Where Does the Yellow-Earth Creation Account Come From?
The familiar yellow-earth passage is usually traced to a lost section of Fengsu Tongyi preserved in later encyclopedias such as Taiping Yulan.
Narrative context
The best-known textual framework for Nüwa’s creation of humans combines moulding figures from yellow earth with drawing a cord through mud. These details reach us chiefly through Han and later transmission and should not all be projected unchanged into the pre-Qin period.
Evidence
The familiar creation passage is attributed to Ying Shao’s Eastern Han Fengsu Tongyi, but the relevant section is lost and survives in compilations such as Taiping Yulan. The chain includes an author, a lost work and a later quotation.
Nüwa as an early deity, creator of humans, Han visual figure and later mother goddess rests on evidence from different periods and media.
What can be established
The lost work and its later quotation must be identified separately.
Comparative reading
Research begins with extant evidence, date and transmission, then states the limits of the claim without filling gaps with one verdict.
Questions in the Songs of Chu, sky repair in Huainanzi, creation in the lost Fengsu Tongyi passage and paired Han images preserve different parts of her identity. Their sequence shows how her roles accumulated.
Why it matters
A clear transmission chain shows which wording survives in an extant encyclopedia and which claim concerns the lost original, preventing quotation from being mistaken for a complete chapter.
Continue reading
What Does “Drawing a Cord Through Mud” Mean? · How Early Is the Surviving Nüwa Creation Material?
References
- The question “Nüwa had a body; who fashioned it?” in Tianwen
- The Shuowen Jiezi entry for wa
- The lost Fengsu Tongyi creation passage as quoted in Taiping Yulan and related compilations