The Study Of Regional Culture In Chinese Mythology

"The places where the human exist also have the mythology." Pure and beautiful flowers of the human imagination bloomed on all the fertile land with plenty of water in the world. This special literary form which came from the time with survival and life shortages, also can be affected by the three factors--"race, environment, time" which advocated by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine. For the better survival, human understood the importance of labor and wisdom form the bad environment, and also learned to use imagination to explain unknown mystery, tried to conquer the nature. Therefore, "environment" is meaningful to mythology, any small detail in mythology may reflect the natural environment and social environment of that era.The vast land of China give birth to the profound Chinese culture, in the land of continuous mountains and massive rivers, Chinese culture show the colorful differences under the influence of regional environment. In that case, Chinese mythology is the important part of Chinese culture, how it be affected by the regional environment is the master key which open the paper research topic. Series significant studies about the relationship between Chinese mythology and the regional environment have been developed by our Chinese mythologists."The regional culture in Chinese mythology" as the study objects of this article based on regional classification theories in Chinese mythology which were proposed by Mao Dun and Gu Jiegang. So this paper tries to explore two different kinds of regional classification theories from the perspective of theme, character and imagery, and the influences of regional culture on Chinese mythology, then study and deduce both positive and negative effects about Chinese mythology’s preservation, dissemination and inheritance because of the influences of regional culture. This article will be divided into four chapters to discuss particularly.The first chapter, "the source of relationship between regional culture and Chinese mythology", it describes the concepts of "mythology" and "regional culture" to determine the elemental range in this paper at first. Then selecting some representative views about the relationship between culture and regional environment in the eyes of Chinese and western scholars, and generalizing the possibility of regional cultural perspective in Chinese mythology, clarifying these basic points come from the theories of Mao Dun and Gu Jiegang.The second chapter, "The influence of regional culture on the content of Chinese Mythology from northern and southern viewpoint" is one of the main parts of this paper. It bases on the theories in Mao Dun’s "A preliminary study of Chinese Mythology", by analyzing the regional culture in "Myths of Central Plains", "Myths of Chu" and "South Myths" to discuss the differences of mythology systems:under the influence of regional environment in the Yellow River, "Myths of Central Plains" represented by the subject matter of "survival", the character of "hero" and the image of "historicize"; under the influence of regional environment in the Yangtze River, "Myths of Chu" represented by the subject matter of "livelihood", the character of "new" and the image of "magical plants"; under the influence of regional environment in South China, "South Myths" represented by the subject matter of "life", the character of "broking" and the image of "gourd".Chapter three, "The influence of regional culture on the content of Chinese Mythology from western and eastern viewpoint", discussing similarities and differences of the "Kunlun myths" under the environment of mountains and the "Penglai myths" under the environment of oceans:"Kunlun myths" represented by the subject matter of Kunlun Mountain, the character of Hsi Wang Mu and the image of undead medicine; "Penglai myths" represented by the subject matter of fairy mountain, the character of immortal and the image of elixir.Chapter four, "The influence of regional culture on the preservation and dissemination of Chinese Mythology", this paper tries to study the influence of regional culture on the preservation and dissemination of Chinese Mythology, and then analyses its advantages and disadvantages.Though the thesis based on existing views, but scholars always focus on existing myth system and ignore the real relationship between myth system and regional environment. So the thesis passes through the study of regional culture in Chinese mythology, trying to analysis the specific differences of mythologies in different regional culture, excavating the deep cultural heritage and regional characteristics, exploring a one-to-one relationship between myth system and regional environment and providing new reference materials and researches for the study of Chinese mythology.