Classic of Mountains and Seas

The *Classic of Mountains and Seas* (Shanhai jing) is a Chinese text that blends mythical geography with descriptions of fantastical beasts. Its earliest versions date to the 4th century BCE, but the work took its current form during the early Han dynasty. The book is organized into eighteen sections, covering over 550 mountains and 300 waterways. It presents a legendary geographical and cultural account of pre-Qin China, alongside a collection of Chinese myths.

For more than two thousand years, since the historian Sima Qian, scholars have debated who wrote it. The earliest clear reference to the text appears in Sima Qian’s *Records of the Grand Historian*. In the Western Han dynasty, Liu Xiu was the first to name specific authors, claiming it was written by Yu the Great and Boyi during the Xia dynasty. Later writers such as Wang Chong, Zhao Ye, Guo Pu, and Yan Zhitui supported this attribution. However, after the Tang dynasty, scholars like Chen Zhensun, Zhu Xi, and Hu Yinglin doubted that Yu and Boyi were the authors, though they still believed the book originated in the classical era. Some suggested it was a textual description of a lost map called “Mountains and Seas,” written by later descendants.

Zhu Xi and Hu Yinglin proposed that the author lived during the Warring States period, with Hu calling the writer “a curious man” based on references in other texts. In the Qing dynasty, Bi Yuan argued that different sections had different authors: the “Mountains Classic” by Yu and Boyi, the “Overseas Classic” and “Inside Seas Classic” by Qin dynasty writers, and the “Great Farmland Classic” added when Liu Xiu revised the work. In the 20th century, Liu Shipei inferred that the author might be Zou Yan, a Warring States figure, while others have suggested Sui Chaozi, a disciple of Mozi.

The book is not a narrative. Instead, it systematically describes locations in the cardinal directions—mountains, regions beyond seas, regions within seas, and wilderness. Entries typically list medicines, animals, and geological features, some mundane and others bizarre. Each chapter follows a similar repetitive formula. The text contains many short myths, rarely longer than a paragraph. One famous myth is that of Yu the Great controlling the great flood, found in the last chapter (chapter 18), which is more fantastical than the version in the *Classic of History*.

Earlier Chinese scholars treated the book as a bestiary and assumed it was accurate, though its information is mythological. Its purpose and how it came to be seen as a real geography are unknown. Ancient scholars also called it an encyclopedia covering history, philosophy, mythology, religion, medicine, folklore, and ethnicity, as well as geography, astronomy, meteorology, and natural history. Today, three main views exist: the Myth Theory (represented by Yuan Ke) sees it as the key surviving source of ancient Chinese myths; the Novel Theory (represented by Li Jianguo) classifies it as a novel, following the *Complete Library of the Four Treasuries*; and a majority of contemporary scholars consider it primarily a geography book.

Historically, from the Han to Tang dynasties, its contents were accepted as authentic. From the Ming to Qing dynasties, this view shifted.