Houyi
Encyclopedia
Houyi also called Yiyi (夷羿) or simply Yi, was a mythological Chinese
archer
and the leader of Dongyi
. He is sometimes portrayed as a god of archery descended from heaven to aid mankind, and sometimes as the chief of the Youqiong Tribe (有窮氏) during the reign of King Tai Kang
of Xia Dynasty
. His wife, Chang'e
, was a lunar deity.
In Chinese mythology
, the sun is sometimes symbolized as a three-legged bird
, called a Sun-bird. There were ten of these Sun-birds, all of whom are the offspring of Dijun, God of the Eastern Heaven. The ten Sun-birds resided in a mulberry
tree in the eastern sea; each day one of the Sun-Birds would travel around the world on a carriage
, driven by Xihe
, the Mother of the Suns.
Folklore also held that, at around 2170 BC, the Sun-birds grew tired of the routine and decided that all of them were to rise at the same time. The heat on earth became intense. As a result, crops shriveled in the fields. Lakes and ponds dried up. Human and non-human animals cowered in shelters or collapsed from exhaustion. Time passed and the suffering continued. Yao
, the Emperor of China, decided to plead for divine intervention and to ask Dijun for aid.
Dijun was well aware of his sons' misdeeds, and sent for Houyi, the God of Archery, to teach his sons a lesson. Dijun wanted Houyi to simply frighten them so that they would not dare to cause mischief again. Houyi, too, wanted to settle this crisis peacefully, but a single glance at the scorched land was enough to convince him that desperate measures were needed. Angered by the suffering of the people caused by the Sun-birds' misconduct, Houyi lifted up his bow and shot them down one by one. Upon killing the ninth, Emperor Yao hurried to halt him as killing the last one would leave the world in total darkness. Houyi agreed and was hailed as a hero for mankind. Yet, later, Houyi's actions caused him to make enemies in Heaven and as a result he was punished with divine wrath.
, Count of the Winds, who created storms that swept across the Middle Kingdom, uprooting crops and tearing down houses. Fei Lian is a fearsome spirit who generally took the form of a one-eyed bull with the tail of a serpent; he resides in Mount Tai
. Using his power to travel on the wind, he tracked the gales back to the Demon's habitat. Noticing that the Divine Archer is about to come and get him, Fei Lian hid in a sack. When Houyi entered the monster's cave, he saw through the Demon's subterfuge, and fired an arrow at it, which burst the sack right open. Fei Lian attempted to run but Houyi quickly struck the Demon on his knee. Wounded, Fei Lian surrendered and promised not to stir up trouble again.
During his crusade, Houyi happened to come upon a river that had burst its banks. Houyi knew that this must be the doings of a turbulent water god, so he shot an arrow at random into the water. Soon the flood receded and a white-garbed figure on a white horse with several attendants surfaced upon the water. Instantly, Houyi attacked him, wounding him in the eye. The god then fled, leaving his companions behind. Next, Houyi took aim at the nearest figure but when he was about to fire, he noticed his target was a harmless girl. He swung his bow so that the arrow whistled harmlessly through her hair. The girl was Chang'e, the daughter of the water god that had fled. Houyi, stunned by her unearthly beauty, asked her on the spot to be his wife. Chang'e, with great respect for the hero, accepted the prosposal.
The next threat Houyi had to face was a plague of monsters marauding through the world. Among them was Chilseltooth, a fearsome giant with a single huge incisor protruding from the top of his mouth which he used to rend his victims' flesh. In addition, a monstrous water serpent (see Bashe
) was disrupting the calm of Lake Dongting, and the giant Peng
bird caused storms merely by flapping its wings. Houyi managed to fend off these menaces one after the other. For Houyi's service to the human realm, Emperor Yao bestowed on him the title of Marquis Pacifier of the Country. Tooth pulling was common among Baiyue such as Dawenkou culture
and Gan (state)
.
and become nothing. Searching for a way to regain his immortality, he traveled to the palace of Xi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West, in the Kunlun Mountains, seeking her elixir of immortality. The stories of the great hero Houyi were known to the goddess and she took pity on him and agreed to give him the elixir, but with one condition: knowing that Houyi was a skilled architect, she asked him to build her a summer palace in exchange for the immortality drug. He agreed and for many months he laboured and earned it. Before departing, Xi Wang Mu warned Houyi that the two elixirs she had given him were the last of their kinds. Houyi planned to spend them on himself and his wife.
When Houyi returned to his home, he found that Emperor Yao had urgent requests for him, and he made haste to respond. Houyi made a vital mistake by not taking the elixir immediately, and leaving them unguarded. While Houyi was hunting monstrous wild boars and dragons terrorizing the land, his wife stayed at home, and for months, he had no news of home.
