）: 傳奇地理巨著，上古志怪典籍

by Liu Xiang (Editor), 劉向 (Editor)

《山海經》是從戰國時期到漢代初年經多人編寫而成的先秦志怪古籍，是中國最古老的地理著作，內容包羅萬象，主要記述民間傳說中的地理知識，神話傳說和寓言故事，被譽爲上古三大奇書之一，中國上古社會的百科全書和中國古代神話的源頭，具有非凡的文獻價值，對後世文學藝術影響深遠。「《山海經》匪特史地之權輿，亦乃神話之淵府。」——袁珂《山海經校注．序》《山海經》作者不詳，現多認爲此書非一人一時之作。本書爲繁體中文版，全書18篇，由藝雅出版社精心製作。藝雅出版社還分別提供其簡體中文版與簡繁體對照版，歡迎大家下載閱讀。

Genres: China, Mythology, History, Classics, Chinese Literature, Folklore, Nonfiction

110 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 31

Reviews

[else fine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel slightly weird about giving 4 stars to a book which I found so confusing. It was an enjoyable kind of bafflement, though - delight, wonder, and the thrill of the unexpectedly strange. I love good modern renditions of classics, put in words which a current reader can really get into, but even more I love a translation which preserves the remote and alien strangeness of the past.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book I bought in China. It is gorgeous, it has lots of the traditional illustrations and is beautifully laid out with maps and traditional binding. It contains both the original Classical text, with modern vocabularly notes for the older obscure characters and then a modern translation underneath. It does this paragraph by paragraph. It was very useful, the first 2/3rds of the book are very formualic which made it much easier to understand. The later part was much more fantastical with many early myths woven in.

The book is sort of a Chinese bestiary, written in the Han dynasty (around 2000 years ago). It gives a description of both real and imaginary lands, the mountains, the rivers, the creatures (both real and mythical) and the gods for each area. It's fascinating full of many monsters and oddities. It's not the thing you can sit and read in huge chuncks but is nice to read for an hour or two at a time. It took me four months of studying to read the whole thing but I'm SO glad I did. I totally loved this! I'm looking forward to reading more of the classic books with the modern Chinese translations that I bought in China now.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was given a copy of this a few years ago and started reading it then but gave up. Just reading the English translation is difficult as it is so repitious and full of nonsense word and doesn't have all that pictures. However, if you read it alongside the Chinese version it is great as it explains all the complicated vocabulary you'd otherwise spend ages having to look up in a dictionary. As such it was a great resource and recommended for students of Chinese.

[Wei Luo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read like old testimony!

[Barack Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

217-Classic of Mountains and Seas-Guo Pu-Methodology-475BC
Barack
2019/04/22
2020/06/21


- Witchcraft (xī), the book alchemist.

"Shan Hai Jing" has a total of 18 volumes, including 5 volumes of "Shan Jing" and 13 volumes of "Hai Jing". The age of each volume is uncertain. 14 volumes are works during the Warring States Period and 4 volumes are works in the early Western Han Dynasty. It is an ancient Chinese legendary classic. Modern scholars believe that it was not a temporary book and the author is not alone. The earliest version is the "Shan Hai Jing Zhuan" edited by Guo Pu in the Jin Dynasty.

Guo Pu was born in Wenxi County, Hedong County (now Wenxi, Shanxi) in 276, and died in 324. His father is Guo Yuan, the prefect of Jianping. Guo Pu is a famous writer, exegesis and geomantic scholar in the Jin Dynasty. Representative works: "Erya", "Dialect", "Shan Hai Jing" and so on.

Part of the catalog
1. Nanshan Sutra
2. The Western Mountain Classic
3. North Mountain Classic
4. Dongshan Sutra
5. Zhongshan Sutra
6. Overseas South Longitude
7. Overseas West Longitude
8. Overseas North Longitude
9. Overseas East
10. South China Sea

The writing style of Shanhaijing is very clear. The introduction to each mountain and water body is basically carried out according to the sacrificial method of introducing the animals, plants and gods in it. The text is succinct and to the point, like a serious geography book.

Many of the animals and plants that appear in Shanhaijing are almost impossible to exist today. Many of the animals with multiple heads and multiple tails, human heads, beasts, and beasts, almost make people think that they are laboratory products of genetic engineering and cell engineering.

I think that if a novel can be created with the worldview described in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, its main theme must be very magnificent. If the author's pen power is enough to control, it must be an epic masterpiece.

