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 throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural tradit ...

and

Chinese folk religion Chinese folk religion comprises a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. This includes the veneration of ''Shen (Chinese folk religion), shen'' ('spirits') and Chinese ancestor worship, ances ...

. According to 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 ...

'' and the philosophical texts of

Mozi Mozi, personal name Mo Di, was a Chinese philosopher, logician, and founder of the Mohist school of thought, making him one of the most important figures of the Warring States period (221 BCE). Alongside Confucianism, Mohism became the ...

and his followers, Zhurong is a god of fire and of the south. The '' Classic of Mountains and Seas'' gives alternative genealogies for Zhurong, including descent from both the Yan Emperor and

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 ...

. However, it is recorded in the suspicious part of and that were written last. 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 a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humani ...

( Nüwa Mends the Heavens),

Gonggong Gonggong () is a Chinese water god who is depicted in Chinese mythology and folktales as having a copper human head with an iron forehead, red hair, and the body of a serpent, or sometimes the head and torso are human, with the tail of a serpen ...

, 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 primeva ...

. 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 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 ...

's ''

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 ...

'', 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 (), also known as Gaoyang (), was a mythological emperor of ancient China. In the traditional account recorded by Sima Qian, Zhuanxu was a grandson of the Yellow Emperor. Association with Four Barbarians At the age of ten with Shao ...

), 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 A gun is a device that Propulsion, propels a projectile using pressure or explosive force. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns or water cannon, cannons), or gas (e.g. light-gas gun). So ...

, who fathered

Yu the Great Yu the Great or Yu the Engineer was a legendary king in ancient China who was credited with "the first successful state efforts at flood control", his establishment of the Xia dynasty, which inaugurated Dynasties in Chinese history, dynastic ru ...

. The imperial clan of the

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ) was the first Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China. It is named for its progenitor state of Qin, a fief of the confederal Zhou dynasty (256 BC). Beginning in 230 BC, the Qin under King Ying Zheng enga ...

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

state of Chu Chu (, Old Chinese: ''*s-r̥aʔ'') was an Ancient Chinese states, ancient Chinese state during the Zhou dynasty. Their first ruler was King Wu of Chu in the early 8th century BC. Chu was located in the south of the Zhou heartland and lasted ...

Genealogy

Etymology

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

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

(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 '' Classic of Mountains and Seas'' 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 ''

Chu Ci 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 ''Chu Ci'' material.

Description

The Wu Liang Shrine inscriptions describe Zhurong as: : :"[...]: He did nothing. He was addicted to nothing and desired nothing. And punishment were not in [his] practice." However, in one myth, Zhurong was interested in physical power and fought against Gonggong for days in a contest to see who was stronger. According to the ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'',

is a descendant of Zhurong. This raises suspicions that 's record was distorted in the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, 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 ...

for Chinese political purposes.

Notes

References

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External links

Unihan Database - U+9B32
{{Authority control Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Chinese gods Fire gods Deities in Chinese folk religion Classic of Mountains and Seas