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It took him nine years to finally finish the collection. With 5,500 lines, the new edition was selected as the best of many different versions, compiled after Hu skimmed through more than 30,000 lines of the original manuscripts. Liu, who has read most of the original material, said, "So far, the
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Yuan Ke, a scholar in
Chinese mythology, carefully studied the original materials and supported Liu's suggestion that the Epic of Darkness is a folk epic. Yuan said that the discovery of "Darkness" could be regarded a historic event in the folklore history of the Han people. Yuan suggested some
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In August 1982, Hu
Chongjun was given a songbook by an old local farmer. The booklet was written in brush and ink with about 3,000 lines of seven Chinese characters each. It was split into four sections: the beginnings of the Universe; the Birth of Pangu; the
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In the same year, the
Beijing-based Hualian Publishing House bought the copyrights to publish the Epic of Darkness. But due to financial problems, publication of the book was delayed year after year.
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In 2000, Zhou Baiyi, publisher of the
Changjiang Arts Publishing House, persuaded Hu to end his former contract with Hualian Publishing House and gave rights to his publishing house.
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people should further study the different versions and rearrange with caution, the manuscripts into an integrated epic, without ruining its original flavor.
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In the beginning, everything was a cloud of gas, chaos and darkness. After eons of effort, the first drop of water was created by a deity named Jiang Ku (
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content of this edition is the richest one. Compared with other versions, this edition is more beautiful and is in the linguistic style."
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of China. It was translated and published by Hu
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Province. The tales told in the story have survived in the folk songs of the region.
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Liu
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314:A Follow-up Study on the Legend of Darkness
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