Background & setting
In Huainanzi, Tianwen, Gonggong contends with Zhuanxu and strikes Mount Buzhou in anger. The story explains an uneven cosmos: the sky inclines and earthly waters run in a prevailing direction. That explanatory setting differs from a modern disaster report.
The story
In the Huainanzi’s Tianwen chapter, Gonggong struggles with Zhuanxu for power. In anger, he strikes Mount Buzhou. A pillar of heaven breaks and the cords of the earth are damaged. A conflict among powerful figures becomes a disturbance in the structure of the cosmos.
The heavens tilt toward the northwest, and the earth is deficient in the southeast. The account uses this imbalance to explain the movement of heavenly bodies and the gathering of waters. It is a mythic explanation of the observed world, not a modern geographical or astronomical model.
Retellings often move directly from the broken pillar to Nüwa’s repairs. Read separately, the two accounts have different emphases: one explains cosmic asymmetry, the other celebrates the restoration of a devastated world.
How to read it
Uncontrolled conflict can reach beyond the combatants. The story also shows how myth gives a memorable shape to questions about nature.
Where this telling comes from
Huainanzi, Tianwen; compare the separate Nüwa account in Lanming.
- Huainanzi ↗
A Han philosophical compilation. See Lanming for Nüwa, Benjing for the archer Yi, Tianwen for Gonggong, and Lanming for the moon elixir.
An original introductory retelling · Sources consulted October 10, 2026.