What is the creation story of Confucianism?

Answer 1

Confucianism does not, on its own, have a unique creation story since it is primarily a philosophy. Confucianism does not assert the presence of any deities, spirits, or other supernatural beings which are usually required in a supernatural creation story. Since Confucianism is a philosophy as opposed to a religion, Confucianists can also have a religion to which they adhere. Most Confucianists are religiously either Atheists or Shenists. (Shenism is the proper term for the folk religions of China.) Atheists do not have a creation story for obvious reasons.

Shenists usually attribute the creation of the world and the creation of humanity to different gods or goddesses.

Creation of the World

One of the most popular creation myths in Chinese mythology describes the god Pangu separating the world egg-like Hundun "primordial chaos" into Heaven and Earth. In this view Heaven and Earth were once mixed together like a chicken's egg. After 18,000 years, this inchoate mass split apart, what was bright and light forming Heaven, and what was dark and heavy forming Earth. For another 18,000 years, Heaven daily increased ten feet in height, Earth daily increased ten feet in thickness. This led to them being thousands of miles apart.

Creation of Humans

The legend states that the goddess Nüwa existed in the beginning of the world. She felt lonely as there were no animals so she began the creation of animals and humans. On the first day she created chickens. On the second day she created dogs. On the third day she created sheep. On the fourth day she created pigs. On the fifth day she created cows. On the sixth day she created horses.

On the seventh day she began creating men from yellow clay, sculpting each one individually, yet after she had created hundreds of figures in this way she still had more to make but had grown tired of the laborious process. So instead of hand crafting each figure, she dipped a rope in clay and flicked it so blobs of clay landed everywhere; each of these blobs became a common person. Nüwa still laboriously crafted some people out of clay, who became nobles.