Classic of Mountains and Seas, 1597, plate XLIII

Zhurong (), also known as Chongli (), is an important personage in

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature in the geographic area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology includes many varied myths from regional and cultural traditions. Much of ...

and

Chinese folk religion Chinese folk religion, also known as Chinese popular religion comprehends a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. Vivienne Wee described it as "an empty bowl, which can variously be filled ...

. According to the '' Huainanzi'' and the philosophical texts of

Mozi Mozi (; ; Latinized as Micius ; – ), original name Mo Di (), was a Chinese philosopher who founded the school of Mohism during the Hundred Schools of Thought period (the early portion of the Warring States period, –221 BCE). The ancie ...

and his followers, Zhurong is a god of fire and of the south. The '' Shanhaijing'' gives alternative genealogies for Zhurong, including descent from both the

Yan Emperor The Yan Emperor () or the Flame Emperor was a legendary ancient Chinese ruler in pre-dynastic times. Modern scholarship has identified the Sheep's Head Mountains (''Yángtóu Shān'') just north of Baoji in Shaanxi Province as his homeland and ...

and

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

. Some sources associate Zhurong with some of the principal early and ancient myths of China, such as those of

Nüwa Nüwa, also read Nügua, is the mother goddess of Chinese mythology. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven. As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In the Huaina ...

( Nüwa Mends the Heavens), Gonggong, and the

Great Flood A flood myth or a deluge myth is a myth in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Parallels are often drawn between the flood waters of these myths and the primaeval ...

. Chinese mythology has in the past been believed to be, at least in part, a factual recording of history. Thus, in the study of historical Chinese culture, many of the stories that have been told regarding characters and events which have been written or told of the distant past have a double tradition: one tradition which presents a more historicised and one which presents a more mythological version. This is also true in the case of Zhurong. In

Sima Qian Sima Qian (; ; ) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his ''Records of the Grand Historian'', a general history of China covering more than two thousand years be ...

's ''

Records of the Grand Historian ''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...

'' (''Shi Ji''), Zhurong is portrayed as a historical person, who held the governmental office of Minister of Fire. Zhurong was said to be the son of Gaoyang (also known as

Zhuanxu Zhuanxu (Chinese: trad. , simp. , pinyin ''Zhuānxū''), also known as Gaoyang ( t , s , p ''Gāoyáng''), was a mythological emperor of ancient China. In the traditional account recorded by Sima Qian, Z ...

), a sky god. (Again, the more historicised versions of the mythology portray Zhuanxu as a historical person; in this case an "Emperor of China"). Gaoyang also had a son, Gun, who fathered

Yu the Great Yu the Great (大禹) was a legendary king in ancient China who was famed for his introduction of flood control, his establishment of the Xia dynasty which inaugurated dynastic rule in China, and his upright moral character. He figures promine ...

. The imperial clan of the

Qin Dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin state (modern Gansu and Shaanxi), ...

also claimed descent through Gaoyang (but not Zhurong). Zhurong was also claimed to be an ancestor to the eight lineages of the royal families of the

Chu state Chu, or Ch'u in Wade–Giles romanization, (, Hanyu Pinyin: Chǔ, Old Chinese: ''*s-r̥aʔ'') was a Zhou dynasty vassal state. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BCE. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou ...

Genealogy

Character genealogy

One aspect of the traditional Chinese characters used in the case of Zhurong's name is that the character is composed by combining the character 鬲 which refers to a ritual

cauldron A cauldron (or caldron) is a large pot ( kettle) for cooking or boiling over an open fire, with a lid and frequently with an arc-shaped hanger and/or integral handles or feet. There is a rich history of cauldron lore in religion, mythology, and ...

or tripodal vessel with three hollow legs, which is well known from archeological reports as a characteristic

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "Rock (geology), stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin ''wikt:aeneus, aeneus'' "of copper"), is an list of archaeologi ...

(Late Neolithic/Early Bronze) Age feature encountered in archaeological sites in northern China. This character is combined with another character, ; which, in the case of certain other complex characters is used productively to represent words with meanings related to worms, snakes, or insects. David Hawkes makes a connection between the characters in Zhurong's name and the culture and ceramic technology in ancient China.

Mythical ancestry

The '' Shanhaijing'' represents Zhurong as the son of a father whose name translates as "Play-with-Pots", who in turn is represented as the son of a father whose name translates as "Skillful Pot" (and is described as having a square top upon his head). In "General Introduction" to the ''

Chuci The ''Chu ci'', variously translated as ''Verses of Chu,'' ''Songs of Chu'', or ''Elegies of Chu'', is an ancient anthology of Chinese poetry including works traditionally attributed mainly to Qu Yuan and Song Yu from the Warring States period ...

'' anthology, Hawkes uses these observations to bolster his speculation of a significant relationship between the archeological evidence regarding ceramic technology and the cultural background of the ''

'' material.

Description

The

Wu Liang Shrine The Wu Family Shrines (), of which the Wu Liang Shrine is the best known, was the family shrine of the Wu clan of the Eastern Han dynasty. The shrines contain a vast amount of relief carvings. Three walls of Wu Liang's shrine were still standing ...

inscriptions describe Zhurong as: :「祝誦〔融〕氏：無所造為，未有嗜欲，刑罰未施。」 :" .. He did nothing. He was addicted to nothing and desired nothing. And punishment were not in ispractice."Barbieri, Anthony (2019)
Virtual Tour of Wuzhai Shan Site, 2nd Century CE (v. 2.0)
University of California, Santa Barbara. The entry for Zhurong is located at "Wu Liang" > right wall > second row of reliefs > second relief from the right

Notes

References

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External links

Unihan Database - U+9B32
Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Chinese gods Fire gods Deities in Chinese folk religion {{China-reli-stub