The Research On Myths And Legends In Unearthed Ancient Documents

Ancient myths and legends are our spiritual wealth and cultural treasures which left overby our ancestors as products of the era of human childishness. But Chinese ancient myths andlegends rarely remained for various reasons. So few of the myths and legends scattering involuminous classics were preserved which were handed down from ancient times. The situationbrought insurmountable difficulties to the research work of myths and legends. A large numberof excavation including materials on myths and legends were dig out which did a great helpfor opening new ground of our research. We choose the materials on the myths and legendsfrom unearthed documents as our research object and try to explore and solve some problemsby closely combining the classics which were handed down from ancient times and uneartheddocuments in order to manifest the incomparable advantages of unearthed documents in theresearch on myths and legends.This paper is divided into six parts and the first part is the introduction. It introducessimply the document foundation of the subject, research status, the thinking of the paper andetc.In1942, the "Chu boshu", which was found in bullet library of Hunan Changsha, is theearliest ancient silk that had ever been found which could originate from the period of theWarring States Chu and is the sole ancient document of “text” completing with “picture” sofar. The second chapter of this paper discusses the creation myth in the "Chu boshu ". Werestore the picture of ancient creation myths basically and comb the lineage of gods whoparticipated in the process of creation and creating a system of one’s own by combining therelated literatures which were handed down from ancient times.The third chapter of this paper discusses the ancient induced myth from "Zigao" of"Shangbo bamboo" which appeared in the form of clusters. We analyze and judge the specificdetails of three kings’ induced myth, including the birth the induced object and the site and etc.On the basis of themes mentioned above, we restore the whole process of the sacrificesceremony of praying for children and explain the meaning of the induced myth from "Zigao"by citing a large number of related documents which were handed down from ancient times.Controlling flood is the biggest accomplishments in Dayu’s whole life. Descendants gave much admiration for it and took delight in talking about the way of desludging. And theythought Gun’s failure and Yu’s success caused by the difference between Gun’s blocking andYu’s desludging. We believe that there is not essentially different in the way of both controllingflood in the spread of early stage of Gun and Yu’s dealing with flood myth and the truth of themethod of controlling flood by blocking used by Dayu throughout reading carefully theunearthed documents "Bingong xu" and "Rongchengshi" and accompanying with materialshanded down. The paper also analyses the specific meaning of Yu’s morals after understandingthe positive way of Dayu. Those are main content of this paper’s forth chapter.The fifth chapter of this paper interprets newly unearthed Wangjiatai Qin bamboo"Guimei" correctly. On that basis it restores the forming process of Chang’e myth basically bycombing related documents handed down from ancient times. And the article also explores theimplied main idea of undead in the myth based on analyzing the elements of this myth deeply.The sixth chapter of this paper discusses the type A of "Rishu" in Shuihudi Qin bamboo.It talks over some problems of Qianniu and Zhinv myth in comparison with related documentshanded down from ancient times. It indicates that the original form of this myth is the Love andMarriage tragedy of Qianniu abandoning Zhinv many times making a distinction from theblessed theme of loyal love reconstructed constantly by folk literature. It also shows that themyth’s initial forming time is late in the Warring States Period at the longest and the originalplace is closely related to Qin culture.