Fuxi
Fuxi is a culture hero in Chinese mythology credited with teaching people hunting, fishing, cooking, and the eight trigrams.
I Ching: The Chinese classic of divination and cosmology organized around hexagrams and their interpretations. Later tradition connects Fuxi’s eight trigrams to the foundations of this classic.
Nüwa: A Chinese goddess associated with creation and the repair of the broken sky. Myths often pair her with Fuxi as a sibling, spouse, or co-creator.
Culture hero: A legendary figure credited with introducing practices, technologies, or institutions that shape human society. Fuxi is a classic example, credited with teaching essential skills and social forms.
Fuxi and Nüwa: A recurring paired motif in Chinese art depicting Fuxi and Nüwa with intertwined serpent-like bodies. The motif presents Fuxi within the creation and cosmic-order traditions shared with Nüwa.
Eight Trigrams: Eight three-line figures used in Chinese cosmology and divination, each associated with natural forces and qualities. They are Fuxi’s most enduring attributed invention.
Chinese mythology: The body of traditional stories about gods, heroes, origins, and supernatural events in Chinese culture. Fuxi belongs to its accounts of humanity’s beginnings and cultural inventions.
Chinese calendar: A lunisolar calendar system used historically in China to organize months, years, and seasonal observances. Traditions of Fuxi’s civilizing work place him among figures who ordered human life and time.
Fuxi diagram: A traditional arrangement of the eight trigrams attributed to the culture hero Fuxi. This diagram gives visual form to the most famous intellectual achievement assigned to him.
Shanhaijing: An ancient Chinese compilation of geographic, mythic, and legendary accounts. Its accounts preserve early traditions about Fuxi and his place among primordial figures.
Yin and Yang: A Chinese cosmological model describing complementary, interdependent forces in nature and change. Later readings of the trigrams connect Fuxi’s diagrams with yin-yang cosmology.