Shennong ( zh, c=神農, p=Shénnóng), variously translated as "Divine Farmer" or "Divine Husbandman", born , was a mythological Chinese ruler known as the first Yan Emperor who has become a deity in Chinese and

Vietnamese folk religion Vietnamese folk religion () or Đạo Lương (道良) is a group of spiritual beliefs and practices adhered to by the Vietnamese people. About 86% of the population in Vietnam are reported irreligion, irreligious, but are associated with this t ...

. He is venerated as a

culture hero A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group (Culture, cultural, Ethnic group, ethnic, Religion, religious, etc.) who changes the world through invention or Discovery (observation), discovery. Although many culture heroes help with ...

in China and Vietnam. In Vietnamese, he is referred to as . Shennong has at times been counted amongst the

Three Sovereigns According to Chinese mythology and traditional Chinese historiography, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors () were a series of sage Chinese emperors, and the first Emperor of China, Emperors of China. Today, they are considered culture heroe ...

(also known as "Three Kings" or "Three Patrons"), a group of ancient deities or deified kings of prehistoric China. Shennong has been thought to have taught the ancient Chinese not only their practices of

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

, but also the use of

herbal medicine Herbal medicine (also called herbalism, phytomedicine or phytotherapy) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. Scientific evidence for the effectiveness of many herbal treatments ...

. Shennong was credited with various inventions: these include the hoe,

plow A plough or (Differences between American and British spellings, US) plow (both pronounced ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses but modern ploughs ...

(both style and the

plowshare In agriculture, a plowshare (Differences between American and British spellings, US) or ploughshare (Differences between American and British spellings, UK; ) is a component of a plow (or plough). It is the cutting or leading edge, preceding t ...

axe An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...

, digging wells, agricultural irrigation, preserving stored seeds by using boiled horse urine (to ward off the borers),

trade Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. Traders generally negotiate through a medium of cr ...

, commerce,

money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: m ...

, the weekly

farmers market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or ...

, the

Chinese calendar The traditional Chinese calendar, dating back to the Han dynasty, is a lunisolar calendar that blends solar, lunar, and other cycles for social and agricultural purposes. While modern China primarily uses the Gregorian calendar for officia ...

(especially the division into the 24 '' jieqi'' or solar terms), and to have refined the therapeutic understanding of taking pulse measurements,

acupuncture Acupuncture is a form of alternative medicine and a component of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in which thin needles are inserted into the body. Acupuncture is a pseudoscience; the theories and practices of TCM are not based on scientif ...

, and

moxibustion Moxibustion () is a traditional Chinese medicine therapy which consists of burning dried mugwort ('' moxa'') on particular points on the body. It plays an important role in the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and ...

, and to have instituted the harvest thanksgiving ceremony ( sacrificial rite, later known as the rite). "Shennong" can also be taken to refer to his people, the ''Shennong-shi'' ().

Mythology

According to legend, Shennong's mother swallowed the vapor of a dragon and nine days later, her son was born on the banks of the river Jiang. He had a bull (or ox's) head with a man's body. He developed rapidly and began speaking after three days, eventually growing to over eight feet tall. In

Chinese mythology Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural tradit ...

, he obtained a mystical book of herbs from a Taoist master and later journeyed across China to record 365 medicinal herbs and fungi that became essential in traditional Chinese medicine. Shennong also taught humans the use of the plow, aspects of basic agriculture, and the use of

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae that is widely accepted as being indigenous to and originating from the continent of Asia. However, the number of species is disputed, with as many as three species be ...

. Possibly influenced by the Yan Emperor mythos or the use of

slash-and-burn Slash-and-burn agriculture is a form of shifting cultivation that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a Field (agriculture), field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody p ...

agriculture, Shennong was a god of burning wind. He was also sometimes said to be a progenitor to, or to have had as one of his ministers, Chiyou (and like him, was ox-headed, sharp-horned, bronze-foreheaded, and iron-skulled). Shennong is also thought to be the father of the

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch, or Huangdi ( zh, t=黃帝, s=黄帝, first=t) in Chinese, is a mythical Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He is revered as ...

() who carried on the secrets of medicine, immortality, and making gold. According to the eighth century AD historian Sima Zhen's commentary to the second century BC ''

Shiji The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st cen ...

'' (or, ''Records of the Grand Historian''), Shennong is a kinsman of the

and is said to be an

ancestor An ancestor, also known as a forefather, fore-elder, or a forebear, is a parent or ( recursively) the parent of an antecedent (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent and so forth). ''Ancestor'' is "any person from ...

