From Ancient Chinese Manuscripts (2)
Original Source ↗The ancient Chinese had explored only one passage from the Tonal to the Nagual. It was located in the north and was called the stone stairway to heaven. The text states that gods and seers ascended to heaven and descended "not by leaping onto a cloud or bridling a storm," but by climbing mountains and stairs step by step. To the north lay the mountains of the Lower Capital of the Heavenly Emperor. Before their foothills flowed the swift river Ruoshui – the Weak Waters. The text mentions that there were people who ascended to heaven (into the Nagual) via the eastern mountain Zhaoshan, protected by the Qinghui River, and via Dengbalshan Mountain, located in the western desert. It was along this path that shamans ascended to the heavenly palace to gather unknown herbs and to learn the will of the gods.
The center of earth and heaven was located in the southwest. There rose the gigantic Jianmu Tower. "It was an astonishing place: everything grew there – rice, beans, wheat. The magical Luan bird sang there, and phoenixes danced in circles... If one shouted near this tower, the sounds were lost in the void, and no echo repeated them. The tower was very strange. It pierced the clouds, and its walls were elastic, like the skin of a yellow snake."
In the western part of their map, ancient dreamers depicted vast deserts. Somewhere among them was the country of Suimingguo. It was enclosed by a huge dome, so that the inhabitants of this place never saw the sun or the moon. And the dreamer who entered that place dwelled in black darkness. They felt that something was happening around them; they sensed touches, bumped into objects, but remained blind. In this world, one day passed for three days, strength diminished twice as fast, and therefore the area was considered perilous for travelers.
One day, a drunken celestial being stumbled and hit his head on Buzhou Mountain. This broke the prop holding up the sky and severed the pillar supporting the earth. The sky tilted to the northwest. Since then, the sun, moon, and stars move in that direction. And a void formed in the earth to the southeast, which is why the world's water currents and dust rush there.
The most terrifying place in the dreamed world was considered to be Bohain Bay in the northeastern corner. There, far from the shore, was a bottomless hole in time and space. All existence, thoughts, images, and matter flowed there and disappeared forever.
To be continued...