Chinese Mythology's Original Texts 2: The Three Sovereigns & Five Emperors

Thank you for visiting. This article is the second installment in a series explaining the original texts of Chinese mythology.

This time, we look in detail at the legendary sage-kings said to have granted civilization to the people, the “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.”

The original texts telling of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors differ in character from the creation myths. Because they were treated as “ancient sage-kings” rather than gods themselves, their deeds were recorded as the beginning of history in the opening of the history book Shiji (the “Annals of the Five Emperors”) and the Confucian classic the Shangshu (Book of Documents). On the other hand, parts with a strong mythic coloring, like the battle of the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou, also remain in mythic original texts — in the geography Shanhaijing, and Shennong’s deeds in the Huainanzi. In this article, I explain while showing which original text each tradition is recorded in.

For an overview map of Chinese mythology’s original texts as a whole, please see this summary article.

The Original Texts of Chinese Mythology — The Shanhaijing & Article Indexen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-chinese/

What Are the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors?

The “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors” are eight ideal emperors (accounts vary) appearing in Chinese myth and legend, said to have laid the foundations of civilization. Positioned right at the border of myth and history, the history book Shiji too records these sage-kings as the beginning of Chinese history.

Which figures are the “Three Sovereigns” and “Five Emperors” differs by document, but here I take up the representative figures.

Putting their order of appearance into a diagram makes clear China’s distinctive flow, in which it shifts gently from myth (the age of gods) to history (the age of dynasties).

Chinese Myths and Legends from ZeroView on Amazon →

Fuxi — the God Who Brought the Wisdom of Civilization

“Fuxi,” like the creation goddess Nüwa, is depicted with a human upper body and a serpent lower body, and is sometimes taken to be Nüwa’s sibling (or spouse).

Fuxi granted many wisdoms of civilization to people still living in barbarism. He is said to have taught how to make nets to catch fish, how to raise livestock, and the use of fire.

His greatest achievement was creating the “eight trigrams (bagua).” The tradition that Fuxi made the eight trigrams is recorded in the “Xici” commentary of the divination book the I Ching. By legend, when Fuxi was gazing at the Yellow River, a dragon-horse bearing a mysterious pattern on its back appeared, and from that pattern, the “He Tu (Yellow River Chart),” he conceived the eight trigrams. The eight trigrams express every phenomenon of the natural world — heaven, earth, water, fire, thunder, wind, mountain, lake — through combinations of three lines (eight kinds), and are said to have become the prototype of the later I Ching (divination) and of Chinese characters (writing).

Besides this, Fuxi is also said to have established the customs of marriage for people and made the qin (a stringed instrument) to convey music — revered as the god who brought civilization itself to humankind.

Shennong — the God of Agriculture and Medicine

“Shennong,” as his name suggests, is the “god of agriculture,” sometimes depicted with the head of an ox.

In an age when people still relied on hunting for an unstable living, Shennong invented farming tools such as the plow and taught the people “agriculture,” growing grain.

Further, Shennong is known as the ancestor of medicine. To investigate which plants are medicine and which are poison, he used his own body as a test subject, putting the grasses and trees of the fields and mountains into his mouth and tasting them one after another. This is called “Shennong tasting the hundred herbs,” a tradition recorded in the Western Han philosophical work the Huainanzi, chapter “Xiuwu.” By one account, while being poisoned seventy times a day, each time he detoxified himself with a fast-acting medicine, systematizing the knowledge of medicinal herbs. There is also a tradition that he had a transparent body and verified with his own eyes how the grasses he ingested acted on his internal organs.

His achievement was later honored in the name of China’s oldest pharmacological text, the Shennong Bencao Jing, and became the foundation of Chinese herbal medicine. But it is also told that in the end Shennong put a deadly poisonous herb (the “gut-rending grass”) into his mouth and finally lost his life. For the sake of the people, he was the god who, literally at the risk of his life, opened the way to medicine.

The Yellow Emperor — the Ancestor of Chinese Civilization

The “Yellow Emperor” is the foremost of the Five Emperors and a supremely important being, revered as the common ancestor of the Han people (the Chinese).

In the Yellow Emperor’s time, the terrible war god “Chiyou,” with a bronze head and iron forehead, rose in rebellion leading 81 (or 72) brothers. This is the “Battle of Zhuolu,” said to be the greatest battle in Chinese mythology. The mythic depiction of this battle is conveyed in the geography Shanhaijing, “Dahuangbei” chapter, and its narration as history in the Shiji, “Annals of the Five Emperors.”

This battle was a tremendous clash of the gods’ powers.

• When Chiyou generated a thick fog that lost the Yellow Emperor’s army for three days, the Yellow Emperor invented the “south-pointing chariot,” always pointing south, and kept his course even in the fog.
• When Chiyou called the wind and rain gods to raise a storm, the Yellow Emperor called the drought goddess “Ba” to stop the rain.
• The Yellow Emperor commanded the winged dragon “Yinglong,” and made a drum from the hide of the one-legged monster “Kui,” daunting the enemy with its roar.