In her boredom, Chang'e found the elixirs that her husband had left behind, and out of curiosity drank them both. At this moment, Houyi returned and to his surprise found his wife ascending to the moon. Houyi heard his wife's cry for help, tried to seize her but she was already beyond his reach. Chang'e would gain immortality and forever live alone on the moon with only white hares accompanying her.
Houyi had taught mortals the ways of using the bow and had a prized student called Feng Meng. Feng Meng's archery skills had blossomed under Houyi's tutelage and soon he saw himself as worthy of comparison with Houyi. One day, Feng Meng challenged him to a shooting contest. Houyi easily beat him and convinced Feng Meng there was no way he could catch up to his master. Blinded by jealousy, Feng Meng decided to murder his teacher. To him, it was entirely justified as Houyi was no longer an honorable hero but a tyrant. One day during a hunt, he attacked him, striking him on the back with a club. Along with others that were angry at Houyi, Feng Meng beat Houyi to death. Although these men were to be brought to justice, the epic of Houyi finally came to a bitter end. Later, the spirit of Houyi ascended to the sun and built a palace. So Chang'e and Houyi came to represent the yin and yang
, the moon and the sun.
According to the Zuo Zhuan
, the Youqiong tribe was conquered by Shaokang. Some researches have substantiated the hypothesis that the Gau people (Miao
:Qie; Chinese: Yizhi 羿子) and Gejia
are possible descendants of the ancient Youqiong.
of Australian rock band Powderfinger
's 2003 hit, "Sunsets".
A space mission design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
which was awarded a prize of the Planetary Society
in 2008 was named after Houyi. The objective of this mission is to track the potentially dangerous asteroid
99942 Apophis
.
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
archer
Archery
Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...
and the leader of Dongyi
Dongyi
Dongyi was a collective term for people in eastern China and in lands located to the east of ancient China. People referred to as Dongyi vary across the ages.The early Dongyi culture was one of earliest neolithic cultures in China....
. He is sometimes portrayed as a god of archery descended from heaven to aid mankind, and sometimes as the chief of the Youqiong Tribe (有窮氏) during the reign of King Tai Kang
Tai Kang
Tai Kang was the third sovereign of the Xia Dynasty. He was the son of Qi.He loved to hunt and did not rule well. Tai Kang drowned in a lake.He took the throne in the year of Guiwei .His capital was in Zhenxun ....
of Xia Dynasty
Xia Dynasty
The Xia Dynasty is the first dynasty in China to be described in ancient historical chronicles such as Bamboo Annals, Classic of History and Records of the Grand Historian. The Xia Dynasty was established by the legendary Yu the Great after Shun, the last of the Five Emperors gave his throne to him...
. His wife, Chang'e
Chang'e (mythology)
Chang'e, Ch'ang-O, Chang-Ngo or Sheung Ngo , originally known as Heng'e or Heng-O , is the Chinese goddess of the Moon. Unlike many lunar deities in other cultures who personify the Moon, Chang'e only lives on the Moon...
, was a lunar deity.
The Time of the Ten Suns
Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written tradition. These include creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the Chinese state...
, the sun is sometimes symbolized as a three-legged bird
Three-legged bird
The three-legged crow is a creature found in various mythologies and arts of Asia, Asia Minor, and North Africa. It is believed by many cultures to inhabit and represent the sun....
, called a Sun-bird. There were ten of these Sun-birds, all of whom are the offspring of Dijun, God of the Eastern Heaven. The ten Sun-birds resided in a mulberry
Mulberry
Morus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae. The 10–16 species of deciduous trees it contains are commonly known as Mulberries....
tree in the eastern sea; each day one of the Sun-Birds would travel around the world on a carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
, driven by Xihe
Xihe (deity)
In Chinese mythology, Xihe is a Chinese sun goddess. The wife of Emperor Jun, she was once the 'mother' of ten suns, in the form of Three-legged birds, residing in a mulberry tree in the eastern sea named Fusang...
, the Mother of the Suns.
Folklore also held that, at around 2170 BC, the Sun-birds grew tired of the routine and decided that all of them were to rise at the same time. The heat on earth became intense. As a result, crops shriveled in the fields. Lakes and ponds dried up. Human and non-human animals cowered in shelters or collapsed from exhaustion. Time passed and the suffering continued. Yao
Yao (ruler)
Yao , was a legendary Chinese ruler, one of the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors. His ancestral name （姓）is Yi Qi （伊祁） or Qi（祁）,clan name （氏）is Taotang , given name is Fangxun , as the second son to Emperor Ku and Qingdu...
, the Emperor of China, decided to plead for divine intervention and to ask Dijun for aid.
