Hundun
Chinese · numen · mythic prehistory · numen
The facelessness is the point and it is a famous joke in the Zhuangzi, where friends drill eyes and a mouth into a being who had none, at the rate of one hole a day, and on the seventh day he dies. Chaos in Chinese thought is not a howling void; it is an undifferentiated wholeness that is destroyed by being given features. The Four Perils record their own history in the sources — persons in the Zuo Zhuan, monsters later — and the record says so instead of choosing the more exciting version.
Domains
- chaos
Relations
- companion: Qiongqi
Sources
- Reference treatments of the Four Perils and of the Zuo Zhuan's account.