Fu Xi

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Ancient painting of Nuwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang.

In Chinese mythology, Fu Hsi or Fu Xi (Chinese: 伏羲; pinyin: fúxī; aka Paoxi (Traditional Chinese: 庖犧; pinyin: páoxī)), mid 2800s BC, was the first of the mythical Three Sovereigns (三皇 sānhuáng) of ancient China. He is a culture hero reputed to be the inventor of writing, fishing, and trapping.

Traditionally, Fu Hsi is considered the originator of the I Ching (also known as the Yi Jing or Zhou Yi), which work is attributed to his reading of the He Map (or the Yellow River Map). By this tradition, Fu Hsi had the arrangement of the trigrams (八卦 bāgùa) of the I Ching revealed to him supernaturally. This arrangement precedes the compilation of the I Ching during the Zhou dynasty. Fu Hsi is said to have discovered the arrangement in markings on the back of a mythical dragon-horse (sometimes said to be a turtle) that emerged from the river Luo. This discovery is also said to have been the origin of calligraphy.

The following passage, describing Fu Hsi's significance, is from the Báihǔ tōngyì (白虎通義) by Ban Gu (32 CE – 92 CE) at the beginning of the Later Han dynasty:

In the beginning there was as yet no moral or social order. Men knew their mothers only, not their fathers. When hungry, they searched for food; when satisfied, they threw away the remnants. They devoured their food hide and hair, drank the blood, and clad themselves in skins and rushes. Then came Fu Hsi and looked upward and contemplated the images in the heavens, and looked downward and contemplated the occurrences on earth. He united man and wife, regulated the five stages of change, and laid down the laws of humanity. He devised the eight trigrams, in order to gain mastery over the world.

—Ban Gu. Baihu tongyi. Quoted, with modifications, from the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baines, translators (1967).

Fu Hsi taught his subjects to cook, to fish with nets, and to hunt with weapons made of iron. He instituted marriage and offered the first open air sacrifices to heaven. A stone tablet, dated 160 CE shows Fu Hsi with Nüwa, who was both his wife and his sister.

Fu Hsi is also credited with the invention of the Guqin, together with Shennong and Huang Di.

[edit] Contemporary references to Fu Hsi

Fu Hsi and his wife Nüwa appear as unlockable characters in the video game Dynasty Warriors 3.

As with Nüwa, Fu Hsi also made an appearance in a Hong Kong television series, My Date with a Vampire 3, albeit Nu Wa appearing in the second part whilst Fu Hsi plays a major role in the third. In it, he is also called Ren Wang, or the King of Humanity, with a magical bow and arrow as his weapons. He was sent down from heaven and it is on him whom Nuwa based her creation, humanity. Within the show Nuwa and Fuxi are not married.

In the show, Fu Hsi is the same person as Hou Yi, as well as Genghis Khan. He is a vampire, or rather, a deity from Pan Gu (In the show, Pan Gu is not a single entity but an entire clan of people, who are incidentally vampires, albeit of a higher level than 'human' vampires in the show).

Fu Hsi is featured in the "Conversation on Information Technology over 5000 Years" sculptural panels at the Norwalk Community College Center for Information Technology, near New Haven, Connecticut. They were sculpted by the facility's architect, Barry Svigals.