Peng (mythology)

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Peng (Simplified Chinese: 鹏; traditional Chinese: 鵬; Pinyin: péng; Wade-Giles: p'eng) or Dapeng (大鵬) is a giant bird that pupates from a giant fish called a Kun (simplified Chinese:鲲; traditional Chinese: 鯤; Pinyin: kūn; Wade-Giles: k'un) 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 (鵬) combines the "bird radical" (鳥) with a peng (朋 "friend") phonetic, and kun combines the "fish radical" (魚) with a kun (昆 "progeny; insect") phonetic.
Both the mythic Chinese Peng and Kun names involve word play. Peng (鵬) was anciently a variant Chinese character for feng (鳳) in fenghuang (鳳凰 "Chinese phoenix") (ca. 100 CE Shuowen Jiezi); Kun 鲲 originally meant "fish roe; fry; spawn" (ca. 200 BCE Erya).
Synonyms of Peng include Dapeng (大鵬, with "big") and Dapengniao (大鵬鳥, 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" 逍遙遊; Pinyin: Xiao Yao You) begins with three versions of this parable; the lead paragraph, a quote from the Qixie (齊諧 "Universal Harmony", probably invented by Zhuangzi), and a quote from the Tang zhi wen Ji (湯之問棘 "Questions of Tang to Ji", cf. Liezi chapter 5, Tang wen 湯問). The first account contrasts the giant Peng bird with a small tiao (蜩 "cicada") and jiu (鳩 "pigeon; turtledove") and the third with a yan (鴳 or 鷃 "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 Analysis of the Inner Chapters, SUNY Press, 180.
Many Zhuangzi scholars, both Chinese and foreign, have debated over 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."Lian Xinda (2009), "Zhuangzi the Poet: Re-Reading the Peng Bird Image", Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 8.3, 234.
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 zhiren (至人 "perfect person; sage; saint", cf. zhenren).Lian (2009), 234.
The Chan Buddhist master Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清, 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".Lian (2009), 239.
In modern Chinese and western scholarship, most 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."Julian Pas (1981), "Chuang Tzu's Essays on 'Free Flight Into Transcendence' and 'Responsive Rulership'", Journal of Chinese Philosophy 8.4, 482. Angus Charles Graham sees the Peng as "soaring above the restricted viewpoints of the worldly."A.C. Graham (1981), Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters, George Allen & Unwin, 43. 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."Allinson (1989), 44. 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.Karen Carr and Philip Ivanhoe (2000), The Sense of Antirationalism: The Religious Thought of Zhuangzi and Kierkegaard, Seven Bridges Press, 100. Brian Lundberg says Zhuangzi uses the image to urge us to "go beyond restricted small points of views."Brian Lundberg (1998), "A Meditation on Friendship," in Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, ed. by Roger Ames, SUNY, 214. Eric Schwitzgebel interprets, "Being small creatures, we cannot understand great things like the Peng (and the rest of the Zhuangzi?)."Eric Schwitzgebel (1996). "Zhuangzi's Attitude Toward Language and His Skepticism," in Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, ed. by Paul Kjelberg and Philip Ivanhoe, SUNY Press, 71. 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."Steve Coutinho (2004), Zhuangzi and Early Chinese Philosophy: Vagueness, Transformation and Paradox, Ashgate, 69-70. Scott Cook writes, "We are, at first, led by Zhuangzi almost imperceptibly into an unreflective infatuation with the bird."Scott Cook (2003), Harmony and Cacophony in the Panpipes of Heaven," in Hiding the World in the World; Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi, SUNY Press, 70. 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."Lian (2009), 233. Bryan Van Norden suggests, "The likely effect of this passage on the reader is a combination of awe and disorientation."Van Norden, Bryan W. (1996), "Competing Interpretations of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi," Philosophy East and West 46 (2):247-268.
Zhuangzi's Peng bird became a famous literary metaphor. Two early examples were the Shen yi jing (神異經 "Classic of Divine Marvels") by Dongfang Shuo (154 BCE – 93 CE) and the Commentary on the Water Classic (水經注) by Li Daoyuan (d. 527 CE). Li Bai's fu "prose-poem" Dapengniao fu (大鵬鳥賦) personalizes the Peng "into a symbol of the self-assured Li Bo himself."Victor H. Mair, ed. (2002), The Columbia history of Chinese literature, Columbia University Press, p. 298.
==See also==
* Fenghuang
==References==
Category:Chinese mythology
Category:Animals in religion