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Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Origin of White Jade Worship: On the Myths of the Yellow Emperor’s Eating Jade and Queen Mother of the West’s Presenting the White Jade Ring



Author(s)

YE Shu-xian工, LIU Wan-er

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2016.06.001

Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

The white jade worship, born in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, brought about a “Protestant Revolution” in the development history of Chinese jade mythology, which had deep influence on the nation’s ideology and material production in the following 3,000 years. The myths of the Yellow Emperor’s eating the white jade cream and the Queen Mother of the West living in Kunlun Jade Mountain, as recorded in Classic of Mountains and Seas, are mythological imaginations of the historical reality that the jades were spread from the West to the East and recreated by people living in the early state of the Central Plains. All such motifs, no matter the white jade cream that produced black jades, the Yellow Emperor’s planting the jade flowers, the Kunlun Jade Mountains (the Mountain of Jades) where the Queen Mother of the West lives or the Jade Lake, clearly show Chinese indigenous worship for the white jades. Scholars like Su Xuelin and Ling Chunsheng think that Queen Mother of the West is the goddess of the moon that originated from the old West Asian civilization. However, such idea is full of contradictions and flaws after the discovery of Chinese unique worship for white jades and the holy mountain of Kunlun. The book Classic of Mountains and Seas, with records of 140 mountains that produce jades and 16 mountains that produce white jades, can be the white jade worshippers’ bible to explore the holy material resources.

jade mythology, white jade worship, the Yellow Emperor’s eating jade cream, the Queen Mother of the West’s presenting the white jade ring