There are also some mythological characters that frequently appear in later literary works, such as: the father of Dayu Gun, Huangdi, Baidi Shaohao, and the female Jingwei of Yandi. There are also some plants and animals that are also well-known, such as: Zhu Fan, Qiongqi, Lovebirds, Four-Dollar, Lynx, Yellow Bird, Arm (qiú) Adillo (yú), Meiyu, Fusang, Mermaid, Changdi, Sanqing Bird, etc. . Some place names are also quite mysterious, such as: Kunlun Mountain, Huqi Mountain, Kongsang Mountain, Shouyang Mountain, Chaoge Mountain, Taishi Mountain, Shaoshi Mountain, Snake Mountain, Kuocang Mountain, Buzhou Mountain, etc.

The book "Shan Hai Jing" records about 40 states, about 550 mountains, about 300 waterways, more than 100 mythical figures, and more than 400 plants and animals. Most of the things recorded start from the south, then go west, then north, and finally reach the central part of the mainland (Kyushu). Kyushu is surrounded by the East China Sea, the West China Sea, the South China Sea, and the North Sea.

I think that reading the "Shan Hai Jing" needs to be combined with the annotations of later generations, because the stories told in a few words in the original work may be just the tip of the iceberg. Only after understanding its possible full picture can it inspire feelings and sigh in my heart. Just reading the original text itself, it feels like reading a textbook.

If you leave out factual evidence and purely boundless associations, I once imagined that these rare and exotic beasts may be the products of science and technology left by the last civilization of the earth or foreign civilizations. Later, the natural environment of the earth changes and these species will become extinct. And human ancestors may have lived with these species for some time.

If we assume that the text we see today is done by the wizards of the tribe who have the opportunity to record, they can only imagine this kind of movement through the messy, illogical, inaccurate, and memory-based oral language of ordinary people. The appearance of plants, then the records in the "Shan Hai Jing" seem reasonable. Imagine if you see an animal whose scientific name you don’t know, how would you describe it in just a dozen words?

In fact, the Shanhaijing also described some animals and plants that still exist today. For example: the giant salamander (baby fish), "Two hundred miles in the northeast, it is called the mountain of Longhou, without vegetation, and rich in gold and jade. The sound is like a baby, and there is no dementia after eating.".

Parrot, "Huangshan, no vegetation, many bamboo arrows. There is a bird, its shape is like an owl, green feathers and red beak, human tongue can speak, it is called a parrot." Imagine if there were no baby fish and parrots today, would these two creatures look incredible?

Perhaps one of the charms of myths and legends lies in this. If one day, our human civilization today is annihilated, but some history will be passed on. One hundred thousand years later, plant biology may have undergone many changes. Looking at our records today , will the new generation of humans find it ridiculous differently?

"The head of the Nanshan Classic is called Queshan. Its first is the swaggering mountain, which is located on the West Sea and is rich in osmanthus and gold and jade. There is grass Yan, which looks like a leek and is green, and its name is Zhuyu, not eating Hunger . There is a wooden yan, its shape is like 榖( g ǔ) but black law, its four photos of Hua, its name is lost, and the admiration is not lost. There is a beast yan, its shape is like a hunk with white ears, walking on foot, Its name is 狌( xīng ) 狌, which is good for food. The water of Li ( j ǐ) flows out of Yan, while the west flows into the sea. Among them, there are many cultivating pei, but there is no disease ( ji ǎ) if you wear it . "

Myths and legends are always imaginative. Do the animals and plants in the past myths really exist? Or are they just legends ? Did they ever appear, but then they became extinct ? Perhaps these creatures have some basis in real life. It's just that the author may have many conjectures in describing the effects of using these plants and animals .

" Southern by the first two times, said cabinet ( J ǔ) Mountains, west of streaming yellow, north Zhu ( pí ), East Point, long and right. British water out of Yan, southwest streamer in Chishui, in which more than white, more than Dan Millet. There is a beast yan, its shape is like a dolphin ( tún ), has a distance, its sound is like a dog barking, its name is raccoon power , see ( xiàn ) , its county has many soil skills. There is a bird yan, and its shape is like a 鸱 ( chī ) and manpower, its sound such as Bi ( bēi ) , fine-sounding name ( zhū ) , since the number of its Ming also see the county put their disabilities. "

If today some people will appear with the rise and fall of the country's animal link, we probably would think this idea is quite absurd. However, in feudal society , the theory of lucky beasts and evil beasts is generally believed. Even some well-educated people will explain to the emperor the meaning of various rare and exotic animals . But I think , in fact, these bachelors should have never seen these legendary creatures with their own eyes. Since they haven't seen it , how can they prove that the book is true or false? Wouldn’t it be a gullible mistake to accept it without discernment?

