"西方"在中國神話里成為"帝"所在的圣域,起自于周人的信仰觀念,并創造出"昆侖"一詞,而逐漸形成完整的神話系統。《山海經》的"昆侖",可以區分為小昆侖、大昆侖和泛昆侖等三個層次,《西山經》是主要的依據。隨著神仙思想的擴大和佛教的傳播,"昆侖"不僅成為"仙鄉",位置產生變化,同時也與佛教"須彌山""阿耨達太山"等開始有了混合宗教崇拜與地理認知的新理解。若從真實地理的角度考察,則有"黃河河源"和"域外接壤"兩種不同的思路。然而唯一不變的是,"昆侖"始終是關于"他界""異域"的想象。

Starting from the Zhou Dynasty,a new vocabulary appeared:Kunlun.Kunlun is a special space related to the gods and the name of mountains.In ShanHaiJing,the scope of all God’s activities can be called Kunlun.Because of the people’s beliefs,especially Buddhism spreading to China,Kunlun not only became"the place where the gods lived,"but also changed its location.If we try to examine the true location of Kunlun,we can have two different ideas:"the source of the Yellow River"and"the border with different cultures".However,Kunlun is always an imaginary about"others".