, or a

patriarch The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Roman Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), the Hussite Church, Church of the East, and some Independent Catholic Churches are termed patriarchs (and ...

, of the ancient forebears of the Chinese. After the

Zhou dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ) was a royal dynasty of China that existed for 789 years from until 256 BC, the longest span of any dynasty in Chinese history. During the Western Zhou period (771 BC), the royal house, surnamed Ji, had military ...

, Shennong was thought to have existed within it by some "ancient Chinese historians" and religious practitioners as the "deified" form of "mythical wise king"

Hou Ji Hou Ji (or Houji; ) was a legendary Chinese culture hero credited with introducing millet to humanity during the time of the Xia dynasty.. Millet was the original staple grain of north and South China, northern China, prior to the introduction of ...

whose descendants later founded the Zhou. As an alternative to this view, Shennong was also thought of in the era of the

Hundred Schools of Thought The Hundred Schools of Thought () were philosophies and schools that flourished during the late Spring and Autumn period and Warring States period (221 BC). The term was not used to describe these different philosophies until Confucianism, M ...

as a culture hero rather than a god, but one with a supernatural digestive system who ate a specimen of every single plant that existed in the time of the Hundred Schools to find which ones were edible by humans. In the third century BCE, during times of political crisis and expansionism and wars among Chinese kingdoms, Shennong received new myths about his status as an ideal prehistoric ruler who valued laborers and farmers and "ruled without ministers, laws or punishments."

In literature

Sima Qian Sima Qian () was a Chinese historian during the early Han dynasty. He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for the ''Shiji'' (sometimes translated into English as ''Records of the Grand Historian''), a general history of China cov ...

() mentioned that the rulers directly preceding the

were of the house (or societal group) of Shennong. Sima Zhen, who added a prologue for the ''

Records of the Grand Historian The ''Shiji'', also known as ''Records of the Grand Historian'' or ''The Grand Scribe's Records'', is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st ce ...

'' (), said his surname was Jiang (), and proceeded to list his successors. An older and more famous reference is in the ''

Huainanzi The ''Huainanzi'' is an ancient Chinese text made up of essays from scholarly debates held at the court of Liu An, Prince of Huainan, before 139 BCE. Compiled as a handbook for an enlightened sovereign and his court, the work attempts to defi ...

''; it tells how, prior to Shennong, people were sickly, wanting, starved and diseased; but he then taught them agriculture, which he himself had researched, eating hundreds of plants — and even consuming seventy poisons in one day. Shennong also features in the book popularly known in English as ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

''. Here, he is referenced as coming to power after the end of the house (or reign) of Paoxi ( Fu Xi), also inventing a bent-wood plow, a cut-wood rake, teaching these skills to others, and establishing a noonday market. Another reference is in the '' Lüshi Chunqiu'', mentioning some violence with regard to the rise of the Shennong house, and that their power lasted seventeen generations. The '' Shénnóng Běn Cǎo Jīng'' is a book on agriculture and medicinal plants, attributed to Shennong. Research suggests that it is a compilation of oral traditions, written between about 200 and 250 AD.

Historicity

Reliable information on the history of China before the 13th century BC can come only from archaeological evidence because China's first established written system on a durable medium, the

oracle bone script Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtl ...

, did not exist until then. Thus, the concrete existence of even the

Xia dynasty The Xia dynasty (; ) is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, it was established by the legendary figure Yu the Great, after Emperor Shun, Shun, the last of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Fiv ...

, said to be the successor to Shennong, is yet to be proven, despite efforts by Chinese archaeologists to link that dynasty with Bronze Age Erlitou archaeological sites. However, Shennong, both the individual and the clan, are very important in Chinese

cultural history Cultural history records and interprets past events involving human beings through the social, cultural, and political milieu of or relating to the arts and manners that a group favors. Jacob Burckhardt (1818–1897) helped found cultural history ...

, especially in regards to

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

and

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

. Indeed, Shennong figures extensively in historical literature.

Popular religion

According to some versions of the myths about Shennong, he eventually died as a result of his researches into the properties of plants by experimenting upon his own body, after, in one of his tests, he ate the yellow flower of a weed that caused his intestines to rupture before he had time to swallow his antidotal tea: having thus given his life for humanity, he has since received special honor through his worship as the Medicine King (). The sacrifice of cows or oxen to Shennong in his various manifestations is never at all appropriate; instead pigs and sheep are acceptable. Fireworks and incense may also be used, especially at the appearance of his statue on his birthday, the 26th day of the fourth lunar month, according to popular tradition. Under his various names, Shennong is the patron deity of farmers, rice traders, and practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. Many temples and other places dedicated to his commemoration exist.