" The head of the Three Classics of the South, the mountain of Tianyu, there is a lot of water under it, and it is not allowed to go above. Five hundred li in the east, it is the mountain of prayer, with a lot of gold and jade above it, and a lot of sì (sì) and a lot of elephants below it. There is a bird yan, which looks like (jiāo) and a white head, three legs, and a human face. Its name is Quru, and its horn is also called. The water flows out of the Yan (yín), and the south flows into the sea. Among them are tiger 蛟. It looks like a fish body with a snake tail, and its sound is like a mandarin duck. The eater is not swollen, and hemorrhoids can be present. "

The animals and plants , mountains and rivers in the classics of mountains and seas are excellent materials for novels . Although these legends cannot be verified, they are fascinating. The habits of various animals are also different. Which can deduce a weird and majestic world.

" The head of the Huashan Mountain in the West Mountain is said to be the mountain where money comes. There is a lot of pine on it, and a lot of stone washing under it. . "

How did the ancients know the uses of various animals and plants? Is it possible to try one by one? And even if you take it, how can you prove that a certain change in your body must be caused by this animal or plant? Besides, under normal circumstances, after we eat certain animals and plants , our body will not have obvious changes in response, right?

[Nguyễn Vy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cảm giác như là một cuốn từ điển Sinh vật huyền bí và nơi tìm ra chúng vậy <(‘)

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate long introductions, especially when they are pointless and not even part of the original text.
I believe that this book had more than one author over a long time, because the world it describes is all over the place and sometimes I wondered whether the writers just had fun with what they wrote here. Mountain deities with a dragon body and a bird´s head are just different from the humanoid gods from East Asia that I´m used to. And if this book describes a porcupine to look "like a hog but it has white hair that is as long as a large hairpin and black at the tip" who knows what sort of mundane animals hide behind the other descriptions. And when it is stated that the river called Tailbanner apparently "contains numerous quick-horses; they have an ox's tail, a white body, and a single horn", that sounds like the river is full of unicorns. A fox with nine-tails and heads is one of the more conservative special critters here. They put fantasy and horror games to shame. And with all these crazy critters running around and being omens or something of destruction, it sounds like a shitty place to live. Sure there are those that bring good things, but not many. At least these destruction critters aren't the ones that you are supposed to eat to get better or be protected or be sexually attractive. Those particular critters just look spooky mostly. The gods in these book are all either quite animalistic, anthropomorphic or straight up unreal. And I must say: Ancient egypt, ancient china, modern europe, what is it with people giving snakes wings?
It took this book until the chapters of things beyond the seas to describe people and it starts weirdly by describing people with holes in their chest. And the country of women is named so because its only two inhabitants are women. This stuff beyond the sea is even weirder than what came before. And I also feel like several of deities mentioned here were mentioned before already in different places.
And many of the animal and place names in this book make no sense. To give an example: If these people have children (without bones mind you), why are they called the progenyless folk? How does this, or many other names in this book, make any sense? Did the author/s just want to be funny... considering names like mount dragonbutt, this might have been the case.
I didn´t go through all of the book´s content. Sure there is a chapter on notes on chinese terms and names, but I had enough of lists. The original books were done and I stick with that.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The actual text is just okay and reads like a long list. Anne Birrell's introduction and notes are much more interesting.

[Fin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Graspear country lies east of Nogut country. Its people control two striped tigers each. As a people, they grasp their own ears with both hands. They live a remote existence in the middle of a stretch of water, and the oddest creatures go in and out of the water.

...

There is a very big tree standing in water. Nine suns occupy its lower branches, and one sun occupies its topmost branch.

...

In the East Sea there is Mount Flowwave. It is submerged in the sea to a depth of 7,000 leagues. On its summit there is an animal. It looks like an ox with a bright blue body, but it has no horns and only one foot. When it comes out of the water and goes back in, there are always wind and rain, and the glare from it is like that from the sun and the moon. The animal makes a sound like thunder. Its name is Awestruck. The great god Yellow captured Awestruck and made a drum out of its hide.

