for these being there will be apparent presently.) His task occupied
eighteen thousand years, during which he formed the sun, moon, and
stars, the heavens and the earth, himself increasing in stature day
by day, being daily six feet taller than the day before, until, his
labours ended, he died that his works might live. His head became the
mountains, his breath the wind and clouds, his voice the thunder,
his limbs the four quarters of the earth, his blood the rivers,
his flesh the soil, his beard the constellations, his skin and hair
the herbs and trees, his teeth, bones, and marrow the metals, rocks,
and precious stones, his sweat the rain, and the insects creeping
over his body human beings, who thus had a lowlier origin even than
the tears of Khepera in Egyptian cosmology. [3]

This account of P'an Ku and his achievements is of Taoist origin. The
Buddhists have given a somewhat different account of him, which is
a late adaptation from the Taoist myth, and must not be mistaken for
Buddhist cosmogony proper. [4]


The Sun and the Moon

In some of the pictures of P'an Ku he is represented, as already noted,
as holding the sun in one hand and the moon in the other. Sometimes
they are in the form of those bodies, sometimes in the classic
character. The legend says that when P'an Ku put things in order in
the lower world, he did not put these two luminaries in their proper
courses, so they retired into the Han Sea, and the people dwelt in
darkness. The Terrestrial Emperor sent an officer, Terrestrial Time,
with orders that they should come forth and take their places in
the heavens and give the world day and night. They refused to obey