20世纪以来，随着西方神话理论的传入和中国神话学学科的建立，许多学者都将目光投向中国上古的文献记载，试图在其中找到中国的神话。但令人沮丧的是，他们发现，诸如《山海经》、《淮南子》等传统文献中所包含的神话与西方国家的民族神话相比，展现出完全不同的面貌。面对古代典籍中零星分布的、不完整的神话资料，怎么将它们整理并连缀成一个较为完整的神话谱系，是学者们不断思考的问题。从茅盾以来，许多神话学家都投身于神话体系的研究之中。本文试图对中国神话领域的这一研究方向进行简要梳理，以几位重要学者的神话体系研究为线索，凸显其学术理念、研究方法的变化，从而理解其内在的学术脉络。

“神话体系”一词来自西方学者对本民族神话特征的概括，是一种“科学理性”的现代学术建构。19世纪以来，西方所提出的“中国神话零散而不成体系”的论断，事实上是对中国作为“他者”的文化歧视。自“神话”和神话学传入中国以来，这一论断引起广泛讨论，成为中国学者尝试建构神话体系的起点。

茅盾作为中国神话研究的先行者之一，提出了重建中国神话体系的许多重要见解。他主要引用人类学派的神话理论，提倡从古史文献中寻找原始神话，并参考古希腊、北欧等神话体系的框架重建中国神话体系。

丁山的研究则深受“古史辨”派的神话观影响。他关注史书中的帝系传说，对神话向历史演变的路径进行了细致的梳理，并在此基础上开展把古史还原为神话、把帝王世系还原为自然崇拜的神灵的研究。

程憬在继承人类学派和“古史辨”派神话研究传统的基础上，提出中国有“神话时代”和“神话系统”的观点，并通过文献考证和人类学视角下的比较、推理建构中国神话体系。他的体系建构仍然以希腊神话体系为参照，但在细处可以看出其尝试以《天问》为脉络梳理中国神话的努力。

袁珂是20世纪中国典籍神话研究的最重要学者。他在文学视角下进行神话研究，以“广义神话观”为指导，以故事内部逻辑为线索，将见载于文献典籍中的神话连缀并整合为一个整体。

纵观茅盾到袁珂的中国古代神话体系研究，可以发现他们研究背后共同的民族主义立场和神话历史化的价值判断，也能看到中国神话学学科建构和发展过程中，西方神话理论与传统学术资源互相对话、互相影响的轨迹。

In the early 20th century, with the input of western mythology theories, many scholars began to search for the corresponding "myth" in Chinese ancient literature. But to their great frustration, they found that the mythological materials contained in ancient Chinese classics presented a completely different look from the mythology of Greece and the Nordic countries. In the face of the myth fragments remaining in ancient Chinese books, how to reconstruct the Chinese ancient mythological system has become the goal of many scholars' diligent pursuit. This paper attempts to make a brief review of this research direction of Chinese mythology, taking several important scholars' research on the mythological system as the clue, highlighting the changes in their academic ideas and research methods, so as to understand their internal academic context.

The term "mythological system" comes from the generalization of the national mythological characteristics by western scholars, which is a modern academic construction of "scientific rationality". Since the 19th century, the western claim that "Chinese myths are fragmented and not systematic" is a cultural discrimination against China as "the other".  This statement has sparked a wide discussion in China and has become the starting point for Chinese scholars to construct a mythological system.

Mao Dun, as one of the pioneers in Chinese mythology, put forward many important opinions on the reconstruction of Chinese mythology system. He mainly cited the myth theory of the anthropology, advocated looking for the original myth from the ancient historical documents, and reconstructed the Chinese mythological system with reference to the framework of the ancient Greek and northern European mythological systems.

Ding Shan's view of myth was deeply influenced by the school of discussion in ancient Chinese history. He paid close attention to the legends of imperial lineage in history books, and made a detailed combing of the path of the evolution from myth to history. On this basis, he carried out the research of restoring ancient history to myth and imperial lineage to the gods worshipped by nature.

On the basis of inheriting the tradition of the Anthropology School and the school of discussion in ancient Chinese history, Cheng Jing proposed that China has a mythological age and mythological system. He constructed the Chinese mythological system by means of documentary research and comparative reasoning from the perspective of anthropology. His construction still takes the Greek myth system as a reference, but we can see from the details that he tries to sort out the Chinese myth in the context of Tian Wen.

Yuan Ke is one of the most important scholars in the study of Chinese mythology in the 20th century. He conducted the study of mythology from the perspective of literature, guided by the broad concept of myth. With the internal logic of the story as the clue, he interconnects and integrates the myths contained in the literature and classics into a whole.

     From Mao Dun to Yuan Ke's researches on Chinese ancient mythological system, we can find the common nationalist position behind their researches, the value judgment of the historicization of myth, and we can also see the track of the interaction between western myth theory and traditional academic resources in the construction and development of Chinese mythology discipline.