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90-476: There are several versions of the legend. One tells that shortly after unifying China, the Yellow Emperor , being dissatisfied with the "rope knot tying" method of recording information, charged Cangjie with the task of creating characters for writing. Cangjie then settled down on the bank of a river, and devoted himself to the completion of the task at hand. Even after devoting much time and effort, however, he

180-684: A definition in apocryphal texts related to the Hétú 河圖 , the Yellow Emperor "proceeds from the essence of the Yellow God". As a cosmological deity, the Yellow Emperor is known as the "Great Emperor of the Central Peak" ( 中岳大帝 Zhōngyuè Dàdì ), and in the Shizi as the "Yellow Emperor with Four Faces" ( 黃帝四面 Huángdì Sìmiàn ). In old accounts the Yellow Emperor is identified as a deity of light (and his name

270-521: A divine heritage would positively affect their claim to legitimacy. Harvard University historian Michael Puett writes that the Qi bronze inscription was one of several references to the Yellow Emperor in the fourth and third centuries BC within accounts of the creation of the state. Noting that many of the thinkers who were later identified as precursors of the Huang–Lao – "Huangdi and Laozi" – tradition came from

360-426: A doubt, the hoof print of a Pixiu , being different from the hoof-print of any other beast that was alive. His conversation with the hunter greatly inspired Cangjie, leading him to believe that if he could capture in a drawing the special characteristics that set apart each and every thing on the earth, this would truly be the perfect kind of character for writing. From that day forward, Cangjie paid close attention to

450-405: A farmer and tamed six different special beasts: the bear ( 熊 ), the brown bear ( 罴 ; 羆 ), the pí ( 貔 ) and xiū ( 貅 ) (which later combined to form the mythical Pixiu ), the ferocious chū ( 貙 ), and the tiger ( 虎 ). Huangdi is sometimes said to have been the fruit of extraordinary birth , as his mother Fubao conceived him as she was aroused, while walking in the country, by

540-542: A figure paradigmatic of emperorship. In his Shiji , Sima Qian claims that the state of Qin started worshipping the Yellow Emperor in the fifth century BC, along with Yandi , the Fiery Emperor. The altars were established at Yong 雍 (near modern Fengxiang County in Shaanxi province), which was the capital of Qin from 677 to 383 BC. By the time of King Zheng , who became king of Qin in 247 BC and First Emperor of

630-519: A fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia . The work comprises two texts—each of eighty-one chapters or treatises in a question-and-answer format between the mythical Yellow Emperor and six of his equally legendary ministers. The first text, the Suwen ( 素問 ), also known as Basic Questions , covers the theoretical foundation of Chinese Medicine and its diagnostic methods. The second and generally less referred-to text,

720-556: A god who could reveal new teachings – in the form of texts such as the sixth-century Huangdi Yinfujing – to his earthly followers. The Yellow Emperor became a powerful national symbol in the last decade of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and remained dominant in Chinese nationalist discourse throughout the Republican period (1912–1949). The early twentieth century is also when the Yellow Emperor

810-569: A later transformation and systematization of Shang mythology ." In her view, Huangdi was originally an unnamed "lord of the underworld" (or the "Yellow Springs"), the mythological counterpart of the Shang sky deity Shangdi. At the time, Shang rulers claimed that their mythical ancestors, identified with "the [ten] suns, birds, east, life, [and] the Lord on High" (i.e., Shangdi), had defeated an earlier people associated with "the underworld, dragons, west." After

900-478: A lightning bolt from the Big Dipper . She delivered her son on the mount of Shou (Longevity) or mount Xuanyuan, after which he was named. Another story states that "Huang Di came into being when the energies that instigated the beginning of the world merged with one another, and created human beings by placing earthen statues at the cardinal points of the world and leaving them exposed for 300 years. During that time,

990-479: A massive migration of his people into China around 2300 BC and founded what later became Chinese civilization. European sinologists quickly rejected these theories, but in 1900 two Japanese historians, Shirakawa Jirō and Kokubu Tanenori, omitted these criticisms and published a long summary that presented Lacouperie's views as the most advanced Western scholarship on China. Chinese scholars were quickly attracted by "the historicization of Chinese mythology " that

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1080-566: A medical classic, and the Huangdi Sijing , a group of political treatises – were thus attributed to him. Having waned in influence during most of the imperial period , in the early twentieth century Huangdi became a rallying figure for Han Chinese attempts to overthrow the rule of the Qing dynasty, remaining a powerful symbol within modern Chinese nationalism . Until 221 BC when Qin Shi Huang of

1170-680: A modern translator of the Records of the Grand Historian , states that Huangdi was originally the head of the Youxiong clan, which lived near what is now Xinzheng in Henan. Rémi Mathieu, a French historian of Chinese myths and religion, translates "Youxiong" as "possessor of bears" and links Huangdi to the broader theme of the bear in world mythology. Ye Shuxian has also associated the Yellow Emperor with bear legends common across northeast Asia people as well as

