"The Chinese people," says one well-known sinologist, "are not prone to mythological invention." "He who…
- Date of account
- Traditional material presented in a work published 1922
- Source
- Myths and Legends of China
- Reference
- Myths and Legends of China · selected passage 15
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English synthesis of Chinese traditions
- Translation
- E. T. C. Werner
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
"The Chinese people," says one well-known sinologist, "are not prone to mythological invention." "He who expects to find in Tibet," says another writer, "the poetical charm of Greek or Germanic mythology will be disappointed
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention only, are absent in China. "The Chinese people," says one well-known sinologist, "are not prone to mythological invention." "He who expects to find in Tibet," says another writer, "the poetical charm of Greek or Germanic mythology will be disappointed. There is a striking poverty of imagination in all the myths and legends. A great monotony pervades them all. Many of their stories, taken from the sacred texts, are quite puerile and insipid. It may be noted that the Chinese mythology labours under the same defect." And then there comes the crushing judgment of an over-zealous Christian missionary sinologist: "There is no hierarchy of gods brought in to rule and inhabit the world they made, no conclave on Mount Olympus, nor judgment of the mortal soul by Osiris, no transfer of human love and hate, passions and hopes, to the powers above; all here is ascribed to disembodied agencies or principles, and their works are represented as moving on in quiet order. There is no religion [!], no imagination; all is impassible, passionless, uninteresting....
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis is a passage from a historical religious or interpretive text. Its genre, manuscript history, translation and place within its own tradition are part of the evidence and must remain visible.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice can compare the passage's descriptive features with later reports, but resemblance does not turn a vision, angel, mythic creature or sacred narrative into a modern incident report.
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