Peng (mythology)

A Peng () or Dapeng () is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun (), a giant fish, in Chinese mythology.

Names

The Chinese logograms for peng and kun exemplify common radical-phonetic characters. combines the "bird radical" with a phonetic, and combines the "fish radical" () with a phonetic.

Both the mythic Chinese Peng and Kun names involve word play. was anciently a variant Chinese character for in , as in the ca. 100 CE Shuowen Jiezi; originally meant "fish roe; fry; spawn" (ca. 200 BCE Erya).

Synonyms of Peng include and . Dapeng is also a place name for a few places in greater China, most notably in Shenzhen and Taiwan.

After recent fossil discoveries in northeast China, Chinese paleontologists used Peng to name the enantiornithine bird Pengornis and the wukongopterid pterosaur Kunpengopterus.

Etymology

Linguist Wang Li relates "peng, fabulous great bird" to element in ; is also related to "wind".

Literature

Zhuangzi

In Chinese literature, the Daoist classic Zhuangzi has the oldest record of the Kun Peng myth. The first chapter () begins with three versions of this parable; the lead paragraph, a quote from the Qixie (, probably invented by Zhuangzi), and a quote from the (, cf. Liezi chapter 5, ). The first account contrasts the giant Peng bird with a small and and the third with a . The Peng fish-bird transformation is not only the beginning myth in Zhuangzi, but Robert Allinson claims, "the central myth".

Analysis and interpretations

Many Zhuangzi scholars have debated the Peng story. Lian Xinda calls it "arguably the most controversial image in the text, which has been inviting conflicting interpretations for the past seventeen centuries."

In traditional Chinese scholarship, the standard Peng interpretation was the "equality theory" of Guo Xiang (d. 312 CE), who redacted and annotated the received Zhuangzi text. Guo's commentary said,

Some Chinese scholars gave alternate interpretations. The Buddhist monk Zhi Dun (314-366 CE) associated the Peng's flight with the highest satisfaction achieved by the .

The Chan Buddhist master Hanshan Deqing (, 1546–1623) also declares the Peng is the image of the Daoist sage, and suggests the bird's flight does not result from the piling up of wind but from the deep piling up of de "virtue; power".

In modern scholarship, some scholars reject Guo's "equality theory" construal. Lian differentiates contemporary interpretations between whether Zhuangzi was a radical skeptic and/or a relativist.

Julian Pas concurs that "the true sage is compared to the enormous bird." Angus Charles Graham sees the Peng as "soaring above the restricted viewpoints of the worldly." Allinson finds it "very clear and very explicit that the standpoint of the big bird and the standpoint of the cicada and the dove are not seen as possessing equal value." Karen Carr and Philip J. Ivanhoe find "positive ideals" in the Peng symbolizing the "mythical creature that rises above the more mundane concerns of the word. Brian Lundberg says Zhuangzi uses the image to urge us to "go beyond restricted small points of views." Eric Schwitzgebel interprets, "Being small creatures, we cannot understand great things like the Peng (and the rest of the Zhuangzi?)." Steve Coutinho describes the Peng as a "recluse who wanders beyond the realm of the recognizable", in contrast the tiny birds that "cannot begin to understand what lies so utterly beyond the confines of their mundane experience." Scott Cook writes, "We are, at first, led by Zhuangzi almost imperceptibly into an unreflective infatuation with the bird." Lian concludes the Peng is "An inspiring example of soaring up and going beyond, the image is used to broaden the outlook of the small mind; its function is thus more therapeutic than instructional." Bryan W. Van Norden suggests, "The likely effect of this passage on the reader is a combination of awe and disorientation."

Zhuangzi's Peng bird became a famous literary metaphor. Two early examples were the by Dongfang Shuo (154 BCE – 93 CE) and the Commentary on the Water Classic ().

Comparisons

In comparative mythology of giant creatures, Peng is similar to the Roc or Garuda and Kun to the Leviathan.

In Poetry

Mao Zedong invoked the name of Peng in his poem "Tingzhou to Changsha" () in July 1930, to the tune of ' by Ouyang Xiu of the Tang dynasty.

《蝶戀花·從汀州向長沙·毛澤東》

六月天兵征腐惡，

萬丈長纓要把鯤鵬縛。

贛水那邊紅一角，

偏師借重黃公略。

百萬工農齊踴躍，

席捲江西直搗湘和鄂。

國際悲歌歌一曲，

狂飆為我從天落。

In June our soldiers of heaven fight against evil and rot.

They have a huge rope to tie up the Kun and Peng.

On the far side of the Gan waters the ground turns red under the strategy of Huang Gonglüe.

A million workers and peasants leap up joyfully and roll up Jiangsi like a mat.

As we reach the rivers of Hunan and Hebei, we sing the Internationale. It pierces us like a whirlwind from the sky.