1260-618: A total of 25 sons, 14 of whom began their own surnames and clans. The oldest was Shaohao or Xuan Xiao, who lived in Qingyang by the Yangtze River . Changyi , the second son, lived by the Ruo River . When the Yellow Emperor died, he was succeeded by Changyi's son, Zhuan Xu . The chronological tables found in chapters 13 of the Shiji represent all past rulers – legendary ones such as Yao and Shun,

1350-456: A unified China in 221 BC, Huangdi had become by far the most important of the four "thearchs" ( di 帝 ) who were then worshiped at Yong. The figure of Huangdi had appeared sporadically in Warring States texts. Sima Qian 's Shiji (or Records of the Grand Historian , completed around 94 BC) was the first work to turn these fragments of myths into a systematic and consistent narrative of

1440-403: A work on the sovereigns of antiquity, commented that Xuanyuan was the name of a hill where Huangdi had lived and that he later took as a name. The Classic of Mountains and Seas mentions a Xuanyuan nation whose inhabitants have human faces, snake bodies, and tails twisting above their heads; Yuan Ke , a contemporary scholar of early Chinese mythology, "noted that the appearance of these people

1530-444: Is a "novel etymology" likening huang 黄 to the phonetically close wang 尪 (the "burned shaman" in Shang rainmaking rituals), Lewis suggests that "Huang" in "Huangdi" might originally have meant "rainmaking shaman" or "rainmaking ritual." Citing late Warring States and early Han versions of Huangdi's myth, he further argues that the figure of the Yellow Emperor originated in ancient rain-making rituals in which Huangdi represented

1620-437: Is also a mirror called the "Xuanyuan Mirror". In the second century AD, Huangdi's role as a deity was diminished because of the rise of a deified Laozi . A state sacrifice offered to "Huang-Lao jun" was not offered to Huangdi and Laozi, as the term Huang-Lao would have meant a few centuries earlier, "yellow Laozi". Nonetheless, Huangdi kept being considered as an immortal: he was seen as a master of longevity techniques and as

1710-490: Is characteristic of gods and suggested that they may reflect the form of the Yellow Thearch himself". The Qing dynasty scholar Liang Yusheng ( 梁玉繩 , 1745–1819) argued instead that the hill was named after the Yellow Emperor. Xuanyuan is also the name of the star Regulus in Chinese, the star being associated with Huangdi in traditional astronomy. He is also associated to the broader constellations Leo and Lynx , of which

1800-537: Is credited with teaching his people how to build shelters, tame wild animals, and grow the Five Grains , although other accounts credit Shennong with the last. He invents carts, boats, and clothing. Other inventions credited to the emperor include the Chinese diadem ( 冠冕 ), throne rooms ( 宮室 ), the bow sling , early Chinese astronomy , the Chinese calendar , math calculations, code of sound laws ( 音律 ), coins and

1890-528: Is explained in the Shuowen jiezi to derive from guāng 光 , "light") and thunder, and as one and the same with the "Thunder God" ( 雷神 Léishén ), who in turn, as a later mythological character, is distinguished as the Yellow Emperor's foremost pupil, such as in the Huangdi Neijing . The Chinese historian Sima Qian  – and much Chinese historiography following him – considered

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1980-534: Is often regarded in the West as arising from Laozi , many Chinese Taoists claim the Yellow Emperor formulated many of their precepts, including the quest for "long life". The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon ( 黃帝內經 Huángdì Nèijīng ), which presents the doctrinal basis of traditional Chinese medicine , was named after him. He was also credited with composing the Four Books of the Yellow Emperor ( 黃帝四經 Huángdì Sìjīng ),

2070-552: Is rooted in the hearts of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor," whereas in 1986 the PRC acclaimed the Chinese-American astronaut Taylor Wang as the first of the Yellow Emperor's descendants to travel in space . In the first half of the 1980s, the Party had internally debated whether this usage would make ethnic minorities feel excluded. After consulting experts from Beijing University ,

2160-541: Is that the Suwen belongs to the second century BCE, and cites evidence that the Suwen is earlier than the first of the pharmaceutical natural histories, the 神農本草經 Shennong Bencao Jing ( Divine Farmer's Classic of the Materia Medica ). So suggestive are parallels with third and fourth century BCE literature that doubt arises as to whether the Suwen might be better ascribed to the third century BCE, implying that certain portions may be of that date. The dominant role

