The World / China
China
The end as renewal: a messiah named Li Hong returns at the close of each world cycle to set heaven and earth right.
Chinese eschatology runs along two tracks. The Confucian mainstream imagined dynastic cycles — the mandate of heaven passing from house to house — which is decline without a finale. The Daoist counter-tradition, forged in the rebellions of the Han, produced the archive's Chinese apocalypse: the Divine Incantations Scripture, the messianic figure Li Hong, and the end of world cycles as cosmic renewal. The Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184–205 CE shows how quickly apocalyptic language became political weaponry in China — and how durable that pattern proved.
Traditions
Buddhist Eschatology (Dharma and the Kalpa)
draftedThe end as the decline of the teaching: the Buddha's dharma decays by stages until it vanishes, the kalpa ends in fire, water, and wind, and the future Buddha Maitreya appears to teach once more. In East Asia the decline became Mappō, a dated dark age; in Tibet it took the form of the Shambhala war.
4 myths
Taoist Eschatology (Li Hong and the Incantations)
draftedThe end as renewal: the Divine Incantations Scripture (5th c. CE) tells of the messiah Li Hong, who appears at the close of world cycles to rescue the chosen and rebuild society on Taoist lines — apocalyptic faith that became rebellion in the Yellow Turban uprising.
1 myth