Shan Hai Jing
Also known as: Classic of Mountains and Seas, Guideways Through Mountains and Seas, Shanhai Jing
An ancient Chinese compendium of sacred geography, marvels, deities, heroes, and strange peoples arranged by mountain ranges, regions, and seas. It preserves early myths such as Kuafu’s pursuit of the sun, Jingwei’s vow, and the Queen Mother of the West on Kunlun.
Description
The Shan Hai Jing is a composite gazetteer of mythic space that catalogs mountains, rivers, flora, fauna, minerals, rites, deities, heroes, and wondrous peoples. Organized into guideways of mountains, regions within and beyond the seas, and the great wilderness, it interweaves terse notices with etiologies and mythic vignettes. Its entries situate rituals, resources, and dangers in a sacralized landscape and preserve early narratives later elaborated in Han and medieval sources. Far from a conventional travelogue, it functions as a mytho-ethnographic map whose mnemonic lists and coordinates underwrite authority and wonder in equal measure.
Historiography
The text is a layered compilation whose core likely coalesced in the late Warring States and early Han periods. The received eighteen-juan arrangement was transmitted with influential exegesis by Guo Pu (Jin dynasty), whose commentary shaped later readings. While its geographic reliability has long been debated, its mythic content was mined by poets, encyclopedists, and painters from the Han through the Qing. Modern editions rely on transmitted copies, with no excavated manuscripts yet altering the overall structure.
Date Notes
Composite accretion from late Warring States into early Western Han; received form stabilized with Guo Pu’s 4th-century commentary.
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Huangdi
- Yao
- Shun
- Yu the Great
- Queen Mother of the West
- Gonggong
- Kuafu
- Jingwei
- Nüwa
- Fuxi
Myths
- Mythic Geography of the Mountains and Seas
- Catalogue of Spirits and Monsters
- Nüwa Mends the Sky
- Yu the Great and the Flood Routes
Facts
- Oldest extensive Chinese compendium of mythic geography and marvels.
- Arranged as eighteen guideways covering mountains, regions within/beyond the seas, and the great wilderness.
- Guo Pu’s Jin-dynasty commentary became the standard apparatus for the received text.
- Preserves early forms of the Kuafu, Jingwei, Houyi, and Xingtian narratives.
- Centers on Kunlun and other axial peaks that anchor sacred space.
- Combines terse catalog entries with etiological myths and ritual notes.
- Describes resources—plants, minerals, animals—with apotropaic or medicinal uses.
- Influenced later encyclopedias, poetry, painting, and bestiary traditions.
- Frequently cited as ethnographic lore rather than empirical geography.
- Survives only in transmitted editions; no excavated manuscripts have displaced the received structure.