Fuxi- Chinese PrimordialPrimordial"First of the Three Sovereigns"

Birth at Thunder Marsh

Fuxi was born in the mythical region of Chengji, in what is now Tianshui, Gansu Province. His mother Huáxù was wandering at Thunder Marsh (Léizé) when she stepped in a giant divine footprint left by a god. She became pregnant from this contact and bore Fuxi after a gestation of twelve years. Some traditions identify the owner of the footprint as the thunder god himself, making Fuxi's lineage both human and celestial.

In southern Chinese traditions, particularly among the Miao and Yao peoples, Fuxi is a brother-twin of Nüwa, both born from the same primordial event. Northern traditions sometimes present them as husband and wife without the sibling bond.

The Flood and the Gourd

A great flood sent by heaven destroyed all of humanity. Only Fuxi and Nüwa survived, having taken shelter inside an enormous gourd (húlú) that floated upon the deluge. When the waters receded, they found themselves the sole survivors on an empty earth.

Facing the extinction of humanity, the siblings were reluctant to marry, as it violated propriety. They devised a test: each would light a fire on a separate mountaintop, and if the smoke from the two fires merged in the sky, heaven would sanction their union. The smoke intertwined, and they married. In another version, they each rolled a millstone down from a mountain peak, and when the two stones landed one atop the other, the divine match was confirmed. From this union, all subsequent humanity descended.

The Serpent Sovereigns

Fuxi and Nüwa are depicted with human upper bodies and serpent tails, their lower halves intertwining. Han dynasty tomb paintings and stone reliefs show them in this form: Fuxi holding a carpenter's square, the tool of measurement and order, and Nüwa holding a compass, the instrument of circles and creative perfection. The image appears across Shandong, Sichuan, and the Astana tombs near Turfan.

The Dragon Horse and the Eight Trigrams

Fuxi's creation of the Eight Trigrams (Bāguà) is the foundation of the Yijing. According to the Xìcí Zhuàn, Fuxi looked up and observed the patterns of heaven, looked down and observed the laws of earth, noted the markings on birds and beasts, and from all of this derived the trigrams: eight combinations of solid (yang) and broken (yin) lines.

A more dramatic tradition holds that a divine dragon-horse (lóngmǎ) emerged from the Yellow River bearing on its back the Hé Tú (River Map), a pattern of black and white dots arranged in a cosmic configuration. Fuxi studied this diagram and from it derived the trigrams. A parallel tradition holds that a giant turtle emerged from the Luo River bearing the Luò Shū (Luo River Writing) on its shell, a magic square in which the numbers one through nine sum to fifteen in every direction.

The Gifts of Civilization

The Xìcí Zhuàn credits Fuxi with teaching humanity to cook food with fire and to hunt with nets. He had watched spiders catch insects in their webs, and from that observation invented the fishing net, then adapted the principle for game. He established the institution of marriage, decreeing that families take distinct surnames; a bride's family received a pair of deerskins as betrothal gifts.

The Green Emperor

Fuxi is the foremost of the Three Sovereigns (Sānhuáng), the mythical rulers who governed humanity before recorded history. Some traditions assign him a reign of 115 years from the city of Chen (modern Huaiyang in Henan Province). In the cosmological system associating each direction with a color and season, Fuxi is lord of the east and of spring, the direction of renewal. His title Green Emperor (Qīngdì) reflects this governance of the eastern quarter.

The Fuxi Temple at Tianshui in Gansu, near his legendary birthplace, holds annual festivals in the first lunar month. The Taihao Mausoleum in Huaiyang, regarded as his tomb, draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims to its annual temple fair. The site has been a center of worship for over two thousand years.