I found some interestingly parallel records to biblical accounts of the tree of life, and the garden of Eden which Adam and Eve was blocked from entering by the angels after they committed sin.
Based on the findings and studies on Shanghaijing山海經, Huainanzi淮南子, Lunheng論衡, Tianwen天問, Sarah Allan summarizes about the legend of the ten suns.
“The Mulberry Tree tradition is best known to modern scholars from the myth that one day all ten suns rose at once and Archer Yi后羿 shot down nine of them. This story may have been used to explain the discrepancy between the conflicting traditions of then and one suns, but it assumes the motifs of the ten-sun tradition. These include:
1) the Fu Sang扶桑 in the East of the foot of which is the Valley of the Sun which contains a pool of water;
2) the Ruo Tree若木 in the West with water at its foot;
3) A watery underworld;
4) Ten as the number of the suns;
5) the suns identified with birds;
6) Xihe羲和 as the mother of the suns.
According to the Shuowen說文 the Fu Sang is a ‘spirit tree, that from which the sun(s) go out’.”
Sarah Allan considers that “the Fu Sang Tree was originally simply the Mulberry Tree and the Fu Mu, the Tree.
It is recorded that,
Above the Tang Valley 湯谷 is the Fu Sang.
[The Valley] is where in the ten suns bathe.
It is north of the Black Tooth Tribe. In the swirling water is a great tree.
Nine suns dwell on its lower branches; one sun, on its uppermost branch.
Shanhaijing (Haiwaidongjing海外東經) 9/97a-b
and:
On the top of a mountain named Nieyaojundi is the Fu Tree 扶木.
Although its trunk is three hundred li, it leaves are like those of mustard.
The valley there is called the Warm Springs Valley 溫源谷 (i.e. Tang Valley-Guo Pu).
Above the Tang Valley 湯谷 is the Fu Tree.
When one sun reaches it, another sun goes out; all of them carried by birds.
Shanghaijing (Dahuangdongjing 大荒東經) 14/65a-b
I have several speculations, which worth further exploration and studies by experts in biblical areas:
1) This is about a very ancient myth similar to that of the account in Genesis 1-4.
2) Fu Sang扶桑 that is translated as Mulberry Tree could be about the garden (of Eden), the woods, that Adam and Eve were not allowed to enter, for sang桑 looks pictographically like many trees.
3) The water is a symbol of life (especially when it comes with water). That reminds one of the tree of life.
4) The ten suns (when one sun reaches it, another sun goes out) could be either mean:
a) the day does not end for the aspiration in the Book of Revelation that echoes the Genesis account talks about the New Heaven and Earth where there is no darkness;
b) the days are too scorching when there are ten suns, representing that the man had to work hard under the sun and to sweat to work for living.
Sarah points out that:
“The name of the valley from which ths uns rise is written in these passages as Tang湯 with a water radical–the same character which is used in Zhou texts for the name of the founder of the Shang dynasty. It may also be written with one of three homophones pronounced Yang–暘, 陽, 口昜, Tang has a meaning of ‘hot water’ and the commentator Guo Pu郭璞 (A. D. 276-324) interprets the name of the valley as a reference to the heat of the water in which the suns bathe (9/97b). This interpretation is supported by the reference to the valley as the ‘Warm Springs Valley’ in the Dahuangdongjing passage, an apparently inadvertent error based on tang meaning hot water which does not occur in other texts.
When the valley from which the suns rise is called the Tang 湯 valley–with the water radical–the name of the valley includes the pool of water in which the sun tens bathe. However, with a sun or slope radical, the ‘Hot Water Valley’ becomes the ‘Sun Valley’. In this case, the pool of water sometimes has another name. For example, in the Huaninanzi (3/9a-b): ‘The sun comes out of the Yang Valley （暘谷) and bathers in the Xian Pool (咸池).’ The variation of the radical indicates that it was not originally present and the phonetic 昜itself carries the meaning of sun. Mythically, there is always a valley which contains a valley which contains a pool of water for the suns to bathe in.”
With regard to Shang Dynasty which is believed to be started by King Tang湯. It is interestingly worth for a cross-cultural and cross-scriptural studies of this legend.
It is also recorded that:
The Fu Tree in in Yang Zhou 陽州 and is that which the suns touch upon.
The Jian Tree is in Du Guang and is that which the many spirits 眾帝 descend from above….
The Ruo Tree is West the Jian Tree 健木.
When the ten suns are on the tips of its branches, it illumines the earth below.
Huainanzi (4/3a)
For Sarah Allan, see The Shape of the Turtle: Myth, Art, and Cosmos in Early China, (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991), 27-29.
