Mount Kunlun
Mythological Narrative
Kunlun — the Mound of Kunlun, the Ruins of Kunlun — is the paramount sacred mountain of Chinese myth, rising in the remotest west. The Shanhaijing measures it at eight hundred li on each side and ten thousand ren in height, 'the lower capital of the High God' where the hundred spirits dwell, planted with a tree-grain forty feet tall and ringed by nine wells and nine gates. The Turquoise Pond of the Queen Mother of the West lies here, and King Mu of Zhou drove his eight steeds to its slopes.
The Huainanzi turns the mountain into a ladder to heaven: climb to twice the height of Kunlun and you reach the Mountain of Cool Wind, where one no longer dies; double the height again to the Hanging Garden, where one gains power over wind and rain; double it once more and you stand in heaven itself, the residence of the Grand God, where the climber becomes a spirit. The Yellow River was believed to spring from the mountain, and when, after Zhang Qian opened the road west, Han envoys traced the river's source to Khotan, Emperor Wu consulted the old charts and formally bestowed the name Kunlun on those ranges — a decision the historian Sima Qian records with palpable skepticism.
Daoism enthroned Kunlun as ancestor of all mountains and the paradise where the Queen Mother marshals her immortals, endlessly revisited in poetry of spirit-journeys. The real Kunlun range, stretching over two thousand kilometers between Xinjiang and Tibet, carries the mythic name to this day.
Academic Discussion & Critique
Exchange peer-reviewed hypotheses, comparative Indo-European etymologies, and archaeological field interpretations regarding Mount Kunlun.
You Might Also Like
Chang'e
Originally Heng'e, wife of the archer Yi. She swallowed the stolen elixir of immortality and floated to the moon, where the jade rabbit keeps her company; Mid-Autumn moon worship and China's lunar program bear her name.
The Yellow Emperor
Xuanyuan, first of the Five Sovereigns, who defeated Yandi at Banquan and Chiyou at Zhuolu. The calendar, writing, and music were credited to his reign; he rose to heaven on a dragon.
Queen Mother of the West
Goddess of the Kunlun heights, first pictured with leopard's tail and tiger's teeth, later transformed into the stately Queen Mother whose peaches of immortality ripen once in three thousand years.
Peach of Immortality
Sacred peaches from the garden of Xi Wangmu that ripen only once every few thousand years. Eating one grants longevity approaching immortality.