Popular culture

As noted above, Shennong is said in the ''Huainanzi'' to have tasted hundreds of

herb Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distingu ...

s to test their medical value. The most well-known work attributed to Shennong is '' The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic'' (), first compiled some time during the end of the

Western Han Dynasty The Han dynasty was an imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) and a warring in ...

— several thousand years after Shennong might have existed. This work lists the various medicinal herbs, such as '' lingzhi'', and

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

that were discovered by Shennong and given grade and rarity ratings. It is considered to be the earliest Chinese

pharmacopoeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, ''pharmacopœia''), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound med ...

, and includes 365 medicines derived from minerals, plants, and animals. Shennong is credited with identifying hundreds of medical (and poisonous)

s by personally testing their properties, which was crucial to the development of

traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...

. Legend holds that Shennong had a transparent body, and thus could see the effects of different plants and herbs on himself. He is also said to have discovered

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

, which he found it to be acting as an antidote against the poisonous effects of some seventy herbs he tested on his body. Shennong first tasted it, traditionally in ca. 2437 BC, from tea leaves on burning tea twigs, after they were carried up from the fire by the hot air, landing in his cauldron of boiling water. Shennong is venerated as the Father of Chinese medicine. He is also believed to have introduced the technique of

. Shennong is said to have played a part in the creation of the

guqin The ''guqin'' (; ) is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted b ...

, together with

Fuxi Fuxi or Fu Hsi ( zh, c=伏羲) is a culture hero in Chinese mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking, as well as the Cangjie syste ...

and the

. Scholarly works mention that the paternal family of famous

Song dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

General

Yue Fei Yue Fei (; March 24, 1103 – January 28, 1142), courtesy name Pengju (), was a Chinese military general of the Song dynasty and is remembered as a patriotic folk hero, national hero, known for leading its forces in Jin–Song Wars, the wars ...

traced their origins back to Shennong.

Places

Shennong is associated with certain geographic localities including

Shennongjia Shennongjia Forestry District ( zh, s=神农架林区, p=Shénnóngjià Línqū) is a county-level administrative unit (a "forestry district") in northwestern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, directly subordinated to the provincial gover ...

, in Hubei, where the

Calamoideae Calamoideae is a subfamily of flowering plant in the palm family found throughout Central America, South America, Africa, India, China, Southeast Asia and Australia. It is represented by 21 genera - containing nearly a quarter of all species i ...

ladder which he used to climb the local mountain range is supposed to have transformed into a vast forest. The Shennong Stream flows from here into the

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

Gallery

File:Chinese god Shen Nun, Painting by Nobukata.jpg, ''Shennong'' holding tea leaves, by Hasegawa Nobukata, early 17th century, Japan. File:Shennongding.jpg, Shennongding (): "Shennong's peak", associated with the story that Shennong had a ladder which he used to climb up and down the mountain, and which later turned into the local forest. File:Shennong3.jpg, Shennong tasting plants to test their qualities on himself. File:20100316-18 Yangtze River Cruise-Shennongxi Bridge.JPG, The Shennongxi () Bridge near its confluence with the Yangtze River. File:臺南藥王廟正面.JPG, Shennong Temple in

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "Taiwan Prefecture, ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

— where he is worshiped under the names King Yan (), God of

Five Grains The Five Grains or Cereals () are a set of five farmed crops that were important in ancient China. In modern Chinese ''wǔgǔ'' refers to rice, wheat, foxtail millet, proso millet and soybeans. It is also used as term for all grain crops in gene ...

(), Shennong the Great Emperor, the Ancestor of Farming, Great Emperor of Medicine, God of Earth, and God of Fields. File:Shinno (Shennong) derivative.jpg, Shennong (''Shinnō'' in Japanese) tasting herbs to discover their qualities; a distinctive, iconic pose often used in depictions of Shennong; in this case from a 19th-century

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese painting. File:Chinese woodcut, Famous medical figures; Shen Nong Wellcome L0039313.jpg, Shennong as depicted by Tang dynasty (618–907) figure Gan Bozong (), woodcut print in the a preface of an edition of the Ming dynasty book by Chen Jiamo (). File:C19 Chinese paintings of famous physicians; Shen Nong Wellcome L0039823.jpg, Chinese paintings of famous physicians: Shen Nong

References

Citations

Sources

* * * * *

External links

Statue of Shennong in ZhuZhou

"Shen Nong and Tea" article from The Tea Site.
{{Authority control Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Agriculturalism Chinese gods Guqin players Ancient China Health gods Fire gods Deities in Chinese folk religion Vietnamese folk religion Deified Chinese men Yan Emperor