Hundun

Hundun is a famous idea from old Chinese stories and beliefs. It means "muddled confusion" and talks about a time when everything was mixed up and not sorted out yet. In Chinese tales, Hundun is described as a being without a face, which makes it very special and mysterious.

People in China think of Hundun as the first chaos before the world was made. This idea is a bit like the story of a world egg that comes before everything else. These old stories help us understand how people long ago thought about how the world began.

Linguistics

The word Hundun (混沌) started as a mythic idea of "primordial chaos" — the messy, formless state of the universe before heaven and earth separated. Over time, its meaning expanded to include ideas like "unintelligible," "messy," or even "innocent as a child."

In everyday Chinese today, Hundun is usually written as 混沌, but it can also appear as 渾沌 — as in the ancient Daoist book Zhuangzi — or 渾敦 — as in the Zuozhuan. The sounds and writings of Hundun connect to ideas of water, confusion, and even dullness. For example, hùn can mean "muddy" or "confused," and dùn can mean "dull" or "solid."

The term Hundun is also linked to other Chinese words that describe empty or vast spaces, like hunlun (混淪) or hongyuan (洪元). It is sometimes compared to an egg — a complete, round world closed in itself, like a cavern or a gourd.

The word Hundun is written with a "water" symbol and sounds from kūn (昆) and tún (屯). Interestingly, it is related to the word for Wonton (餛飩; húntun), which means a type of dumpling soup. Some scholars see a deep link between the two, suggesting that just as soup contains many small blobs, the early universe contained bits of matter coming together.

Early textual usages

The word hundun appears in old Chinese books from the Warring States period. It is found mostly in Daoist texts, though it shows up once in a Confucian book.

In Confucian writing, hundun describes bad or troublemaking people. One old story tells of Hundun, a son of the Yellow Emperor, who had no good qualities and was finally banished.

In Daoist books, hundun often means a mix of everything before the world was formed. The book Zhuangzi tells a story where the rulers of the North and South Seas decide to give Hundun, who has no openings in his body like eyes or a mouth, seven openings. By the seventh day, Hundun dies from these new openings. This tale is used to show a philosophical idea about nature and the universe.

Interpretations

Stories about Hundun have many different versions, often talking about "primordial chaos" and linking to other legends.

Wolfram Eberhard studied these Hundun myths. He saw them as a kind of world egg story from the southern Liao culture, starting in the Sichuan and Hubei areas.

Hundun myths include ideas like people coming from a "thunder-egg" or a piece of flesh. There are tales of a Thunder god shown as a dog with bat wings, linked to the Miao people and Tai peoples. Some myths describe a creature called Lei, which has no head, eyes, hands, or feet and makes thunder-like noises at midnight.

In old Chinese astronomy, the universe was seen as a round egg with Earth inside like a yolk. There are stories about a god named Wu Yi from the Shang dynasty who played a game against the god Heaven, lost, and then shot arrows at a sack filled with blood. The famous mythic creator Pangu is also described as shaped like a sack and grew big to separate Heaven and Earth.

Norman J. Girardot, a professor at Lehigh University, has written extensively about Hundun. He explains that in early Taoism, Hundun brings together many mythic ideas from different cultures. These include stories about a cosmic egg-gourd, giant animal ancestors, and the first couples in myths. These stories often connect to flood myths from southern cultures.

In Chinese internal alchemy, Hundun is an important idea. Alchemists start their work by "opening" Hundun, meaning they begin from the very beginning, adding a special light to shape the world new again.

In popular culture

In the 2013 film Pacific Rim, a creature named Hundun appears briefly. In the movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a character named Morris is a Hundun and travels with Shang-Chi.

In the video game Spelunky 2, Hundun is a large egg-shaped boss with multiple features. The anime Lazarus also references Hundun in some episodes.

In the mobile game Tears of Themis, a character is called Hundun, and a special ornament shows a small Hundun. In a Chinese story, Hundun looks like a friendly, colorful animal and helps two special characters. In Age of Mythology: Retold downloadable content Immortal Empires, players can recruit Hundun as a mythical creature.