Dijun was well aware of his sons' misdeeds, and sent for Houyi, the God of Archery, to teach his sons a lesson. Dijun wanted Houyi to simply frighten them so that they would not dare to cause mischief again. Houyi, too, wanted to settle this crisis peacefully, but a single glance at the scorched land was enough to convince him that desperate measures were needed. Angered by the suffering of the people caused by the Sun-birds' misconduct, Houyi lifted up his bow and shot them down one by one. Upon killing the ninth, Emperor Yao hurried to halt him as killing the last one would leave the world in total darkness. Houyi agreed and was hailed as a hero for mankind. Yet, later, Houyi's actions caused him to make enemies in Heaven and as a result he was punished with divine wrath.
Banishment from the heavens
Although Yao was pleased with Houyi, Dijun was anything but happy. Yi had killed nine of the Sun-birds, nine of his errant children, instead of merely bringing them to heel as Dijun wished. As a father, Dijun could not forgive Yi, so he banished the hero from the heavens and stripped him of his immortality. He thought that if Houyi cared so much for the mortals, he could live as one.Houyi's heroic missions
Houyi then set off on a series of epic adventures to save China. First he had to deal with Fei LianFei Lian
Fei Lian / Fie Lien is the Chinese god of the wind. He is a winged dragon with the head of a sparrow, the horns of a bull, body and legs of a stag and the tail of a snake. He carries wind with him in a bag and stirs up trouble. Fei Lian is kept in check by Houyi, the heavenly archer. In his human...
, Count of the Winds, who created storms that swept across the Middle Kingdom, uprooting crops and tearing down houses. Fei Lian is a fearsome spirit who generally took the form of a one-eyed bull with the tail of a serpent; he resides in Mount Tai
Mount Tai
Mount Tai is a mountain of historical and cultural significance located north of the city of Tai'an, in Shandong province, People's Republic of China. The tallest peak is the Jade Emperor Peak , which is commonly reported as tall, but is described by the PRC government as .Mount Tai is one of the...
. Using his power to travel on the wind, he tracked the gales back to the Demon's habitat. Noticing that the Divine Archer is about to come and get him, Fei Lian hid in a sack. When Houyi entered the monster's cave, he saw through the Demon's subterfuge, and fired an arrow at it, which burst the sack right open. Fei Lian attempted to run but Houyi quickly struck the Demon on his knee. Wounded, Fei Lian surrendered and promised not to stir up trouble again.
During his crusade, Houyi happened to come upon a river that had burst its banks. Houyi knew that this must be the doings of a turbulent water god, so he shot an arrow at random into the water. Soon the flood receded and a white-garbed figure on a white horse with several attendants surfaced upon the water. Instantly, Houyi attacked him, wounding him in the eye. The god then fled, leaving his companions behind. Next, Houyi took aim at the nearest figure but when he was about to fire, he noticed his target was a harmless girl. He swung his bow so that the arrow whistled harmlessly through her hair. The girl was Chang'e, the daughter of the water god that had fled. Houyi, stunned by her unearthly beauty, asked her on the spot to be his wife. Chang'e, with great respect for the hero, accepted the prosposal.
The next threat Houyi had to face was a plague of monsters marauding through the world. Among them was Chilseltooth, a fearsome giant with a single huge incisor protruding from the top of his mouth which he used to rend his victims' flesh. In addition, a monstrous water serpent (see Bashe
Bashe
Bashe was a python-like Chinese mythological giant snake that ate elephants.-Name:The term bashe compounds ba 巴 "a proper name; tip, tail; crust; greatly desire; cling to; be near" and she 蛇 "snake; serpent"....
) was disrupting the calm of Lake Dongting, and the giant Peng
Peng (mythology)
Peng or Dapeng is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun giant fish in Chinese mythology. In comparative mythology of giant creatures, Peng is likened to the Roc or Garuda and Kun to the Leviathan.-Names:...
bird caused storms merely by flapping its wings. Houyi managed to fend off these menaces one after the other. For Houyi's service to the human realm, Emperor Yao bestowed on him the title of Marquis Pacifier of the Country. Tooth pulling was common among Baiyue such as Dawenkou culture
Dawenkou culture
The Dawenkou culture is a name given by archaeologists to a group of Neolithic communities who lived primarily in Shandong, but also appeared in Anhui, Henan and Jiangsu, China. The culture existed from 4100 BC to 2600 BC, co-existing with the Yangshao culture. Turquoise, jade and ivory artefacts...
and Gan (state)
Gan (state)
Gan was an ancient kingdom located what in what is now the province of Jiangxi in southern China. Gan is sometimes used as a nickname for Jiangxi....
.
