Xihe () was a solar deity 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 ...

. One of the two wives of

Di Jun Di Jun () also known as Emperor Jun is one of the ancient supreme deities of China, now known primarily through five chapters of the ''Shanhaijing'' (Yang 2005, 97). Di Jun had two wives, or consorts: Xihe (deity), Xihe and Changxi, and Di Jun figur ...

(along with Changxi), she was the mother of ten

sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

s in the form of three-legged crows residing in a

mulberry tree ''Morus'', a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinate ...

, the Fusang, in the East Sea. Each day, one of the sun birds would be rostered to travel around the world on a

carriage A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. In Europe they were a common mode of transport for the wealthy during the Roman Empire, and then again from around 1600 until they were replaced by the motor car around 1 ...

driven by Xihe. Folklore also held that once, all ten sun birds came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun birds.

Literature

In the poem ''Suffering from the Shortness of Days'' (苦晝短), Li He of the Tang dynasty is hostile and even deviant towards the legendary dragons that drew the sun chariot as a vehicle for the passage of time. The following is the relevant excerpt of that poem: :"I will cut off the dragon's feet, chew the dragon's flesh, :so that they can't turn back in the morning or lie down at night. :Left to themselves the old won't die; the young won't cry." 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 ...

'', the journey of the sun and the attendant of the sun chariot is described: :"The sun rises up from the Bright Valley, bathes in the Pool of Xian, and rests in the Fusang Tree. This is called Dawn Light. :Ascending the Fusang Tree, it thereupon commences its journey. This is called Emergent Brightness. : hen the sunreaches the Bent Slope, this is called Dawn Brilliance. : hen the sunreaches the Steaming Spring, this is called the Morning Meal. : hen the sunreaches the Mulberry Field, this is called the Late-Morning Meal. : hen the sunreaches the Balance Beam of Yang, this is called within the Angle. : hen the sunreaches Kun Wu, this is called the Exact Center. : hen the sunreaches the Bird Roost, this is called the Lesser Return. : hen the sunreaches the Valley of Grief, this is called the Dinner Hour. : hen the sunreaches Woman’s Sequence, this is called the Great Return. : hen the sunreaches the Angle of the Abyss, this is called the Raised Pestle. : hen the sunreaches Carriage Stone, this is called the Descending Pestle. : hen the sunreaches the Fountain of Grief, it halts; its female attendant rests her horses. This is called the Suspended Chariot. : hen the sunreaches the Abyss of Anxiety, this is called Yellow Dusk. : hen the sunreaches the Vale of Obscurity, this is called Definite Dusk. :The sun enters the floodwaters of the Abyss of Anxiety; sunrise emerges from the drainage stream of the Vale of Obscurity. : he suntravels over the nine continents, assing throughseven resting places, overing a distance of507,309 li. :The divisions f its journeymake dawn, daylight, dusk, and night."

References

{{reflist

External links

Chinese myths
Chinese goddesses Solar goddesses Classic of Mountains and Seas

Literature

See also

References

External links