Which book was the earliest recorded myth in China?

According to the orthodox view of Liu Xiang, Liu Xin and Wang Chong in the Eastern Han Dynasty, The Classic of Mountains and Seas was written by Dayu and Boyi, but people found the historical facts after Dayu and Boyi in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, so they questioned Yu's theory. Since then, although Yan Zhitui of Sui Dynasty insisted on the old theory, he had to use "later generations fell into it, not this article" to cover up the loopholes that were difficult to cover up. Therefore, the author of Shan Hai Jing has become the object of textual research by many scholars, and various hypotheses have emerged one after another, such as "Yi Jian's Zuo Shuo"; Zou Yan said; Later generations integrated the legends of the Chinese people. Southern Chu people said; Bashu people speak; The early alchemists said, wait. Yuan Ke, a contemporary scholar, believes that Shan Hai Jing is actually the work of an anonymous person, not written by one person at a time. Although the above statements are different, they all affirm that the author of Shan Hai Jing is from China.

What is intriguing, however, is that the debate about the author of Shan Hai Jing does not stop there. Some scholars, especially foreign scholars, have carefully analyzed and studied the contents of Shan Hai Jing, and extended the perspective of tracing the author to foreign countries, and reached surprising conclusions. They say Shan Hai Jing was not written by China people, but the real author is probably a foreigner. This statement is like the bizarre myth in Shan Hai Jing, which is an eye-opener! So, what is the basis of their conclusion? Ma Bole, a French sinologist, believes that the geographical system described in Shan Hai Jing was stimulated and influenced by the Indian and Iranian cultural trends from outside in the 5th century BC. The implication is that the author of Shan Hai Jing may be an Indian or an Iranian. Juxian Wei, a Hong Kong scholar, further clarified in the Study of Ancient History that the author of Shan Hai Jing was an Indian named Sui Chaozi.

When Su (published in Taipei from 65438 to 0978), the author of Qu Yuan and Nine Songs, mentioned Shan Hai Jing, he pushed the author's territory further westward to Babylon. In his view, The Classic of Mountains and Seas is a geography book about the two river basins in Arabian Peninsula, which was originally written by Babylonians and brought to China by Persians during the Warring States Period. Some of the contents about the geography of China were mixed in by later generations. He also thinks that Shan Hai Jing may also be Zou Yan's lecture notes, which were recorded by his disciples, not by one person.

There are also some European scholars who compare the contents recorded in Shan Hai Jing with Greek mythology and think that the grotesque characters such as long ears, strange stocks and three feet in the book are very similar to the monsters in Greek mythology. In addition, American scholars also believe that Shan Hai Jing has an accurate description of the American continent, such as the Guanghua Valley described in Overseas East longitude and Wild East longitude, which is strikingly similar to the Colorado Grand Canyon in the United States. Dongshan Jing vividly and accurately describes the Blackstone and gold nuggets in Nevada, the seals in San Francisco Bay, and the American opossum that can play dead. Some researchers have also visited the American continent according to the route indicated by Shan Hai Jing, and found that there are very consistent geographical phenomena between them. Judging from the textual research of these European and American scholars, the moral of Shan Hai Jing seems to have been written by Greeks or Americans again!

The controversy over the author of Shan Hai Jing reflects from one aspect that this book has extremely important academic value and status in many fields such as history, geography, literature, zoology, botany and so on. Some researchers look for authors from outside China, although it seems far-fetched and inevitably grandstanding, but there is no lack of insights. The reason is actually caused by the amazing breadth, complexity and all-encompassing content covered in Shan Hai Jing, which leads researchers to draw different conclusions. Therefore, it will take time to completely solve this mystery. Now it seems that the historian Ling Chunsheng's view may be more in line with reality, that is, Shan Hai Jing is an ancient Asian geography with China as the center, the East and West Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea Islands in the south, Southwest Asia in the west and Siberia in the north. It describes many valuable materials such as geography, natural history, nationalities and religions in ancient Asia, and its author may be difficult to confirm.