Xihe (deity)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Statue of the goddess Xihe charioteering the sun, being pulled by a dragon, in Hangzhou

Xihe or Hsi-ho (Chinese: 羲和, Xīhé) was a sun goddess in Chinese mythology. One of the two wives of Emperor Jun (along with Changxi), she was the 'mother' of ten suns, in the form of three-legged birds, residing in a mulberry tree in the eastern sea named Fusang. Each day one of the sun birds would be rostered to travel around the world on a carriage driven by Xihe.

Folklore also held that (around 2170 BC) all ten sun birds came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi the archer saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun birds.

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.