...

Beyond the northwest seas, north of the River Scarlet there is Mount Brillianttail. There is a god-human here with a human face and a snake's body, and he is scarlet. He has vertical eyes that are in a straight seam. When this deity closes his eyes, there is darkness. When the deity looks with his eyes, there is light. He neither eats, nor sleeps, nor breathes. The wind and the rain are at his beck and call. This deity shines his torch over the ninefold darkness. This deity is Torch Dragon.

Can't believe I read all 200 pages of this but it's also endlessly inventive and has loads of great tattoo ideas in its illustrations.

Time, life, death are always running together, in entangled states of flux here: gods simultaneously described as alive or dead, worshipped as "The Corpse of Prince Night" or "The Corpse of the Yellow Giantess". Some are even simultaneously alive, ritually executed, buried on the side of a mountain, and gloriously metamorphosed into strange creatures.

(+ of course it ends with a flood myth...)

[Kayneshed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shanhaijing (Classic of Mountains and Seas) is an ancient pre-Qin Chinese book. It is generally believed that it mainly describes ancient myths, geography, products, sorcery, religion, old history, medicine, folklore, ethnicity and other aspects. Some scholars believe that Shanhaijing is not only a myth, but also an ancient geography, including mountains, rivers, birds and animals. The entire book of Shanhaijing consists of eighteen volumes, with a total of 31,000 words. It recorded more than 100 states, 550 mountains, 300 watercourses, as well as related terroirs and natural resources. Most of the records contained are the records of the survey by the sorcerers, fangshi and ancestral temple officials of the past generations, which are more or less exaggerated after a long period of time of writing and compilation, but they still have a high reference value for us to learn about ancient times.

[Megan Cheang · Rating 2 out of 5]

I never want to read this again.
For a book on mythological geography, I was so bored! The names were weird when translated. Everything was just a list of mountains and countries and peoples, that in the end you barely remember anything. The format was so repetitive that you just want to move on already.
This is more like a history textbook. There is hardly an effort to engage the reader into remembering the places.
I mainly borrowed this book to do research on nine tailed foxes, phoenixes, dragons and the jade rabbit. I found the foxes, but no moon rabbit. Though there were a lot of divine birds, there was no Phoenix. And the deities were described to have dragon heads. Not what I was looking for.

[M W · Rating 3 out of 5]

For what it is (a bestiary of mythological monsters) it’s very entertaining and informative. However, when I picked it up, I didn’t realise that Birrell had chosen to LITERALLY translate the names of all the creatures. I picked up the book because I’m a big fan of Chinese drama series and wanted to learn more about the creatures and gods - unfortunately because of this decision, it was really hard to recognise any of the creatures I wanted to know more about.

For example; “crimson-sate” rather than “zhu yan”.

Additionally, I believe that this book is an abridged translation as several names in the glossary (I.e. Hu Po) don’t appear at all in the text.

[Brennan De · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastically bizarre collection of old Chinese mythology & descriptions of what I can only call 'mythical geography' - I don't recommend trying to read this straight through, but I keep a copy on my shelf and every once-in-a-while I'll read a chapter or two and just bask in the magical bafflement that comes from this iconic work.

This penguin edition with the updated translations and little illustrations i definitely the right way to read it.

[Amanda Artist Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to knock off one star because the names are all translated to English - the name of the mythological creature 蔥聾 becomes "onion-deaf" which is not its original meaning at all. But otherwise, it is a very informative little volume that I will refer to often.

[Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un bel ouvrage, qui n'est cependant pas sans défauts - notamment la quasi absence des renseignements géographiques, historiques et mythologiques pouvant donner un contexte à toutes ces informations.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it was just a meditation exercise.

[Văn Thiệu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bản tiếng Việt, nhiều hình thù, mô tả các con vật ngộ nghĩnh.

[Vika Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

Get the new illustrated edition. If you can read it in Chinese read it in that. It’s less a piece of literature and more a cultural artifact

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fairly obscure and dense book about the various chinese deities including Notchflaw which lives on the Mountain of Youngwhole.

[Yeung King Fung · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chooseable book to read, with special contents inside the book.

[Xiang Li · Rating 5 out of 5]

这不就是刘秀编的 让阴谋之士上表祥瑞的参考书么

[Brent]

Available at Carlos Museum Bookshop ~
http://carlos.emory.edu