The Water God Who Toppled the Pillar of Heaven
Gonggong is the water god of Chinese antiquity. The Huainanzi tells his defining act: contending with Zhuanxu for the throne of heaven and losing, he smashed his head in rage against Mount Buzhou, the northwestern pillar of the sky. The pillar snapped and the cords of the earth tore loose; heaven tilted toward the northwest, which is why sun, moon, and stars drift that way, while the earth sank short in the southeast, which is why the rivers and silt of China all run toward that quarter.
His adversary shifts from text to text. Sima Zhen's Tang-era 'Annals of the Three Sovereigns' places the battle in the age of Nüwa and makes the opponent the fire god Zhurong, defeat driving Gonggong against the mountain — a version that lets Nüwa's mending of the sky follow as the sequel. The Guoyu preserves a more political indictment: Gonggong dammed and blocked the hundred rivers, tearing down heights to fill the lowlands, and so brought calamity on the world.
In the dynastic narratives he was listed among the four criminals punished by Shun, who banished him to Youzhou according to the Book of Documents, and his name became a byword for flood, rebellion, and the sky falling.
