The world before creation.
混沌 (혼돈) means The primordial state before all things were parted. chaos means Utter disorder; the empty space at the beginning of time. East Asian idiom and Western myth mirror the same human truth.
The Meeting
Hesiod wrote that at the beginning of all things there was Chaos, and Zhuangzi told the tale of an emperor named Hundun. One was an empty space, the other a faceless emperor. Yet both begin from the same question — what was there before order?
Western Myth — Chaos
Hesiod's Theogony begins thus: "Chaos was first of all." Chaos does not mean confusion but comes from the Greek khaos, meaning "a gaping chasm." It was the empty space before all things began, a state of nothingness in which neither Gaia (Earth) nor Tartarus (the Abyss) nor Eros (Love) had yet been born. From Chaos came Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and from these came Aether (Light) and Hemera (Day). In English, chaos entered in the fifteenth century with its original sense of "the primordial space," and from the seventeenth century its meaning expanded to the modern "disorder, confusion."
Modern mathematical chaos theory borrowed the name of the myth, yet in its truest sense it lies closer to the original Chaos. What chaos theory speaks of is not "disorder" but "unseen order" — the hidden pattern by which the beating of a butterfly's wings can stir a storm.
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Oxford English Dictionary"chaos, n." 15c, from Latin chaos, from Greek khaos "abyss, that which gapes wide open, the first state of the universe."
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Etymonlinechaos (n.): late 14c., "gaping void, chasm," from Greek khaos. Meaning "utter confusion" is from 1600s.
Eastern Lore — Hundun
Zhuangzi tells the tale of an emperor named Hundun (混沌). Shu (儵), emperor of the Southern Sea, and Hu (忽), emperor of the Northern Sea, would often meet in the land of Hundun, and Hundun always received them with the utmost hospitality. Shu and Hu wished to repay his kindness. Because Hundun had none of the seven openings — for eyes, nose, mouth, and ears — they bored one opening each day. On the seventh day, Hundun died. The message Zhuangzi conveys through this parable: when artificial order is imposed upon nature's original state, its essence is destroyed.
If from the Greek Chaos order was "born," Zhuangzi's Hundun "died" the moment order was conferred upon it. The West saw chaos as something to be overcome; the East saw it as an original state to be preserved.
Where the Mirrors Meet — Where the Two Myths Converge
Both gave a name to "the state before order." Chaos is the empty chasm; Hundun is the faceless emperor.
Both are origins of creation. From Chaos came Gaia and Eros; from the egg of chaos Pangu awoke.
Both live on in modern language. chaos in English, and hundun (混沌) in Korean, both mean "disorder."
Yet their value judgments are exactly opposite. The West read chaos as a "darkness" to be overcome, the East read hundun as a "purity" untouched by artifice.
Mnemonic — One Line to Take Home
- ✓ Chaos = Greek khaos (a gaping chasm). Not disorder, but "the state in which there is not yet any order."
- ✓ 混沌 = mingled (混) murkiness (沌). The emperor of Zhuangzi who died once openings were bored into him.
- ✓ Remember it in one stroke: "From Chaos the world was born; Hundun died once it gained order."
"The world began in chaos. The West conquered that chaos; the East honored it. Which side was right, we do not yet know."
