世界上许多民族都有“上古世界毁灭于特大洪水”的神话,中国古籍《尚书·尧典》说:“汤汤洪水方割,荡荡怀山襄陵,浩浩滔天。”洪水漫及山腰,淹没丘陵,波涛在低空翻卷,大地被分割为众多孤立的“岛屿”,可见这场洪水之大了。 不少神话认为人类在这场灾难中除极少数的人,如一家人或一对兄妹,因躲进方舟或大葫芦得免于难以外,上古世界便完全被毁灭了。唯有古汉语系统的一些洪水神话不这样看,它认为人类并非坐以待毙和被动地乘坐某种漂浮物得以逃避,而是与洪水进行了长期的艰苦卓绝的抗争,并最终取得了胜利。它在世界洪水神话中所具有的独特色彩是显而易见的:即洪水并没有覆盖整个地球,而只是“怀山襄陵”,亦即包围高山,淹没丘陵。人类也绝大部分没有被毁灭,而只是遇到空前的治水困难。事实上,现代地质考古学的证据也没有支持洪水淹没整个世界的说法,因为根本就没有发现这场特大洪水的任何遗迹。本文不拟解决洪水的发生问题, Many ethnic groups in the world have the myth that “the ancient world was destroyed in a catastrophic flood.” The ancient Chinese book Shang Shu Yao Dian said: , Flooding hills, waves rolling at low altitude, the earth is divided into many isolated “islands”, we can see the flood. Many myths hold that the ancient world was completely destroyed except for a handful of people, such as a family or a brother and sister, in this disaster, hiding in an ark or big hoist. Only in some flood myths of the ancient Chinese system does not think so, it believes that human beings are not just waiting to take a ride and some floating objects to escape, but with the floods for a long period of arduous struggle, and eventually won. Its unique color in the myth of world floods is obvious: the flood does not cover the entire earth, but it is only “Xiangling Huayingshan”, that is, surrounded by mountains and submerged hills. The vast majority of humankind has not been destroyed, but only encountered an unprecedented flood control difficulties. In fact, the evidence of modern geological archeology also did not support the claim that the flood flooded the entire world because no relics of this extraordinary flood were found at all. This article does not intend to solve the problem of flood occurrence,