The Shape of the World
The Shanhaijing's cosmology is built on the principle of "round heaven, square earth" (天圆地方). Heaven is a dome above. Earth is a flat square below. The four directions are absolute — east, west, south, and north are fixed orientations, not relative positions.
This model is wrong, but it is not stupid. It accurately describes the human experience of the world — the sky does appear to be a dome, and the earth does appear to be flat. The model fails only at scales that ancient observers could not access.
The World Axis
At the center of the world stands Kunlun Mountain (昆仑山) — the axis mundi that connects earth to heaven. Kunlun is impossibly tall, surrounded by weak water that cannot support even a feather, and guarded by supernatural beings.
Kunlun serves the same function as Mount Olympus in Greek mythology or Yggdrasil in Norse mythology — it is the point where the human world and the divine world intersect. Every major mythology needs such a point, because every culture needs to explain how gods and humans interact.
The Four Seas
The Shanhaijing describes four seas surrounding the square earth — the Eastern Sea, Western Sea, Southern Sea, and Northern Sea. Beyond the seas lie the lands of foreign peoples and strange creatures.
This geography reflects the Chinese worldview of concentric zones: China at the center, surrounded by increasingly foreign and strange territories. The further from the center, the stranger the world becomes.
The Heavenly Bodies
The Shanhaijing explains the sun and moon through mythology rather than astronomy:
The sun rises from the Valley of the Sun (汤谷), where ten suns roost in a giant mulberry tree called Fusang (扶桑). Each day, one sun rides across the sky in a chariot pulled by dragons. The myth of Hou Yi shooting down nine suns explains why only one sun appears at a time.
The moon is home to Chang'e (嫦娥), who fled to the moon after stealing the elixir of immortality from her husband Hou Yi. She lives there with a jade rabbit (玉兔) who pounds medicine in a mortar.
The Underworld
Below the earth lies the underworld (地府, dìfǔ) — a realm of the dead governed by its own bureaucracy. The underworld is not described in detail in the Shanhaijing itself, but it is part of the same cosmological framework — a three-layered universe with heaven above, earth in the middle, and the underworld below.
The Interconnected Universe
The Shanhaijing's most important cosmological principle is interconnection. Heaven, earth, and the underworld are not separate realms — they are connected through mountains, rivers, and supernatural pathways. Gods descend to earth. Mortals ascend to heaven. The dead travel to the underworld and eventually return through reincarnation.
This interconnection means that events in one realm affect the others. A drought on earth might be caused by a bureaucratic error in heaven. A plague might be caused by restless spirits in the underworld. The universe is a single system, and every part affects every other part.