was said to be the creation god in Chinese mythology. He was a giant sleeping within an egg of chaos. As he awoke, he stood up and divided the sky and the earth. Pangu then died after standing up, and his body turned into rivers, mountains, plants, animals, and everything else in the world, among which is a powerful being known as Hua Hsu. Hua Hsu gave birth to a twin brother and sister, Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi and Nüwa are said to be creatures that have faces of human and bodies of snakes. Fuxi was known as the "original human", and he was said to have been born in the lower-middle reaches of the Yellow River in a place called Chengji. In reality, many Chinese people believe that Hua Hsu was a leader during the matriarchal society as early Chinese developed language skill while Fuxi and Nüwa were leaders in the early patriarchal society while Chinese began the marriage rituals.
Creation legend
According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Fuxi and Nüwa were the original humans who lived on the mythological Kunlun Mountain. One day they set up two separated piles of fire, and the fire eventually became one. Under the fire, they decided to become husband and wife. Fuxi and Nüwa used clay to create offspring, and with the divine power they made the clay figures come alive. These clay figures were the earliest human beings. Fuxi and Nüwa were usually recognized by Chinese as two of the Three Sovereigns in the early patriarchal society in China, based on the myth about Fuxi establishing marriage ritual in his tribe. The creation of human beings was a symbolic story of having a larger family structure that included the figure of a father.
Social importance
On one of the columns of the Fuxi Temple in Gansu Province, the following couplet describes Fuxi's importance: "Among the three primogenitors of Huaxia civilization, Fu Xi in Huaiyang Country ranks first." During the time of his predecessor Nüwa, society was matriarchal. Fuxi taught his subjects to cook, to fish with nets, and to hunt with weapons made of bone, wood, or bamboo. He instituted marriage and offered the first open-air sacrifices to heaven. A stone tablet, dated AD 160, shows Fuxi with Nüwa. Traditionally, Fuxi is considered the originator of the I Ching, which work is attributed to his reading of the He Map. According to this tradition, Fuxi had the arrangement of the trigrams of the I Chingrevealed to him in the markings on the back of a mythical dragon horse that emerged from the Luo River. This arrangement precedes the compilation of the I Ching during the Zhou dynasty. This discovery is said to have been the origin of calligraphy. Fuxi is also credited with the invention of the Guqinmusical instrument, though credit for this is also given to Shennong and Yellow Emperor. The Figurists viewed Fuxi as Enoch, the Biblical patriarch.
Gallery
Death
Fuxi is said to have lived for 197 years altogether and died at a place called Chen, where a monument to him can still be found and visited as a tourist attraction.
