Brief
Pan Gu is a central figure in the Chinese Taoist legend of world creation, the first man, is said to come forth from chaos(a big egg). Pan Gu is said to have two horns, two tusks, and a shaggy body. Some accounts credit him with the separation of heaven and earth, setting the sun, moon, stars, and planets in place, and dividing the four seas. He shaped the earth by chiseling out valleys and stacking up mountains. All is accomplished from Pan Gu’s knowledge of Yin Yang, the inescapable principle of duality in all things.
The Origin Story of Pan Gu
At the beginning of the world, there was nothing, and the universe was in a featureless, formless, primordial state. The primordial state coalesced into a cosmic egg for about 18000 years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced and Pan Gu emerged/woke up from the egg.
Pangu inside the cosmic egg symbolizes Taiji. Pangu is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant who has horns on his head. Pangu began creating the world: he separated yin from yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the earth (murky yin) and the sky (clear yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the sky. With each day, the sky grew ten feet (3 meters) higher, the earth ten feet thicker, and Pangu ten feet taller. This task took yet another 18,000 years. In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the Four Holy Beasts, the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.
After 18,000 years had elapsed, Pangu died. His breath became the wind, mist, and clouds; his voice, thunder; his left eye, the Sun; his right eye, the Moon; his head, the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood, rivers; his muscles, fertile land; his facial hair, the stars, and Milky Way; his fur, bushes and forests; his bones, valuable minerals; his bone marrow, precious jewels; his sweat, rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became animals.
Pan-Gu is spoken of by the common people as “the first man, who opened up heaven and earth.” It has been said to me in “pidgin” English that “he is, all the same, your “Adam”; and in Taoist picture books I have seen him as a shaggy, dwarfish, Hercules, developing from a bear rather than an ape, and wielding an immense hammer and chisel with which he is breaking the chaotic rocks.
