Tradition / Region: Chinese mythology
Alternate Names: Peng; Dapeng; Pengniao; Kunpeng
Category: Fish
The Myth
In the Northern Sea there lives a fish called Kun. It is so vast that no one knows how many thousands of miles it spans. Its body fills the deep, and when it moves, the waters of the sea are set in motion.
When the time comes, Kun rises from the depths and transforms.
Its scales become feathers, and it becomes the great bird Peng. The Peng’s back is immeasurable, and when it spreads its wings they hang across the sky like drifting clouds. With a single beat of those wings, storms are born and the sea churns below.
When the oceans surge, the Peng takes flight, leaving the Northern Sea behind and journeying toward the Southern Sea, the Heavenly Pool. As it ascends, the small birds of the world laugh and mock it, unable to comprehend a being whose path stretches beyond the horizon. Yet the Peng does not answer them. It rises higher and higher, until earth and sky fall away beneath it.
Thus Kun and Peng are one being—fish and bird, depth and height—moving freely between sea and sky, embodying boundless transformation and the vastness of the world itself.
Gallery
Sources
Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). 鯉魚. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, from https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AF%A4%E9%B5%AC
Interpretive Lenses
Religious Readings
- Christian Ascetic Deep Dive
Philosophical Readings
- Nietzschean Deep Dive
Psychological Readings
- Jungian Deep Dive
Esoteric Deep Dive
- Hermetic Deep Dive
Political / Social Readings
- Marxist Deep Dive
Other
- How to Invite The Kun