Go back.

Although there are several versions of early Chinese creation myths, which in all likelihood developed in the pre-Buddhist period, the best known is one that was written down in the third-century c.e. text the Sanwu Liji. According to this myth, there was once only a kind of chaos, which resembled an egg. In this cosmic egg was born Pangu (P'an-Ku), who remained in it for eighteen thousand years. When the egg finally broke, the heavy elements, called yin, became earth and the lighter ones, yang, became the sky. As the earth sank and the sky rose, Pangu grew and became as tall as the distance between yin and yang. It is written in the sixth-century c.e. Shuyi Ji that when Pangu died, various parts of his body became aspects of the world, as they do in the animistic creation myths of several other cultures, including several Native North American ones. In this case the eyes became the sun and moon, the body hair became trees and plants, and the head became a sacred mountain.

"Chinese mythology", by David Leeming, in The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (2005).