  peng () or dapeng (å¤§éµ¬) is a giant bird that transforms from a kun () giant fish in chinese mythology. in comparative mythology of giant creatures, peng is likened to the roc or garuda and kun to the leviathan.mair, victor (1994), "introduction and notes for a complete translation of the chuang tzu", sino-platonic papers 48. ==names== the chinese logograms for peng and kun exemplify common radical-phonetic characters. peng (éµ¬) combines the "bird radical" (é³¥) with a peng (æ "friend") phonetic, and kun combines the "fish radical" (é­) with a kun (æ "progeny; insect") phonetic. both the mythic chinese peng and kun names involve word play. peng (éµ¬) was anciently a variant chinese character for feng (é³³) in fenghuang (é³³å° "chinese phoenix") (ca. 100 ce shuowen jiezi); kun é²² originally meant "fish roe; fry; spawn" (ca. 200 bce erya). synonyms of peng include dapeng (å¤§éµ¬, with "big") and dapengniao (å¤§éµ¬é³¥, with "bird"), both used to translate foreign "roc" and "garuda". dapeng also refers to place names in shenzhen and guangdong. after recent fossil discoveries in northeast china, chinese paleontologists used peng to name the enantiornithine bird pengornis and the wukongopterid pterosaur kunpengopterus. ==literature== in chinese literature, the daoist classic zhuangzi has the oldest record of the peng and kun myth. the first chapter ("free and easy wandering" ééé pinyin xiao yao you) begins with three versions of this parable; the lead paragraph, a quote from the qixie (é½è«§ "universal harmony", probably invented by zhuangzi), and a quote from the tang zhi wen ji (æ¹¯ä¹åæ£ "questions of tang to ji", cf. liezi chapter 5, tang wen æ¹¯å). the first account contrasts the giant peng bird with a small tiao (è© "cicada") and jiu (é³© "pigeon; turtledove") and the third with a yan (é´³ or é· "quail"). the peng fish-bird transformation is not only the beginning myth in zhuangzi, but robert allinson claims, "the central myth".robert e. allinson (1989), chuang-tzu for spiritual transformation: an a
Asian_legendary_creatures Chinese_legendary_creatures Chinese_mythology Legendary_birds