After a fierce battle, the Yellow Emperor finally defeated Chiyou, captured him, and executed him. Under the Yellow Emperor, who unified the realm by this victory, many things forming the root of Chinese civilization are said to have been born — writing, the calendar, medicine, music, sericulture (silk), boats and carts. And at the end of his reign, the Yellow Emperor is said to have ridden a dragon that descended from heaven and ascended to heaven itself.

Yao and Shun — Ideal Rule by Virtue

Among the Five Emperors, “Yao” and “Shun” were most revered in later China as ideal sage-rulers. Their deeds are detailed in the “Canon of Yao” and “Canon of Shun” of the Confucian classic the Shangshu (Book of Documents), and Shun’s filial piety is told in the Mencius and the Shiji, “Annals of the Five Emperors.” Because Confucians often cited them as models of ideal government, they are sage-kings especially valued in the original texts too.

The sage-king Yao, seeing that his own son was not of the caliber of a king, thought to pass the throne not by kinship but to a “person of virtue.” And he found “Shun,” who, though of poor origin, was reputed to be filial and of fine character.

Shun’s filial piety was extraordinary. Shun’s father (a blind, stubborn man), his stepmother, and his half-brother “Xiang” tried many times to kill him to seize his property. Having him repair a barn roof, they set fire from below; having him dig a well, they tried to fill it from above — and yet Shun escaped the dangers by his wit, and moreover, even afterward he did not resent his family and kept showing filial devotion. This extraordinary depth of virtue was exactly the reason he was recognized by Yao. Yao married his two daughters to Shun and, after a long trial, passed him the throne.

This succession of “passing the throne not by bloodline but to the most fitting person” is called “abdication (shanrang).” Shun too, at the end of his reign, passed the throne not to his own son but to the meritorious vassal “Yu,” who had tamed the great flood. This abdication of Yao and Shun came to be handed down long as a model of ideal government by virtue.

Yu — the Hero Who Tamed the Great Flood

The greatest achievement of “Yu,” to whom the throne was passed by Shun, was “flood control.” At the time, China was suffering from repeated great floods.

Yu’s flood control is recorded as history in the Shangshu, “Tribute of Yu” and the Shiji, “Annals of Xia,” but the mythic part concerning his father, Gun, is conveyed in the geography Shanhaijing, “Hainei” chapter. According to it, Yu was not the first to attempt flood control. Yu’s father, “Gun,” to stop the flood, stole from heaven a mysterious soil that increases endlessly on its own, the “xirang (self-growing earth).” Gun tried to build levees with this to dam the water but failed, and was executed by the heavenly emperor for the crime of stealing the soil. By one account, Yu was born from his corpse.

Yu, taking over his father’s failure, changed his approach. Rather than damming the water, he adopted the method of carving the mountains to open channels and “guiding” the water flow to the sea. By legend, Yu is also said to have changed into a giant bear and dug through the mountains, emphasizing his superhuman work.

Yu devoted himself to the flood-control work for 13 long years, touring the whole country. A famous anecdote showing his devotion is that he “passed in front of his own home three times but never once stopped in.” Thus Yu splendidly quelled the great flood, and by this achievement is said to have opened China’s first dynasty, the “Xia dynasty.”

The Lineup of the Five Emperors, and What the Yellow Emperor Left

Who exactly the “Five Emperors” refers to — in fact the lineup differs by original text. The most widely known are the five given by the history book the Shiji, “Annals of the Five Emperors.”

Of these, Zhuanxu is also the god who contended with the water god Gonggong, who caused Nüwa’s mending of heaven in Article 1, and is told of as an important emperor who established the order of the world by “cutting the passage of heaven and earth, where gods and humans had freely come and gone, and separating the world of the gods from the world of humans.”

Also, the deeds of the Yellow Emperor, taken to be the ancestor of civilization, swelled richer in later ages. His vassal Cangjie invented Chinese characters (writing) from hints in the footprints of birds and beasts, his wife Leizu began sericulture (silk-making), musicians fixed the musical scales, and medicine was compiled — thus every foundation of civilization is said to have been born in the Yellow Emperor’s time. That China’s medical classic the Huangdi Neijing (Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor) bears the Yellow Emperor’s name is also an expression of this tradition of “attributing the source of all knowledge to the Yellow Emperor.”

To Learn More

Here are some related books. Reading them alongside this series lets you savor this world even more deeply.

Chinese Myths and LegendsView on Amazon → Chinese Mythology: The Birth of the GodsView on Amazon →

Conclusion

In this article, I explained the sage-kings of Chinese myth and legend, the “Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors,” in detail. How was it?

Fuxi, who created the eight trigrams; Shennong of agriculture and medicine; the ancestor of civilization, the Yellow Emperor; Yao and Shun, who carried out abdication by virtue; and Yu, who tamed the great flood — their stories show the process by which myth shifts into history that tells the origin of civilization and ideal government.

In the next article (Article 3), I will explain the stories of the heroes that color Chinese mythology, such as Houyi, who shot down the suns, and Chang’e, who ascended to the moon.

The Original Texts of Chinese Mythology — The Shanhaijing & Article Indexen.senkohome.com/myths-religions-origins-chinese/

I hope you’ll read the next article too.