The Legs mansion (奎宿,

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

: Kuí Xiù) is one of the

Twenty-Eight Mansions The Twenty-Eight Mansions (), also called or , are part of the Chinese constellations system. They can be considered as the equivalent to the Zodiac, zodiacal constellations in Western astronomy, though the Twenty-eight Mansions reflect the move ...

of the Chinese constellations. It is one of the western mansions of the White Tiger. The constellation Kui within the lunar mansion consists of 16 stars in the Western constellations Andromeda and Pisces. An older name of the constellation, dating back to the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

, was Tianshi (天豕), the Celestial Pig, with Zeta Andromedae as the pig's eye. Zeta Andromedae was originally the determinative star of Kui, but this became Eta Andromedae during the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

Cultural significance

In East Asian cultures, the Legs mansion (Kuí Xiù) represents wisdom, scholarship and literature. A notable example is a structure known as "Kuiwen Pavilion" (奎文閣) in the many Confucius temples in China and other East Asian countries. A

jade Jade is an umbrella term for two different types of decorative rocks used for jewelry or Ornament (art), ornaments. Jade is often referred to by either of two different silicate mineral names: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in t ...

sculpture of a pig from the Neolithic Lingjiatan culture is thought to represent the constellation Kui, as the Celestial Pig (Tianshi). It closely resembles the shape of the constellation, with its eye corresponding to Zeta Andromedae.

Asterisms

References

{{Chinese constellation Chinese constellations

Cultural significance

Asterisms

See also

References