The Hihking, a Chinese classic, tells a story of a flood very like the
Biblical story. The family of Fuhi, including his wife, three sons, and
three daughters, survived aboard a boat a great flood which covered the
entire land. After the flood, they repopulated the world. An ancient
temple in China shows Fuhi's boat in raging waters with dolphins swimming
around it and a dove flying toward it.
This flood story apparently comes from the United States, not China.
We have traced it back to Nelson's The Deluge Story in Stone (1931,
181-182). Nelson says that, according to the Hihking, Fuhi "escaped
the waters of a deluge, and reappeared as the first man at the
reproduction of a renovated world, accompanied by his wife, his three
sons and three daughters." There is no mention of a boat. The temple
illustration is a separate account which Nelson attributes to Gutzlaff,
presumably Karl Gützlaff, a Lutheran missionary in China around
1825. Gutzlaff reports it as a picture of Noah, not Fuhi. There are
no further references to allow either account to be checked.
Nelson's "Hihking" most likely refers to the Shan hai ching, or
Classic of Mountains and Seas. However, the flood myth described
therein is very different from Nelson's account. The Shan hai ching
story says that when a great flood came, Kun ("Hugefish") stole
breathing-soil (the matter of creation) from the great god to dam the
waters, but he did not wait for the great god to command him to use it,
so the great god ordered Kun killed. Kun was later restored to life
and gave birth to Yu who, at the great god's command, completed Kun's
work of damming the flood waters (Birrell 1999, 195-196; Walls and
Walls 1984, 94-100). The differences between the two accounts are so
profound that we can only speculate how Nelson came by his version.
Presumably, he relied on a second- or third-hand version which was
conflated with the biblical flood in memories and retellings. Perhaps
Fuhi (Fu Hsi, Fu Xi, or other transliterations) became substituted for
Yu because both are considered founders of aspects of civilization.
It is possible that the Hihking refers to another work, but we can find
no other that is more plausible. The I Ching is a possibility as Fu
Hsi is credited with its authorship, but it contains no flood account
at all.
References:
Birrell, Anne (transl.). 1999. The Classic of Mountains and Seas.
London: Penguin.
Nelson, Byron C., 1931. The Deluge Story in Stone. Minneapolis, MN:
Augsburg Publishing House.
Walls, Jan and Yvonne Walls. 1984. Classical Chinese Myths.
Hongkong: Joint Publishing Co.