The search for immortality
Although Houyi cared little about being banished from Heaven, he couldn't bear the fact that he would one day dieand become nothing. Searching for a way to regain his immortality, he traveled to the palace of Xi Wang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West, in the Kunlun Mountains, seeking her elixir of immortality. The stories of the great hero Houyi were known to the goddess and she took pity on him and agreed to give him the elixir, but with one condition: knowing that Houyi was a skilled architect, she asked him to build her a summer palace in exchange for the immortality drug. He agreed and for many months he laboured and earned it. Before departing, Xi Wang Mu warned Houyi that the two elixirs she had given him were the last of their kinds. Houyi planned to spend them on himself and his wife.
Chang'e's ascent to the Moon
In her boredom, Chang'e found the elixirs that her husband had left behind, and out of curiosity drank them both. At this moment, Houyi returned and to his surprise found his wife ascending to the moon. Houyi heard his wife's cry for help, tried to seize her but she was already beyond his reach. Chang'e would gain immortality and forever live alone on the moon with only white hares accompanying her.
The death of Houyi
The grief of the loss of his wife changed Houyi completely. He became violent and changed from a hero welcomed by the mortals to being hated as a tyrant.Houyi had taught mortals the ways of using the bow and had a prized student called Feng Meng. Feng Meng's archery skills had blossomed under Houyi's tutelage and soon he saw himself as worthy of comparison with Houyi. One day, Feng Meng challenged him to a shooting contest. Houyi easily beat him and convinced Feng Meng there was no way he could catch up to his master. Blinded by jealousy, Feng Meng decided to murder his teacher. To him, it was entirely justified as Houyi was no longer an honorable hero but a tyrant. One day during a hunt, he attacked him, striking him on the back with a club. Along with others that were angry at Houyi, Feng Meng beat Houyi to death. Although these men were to be brought to justice, the epic of Houyi finally came to a bitter end. Later, the spirit of Houyi ascended to the sun and built a palace. So Chang'e and Houyi came to represent the yin and yang
Yin and yang
In Asian philosophy, the concept of yin yang , which is often referred to in the West as "yin and yang", is used to describe how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Opposites thus only...
, the moon and the sun.
According to the Zuo Zhuan
Zuo Zhuan
The Zuo Zhuan , sometimes translated as the Chronicle of Zuo or the Commentary of Zuo, is among the earliest Chinese works of narrative history and covers the period from 722 BCE to 468 BCE. It is one of the most important sources for understanding the history of the Spring and Autumn Period...
, the Youqiong tribe was conquered by Shaokang. Some researches have substantiated the hypothesis that the Gau people (Miao
Miao people
The Miao or ม้ง ; ) is an ethnic group recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China as one of the 55 official minority groups. Miao is a Chinese term and does not reflect the self-designations of the component nations of people, which include Hmong, Hmu, A Hmao, and Kho Xiong...
:Qie; Chinese: Yizhi 羿子) and Gejia
Gejia
The Gejia is an ethnic group found in Guizhou province, southwestern China. They are officially classified as a part of the Miao ethnicity not all Gejia self-identify as such ....
are possible descendants of the ancient Youqiong.
Variations
There are variations of the story of people shooting suns among different Chinese peoples.Other uses
The tale was depicted in the music videoMusic video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
of Australian rock band Powderfinger
Powderfinger
Powderfinger was an Australian rock band that formed in Brisbane in 1989. From 1992 until their breakup the band lineup consisted of vocalist Bernard Fanning, guitarists Darren Middleton and Ian Haug, bassist John Collins, and drummer Jon Coghill....
's 2003 hit, "Sunsets".
A space mission design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University specialises in professional education in Hong Kong. The University’s teaching units are grouped under six faculties and two schools; the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles, Faculty of Business, Faculty of Construction and Environment, Faculty of...
which was awarded a prize of the Planetary Society
Planetary Society
The Planetary Society is a large, publicly supported, non-government and non-profit organization that has many research projects related to astronomy...
in 2008 was named after Houyi. The objective of this mission is to track the potentially dangerous asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
99942 Apophis
99942 Apophis
99942 Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 because initial observations indicated a small probability that it would strike the Earth in 2029. Additional observations provided improved predictions that eliminated the possibility of an impact on...
.
See also
- Mid-Autumn Festival#Stories of the Mid-Autumn Festival for variants of this legend.
- Solar deities
- Earth changesEarth changesThe phrase "Earth Changes" was coined by the American psychic Edgar Cayce torefer to the belief that the world will soon enter on a series of cataclysmic events causing major alterations in human life on the planet....
- NimrodNimrodNimrod means "Hunter"; was a Biblical Mesopotamian king mentioned in the Table of Nations; an eponym for the city of Nimrud.Nimrod can also refer to any of the following:*Nimród Antal, a director...