Attos' Magazine

Volume #93, January/2010

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Immanuel Velikovsky

Worlds In Collision

By Immanuel Velikovsky

Emperor Yahou

The history of China is commonly supposed to extend back to gray antiquity. But in reality the sources of the ancient period of the Chinese past are very scanty, for they were destroyed by the Emperor Tsin-chi-hoang (246—209 before the present era). He ordered all books on history and astronomy, as well as works of classic literature, to be burned. Search for these books was made throughout the empire for this purpose. The story persists that a few remnants of the old literature were again put into writing from the memory of an old man; some were said to have been found hidden in the sepulcher of Confucius, and are ascribed to his pen.

Of these few remains of the old lore, the most cherished are those which tell of the Emperor Yahou and his times. His personality and his period are considered as “the most auspicious in the Chinese annals.” The history of China preceding his reign is ascribed to the mythical period of the Chinese past. In the days of Yahou the event occurred which separates the almost obliterated and very dim past of China from the period that is considered historical: China was overwhelmed by an immense catastrophe.

“At that time the miracle is said to have happened that the sun during a span of ten days did not set, the forests were ignited, and a multitude of abominable vermin was brought forth.” “In the lifetime of Yao [Yahou] the sun did not set for ten full days and the entire land was flooded.”

An immense wave “that reached the sky” fell down on the land of China. “The water was well up on the high mountains, and the foothills could not be seen at all.” (This recalls Psalm 104: “The waters stood above the mountains . . . they go up by the mountains” and Psalm 107: “The waves mount up to the heaven.”)

“Destructive in their overflow are the waters of the inundation,” said the emperor. “In their vast extent they embrace the hills and overtop the great heights, threatening the heavens with their floods.” The emperor ordered that all efforts be made to open outlets for the waters that were caught in the valleys between the mountains. For many years the population labored, trying to free the plains and valleys of the waters of the flood by digging channels and draining the fields. For a considerable number of years all efforts were in vain. The minister who was in charge of this urgent and immense work, Khwan, was sentenced to death because of his failure— “For nine years he labored, but the work was unaccomplished” —and only his son Yu succeeded in draining the land. This achievement was so highly rated that Yu became emperor of China after King Shun, first successor to Yahou. This Yu was the founder of the new and notable dynasty called by his name.

The chronicles of modem China preserve records of one million lives lost in a single overflow of the Yellow River. Another natural catastrophe—the earthquake—also caused great devastation in China at various times: it is estimated that in the year 1556 the quaking earth took 830,000 lives and 3,000,000 in 1662. Was not the catastrophe of the time of Yahou one of the major inundations of river as modern scholars suppose it to have been? But the fact that this catastrophe has been vivid in traditions for thousands of years, when neither the overflow of the Yellow River, when a million people perished, nor the great earthquakes, play a conspicuous part in th recollections of the nation, is an argument against the established interpretation.

Rivers do not overflow in the form of a sky-high wave. The over flowing rivers of China subside in a few weeks, and the water does not remain in the plains until the following spring, but flows away, and the ground dries in a few more weeks. The flood of Yahou required draining for many years, and during all this period water covered the lower part of the country.

Yahou’s reign is remembered for the following undertaking: This emperor sent scholars to different parts of China, and even to Indo-China, to find out the location of north, west, east, and south by observing the direction of the sun’s rising and setting and the motion of the stars. He also charged his astronomers to find out the duration of seasons, and to draw up a new calendar. The Shu King is called the oldest book of Chinese chronicles, rewritten from memory or from some hidden manuscript after the burning of books by Tsin-chi-hoang. In its oldest section, the Canon of Yaou [Yahouj, it is written:

“Thereupon Yaou [Yahou] commanded He and Ho, in reverent accordance with the wide heavens, to calculate and delineate the movements and appearances of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the zodiacal spaces; and to deliver respectfully the seasons to the people.”

The necessity, soon after the flood, of finding anew the four directions and learning anew the movements of the sun and the moon, of delineating the zodiacal signs, of compiling the calendar, of informing the population of China of the sequence of the seasons, creates the impression that during the catastrophe the orbit of the earth and the year, the inclination of the axis and the seasons, the orbit of the moon and the month, changed. We are not told what caused the cataclysm, but it is written in ancient annals that during the reign of Yahou “a brilliant star issued from the constellation Yin.”

According to the old Tibetan traditions, the highlands of Tibet, too, were flooded in a great cataclysm. The traditions of the Tibetans speak also of terrifying comets that caused great upheavals.”

Calculations were undertaken to establish the dates of the Emperor Yahou. On the basis of a remark that the constellation Niao, thought to be the constellation Hydra, culminated at Sunset of the day of the vernal equinox in the time of Yahou, it was reckoned that the flood occurred in the twenty-third century before the present era, but this date has been questioned by many. Sometimes it has also been supposed that the “Flood of Yahou” was the Chinese story of the universal flood, but this point of view has been abandoned. The story of the deluge of Noah has its parallel in a Chinese tradition about a universal flood in prehistoric times, in the days of Fo-hi, who alone of all the country was saved. The flood of Yahou is sometimes regarded as simultaneous with the flood of Ogyges.

The flood of Ogyges did not occur in the third millennium, but in the middle of the second millennium before this era. In the section entitled “The Floods of Deucalion and Ogyges,” the synchronism of these devastations with the catastrophes of the days of Moses and Joshua will be demonstrated and supported by ancient and chronological sources.

When we summarize what has been told about the time of Yahou, we have the following data: the sun did not set for a number of days, the forests were set on fire, vermin filled the country, a high wave “reaching the sky” poured over the face of the land and swept water over the mountain peaks and filled the valleys for many years; in days of Yahou the four quarters of the heaven were established anew, and observations of the duration of the year and month of the order of the seasons were made. The history of China in period before this catastrophe is quite obliterated.

All these data are in accord with the traditions of the Jewis people about the events connected with the Exodus: the sun disappeared for a number of days; the land was filled with vermin; gigantic sky-high tidal waves divided the sea; the world burned. As we shall see, the Hebrew sources, too, reveal that a new calendar was established reckoning from the days of the catastrophe and that the seasons and the four quarters of the heaven were no longer the same.

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