2250-577: Is the product of the eleventh-century Imperial Editorial Office (beginning in 1053 CE) and was based considerably on Wang Bing's 762 CE version. Some of the leading scholars who worked on this version of the Suwen were 林億 Lin Yi, 孫奇 Sun Qi, 高保衡 Gao Baoheng and 孫兆 Sun Zhao. For images of the Chong Guang Bu Zhu Huangdi Neijing Suwen printed in the Ming dynasty , (1368–1644 CE) see

2340-428: Is traditionally credited with numerous innovations – including the lunar calendar ( Chinese calendar ), Taoism , wooden houses, boats, carts, the compass needle , "the earliest forms of writing ", and cuju , a ball game. Calculated by Jesuit missionaries , as based on various Chinese chronicles, Huangdi's traditional reign dates begin in either 2698 or 2697 BC, spanning one hundred years exactly, later accepted by

2430-526: Is unclear, but historians have formulated several hypotheses about it. Yang Kuan , a member of the Doubting Antiquity School (1920s–40s), argued that the Yellow Emperor was derived from Shangdi , the highest god of the Shang dynasty . Yang reconstructs the etymology as follows: Shangdi 上帝 → Huang Shangdi 皇上帝 → Huangdi 皇帝 → Huangdi 黄帝 , in which he claims that huang 黃 ("yellow") either

2520-672: The Lingshu ( 靈樞 ; Spiritual Pivot ), discusses acupuncture therapy in great detail. Collectively, these two texts are known as the Neijing or Huangdi Neijing. In practice, however, the title Neijing often refers only to the more influential Suwen . Two other texts also carried the prefix Huangdi Neijing in their titles: the Mingtang ( 明堂 ; Hall of Light ) and the Taisu ( 太素 ; Grand Basis ), both of which have survived only partially. The book

2610-766: The Yellow Emperor's Book of the Hidden Symbol ( 黃帝陰符經 Huángdì Yīnfújīng ), and the "Yellow Emperor's Four Seasons Poem(軒轅黃帝四季詩)" included in the Tung Shing fortune-telling almanac. "Xuanyuan (+ number)" is also the Chinese name for Regulus and other stars of the constellations Leo and Lynx , of which the latter is said to represent the body of the Yellow Dragon. In the Hall of Supreme Harmony in Beijing's Forbidden City , there

2700-533: The 1911 Revolution , which overthrew the Qing dynasty. In 1912, for instance, banknotes carrying Huangdi's effigy were issued by the new Republican government. After 1911, however, the Yellow Emperor as national symbol changed from first progenitor of the Han race to ancestor of China's entire multi-ethnic population. Under the ideology of the Five Races Under One Union , Huangdi became the common ancestor of

2790-797: The Chinese Academy of Social Science , and the Central Nationalities Institute , the Central Propaganda Department recommended on March 27, 1985, that the Party speak of the Zhonghua Minzu  – the "Chinese nation" broadly defined – in official statements, but that the phrase "sons and grand-sons of Yandi and the Yellow Emperor" could be used in informal statements by party leaders and in "relations with Hong Kong and Taiwanese compatriots and overseas Chinese compatriots". After retreating to Taiwan in late 1949 at

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2880-569: The Dangun legend . Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian describes the Yellow Emperor's ancestral name as Gongsun ( 公孫 ). In Han dynasty texts, the Yellow Emperor is also called upon as the "Yellow God" ( 黃神 Huángshén ). Certain accounts interpret him as the incarnation of the "Yellow God of the Northern Dipper " ( 黄神北斗 Huángshén Běidǒu ), another name of the universal god ( Shangdi 上帝 or Tiandi 天帝 ). According to

2970-700: The Han Chinese , the Manchu people , the Mongols , the Tibetans , and the Hui people , who were said to form the Zhonghua minzu , a broadly understood Chinese nation. Sixteen state ceremonies were held between 1911 and 1949 to Huangdi as the "founding ancestor of the Chinese nation " ( 中華民族始祖 ) and even "the founding ancestor of human civilization" ( 人文始祖 ). The cult of the Yellow Emperor

3060-789: The Mausoleum of the Yellow Emperor in Huangling , Yan'an , in mainland China. Gay studies researcher Louis Crompton has cited Ji Yun 's report in his popular Notes from the Yuewei Hermitage (1800), that some claimed the Yellow Emperor was the first Chinese to take male bedmates, a claim that Ji Yun dismissed. Ji Yun argued that this was probably a false attribution. Today, Xuanyuanjiao based on Taiwan represents an organised form of Yellow Emperor worship married to Confucian orthodoxy. As with any myth, there are numerous versions of Huangdi's story, emphasizing different themes and interpreting

3150-481: The Qin dynasty coined the title huangdi ( 皇帝 ) – conventionally translated as " emperor " – to refer to himself, the character di 帝 did not refer to earthly rulers but to the highest god of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC) pantheon. In the Warring States period (c. 475–221 BC), the term di on its own could also refer to the deities associated with the five Sacred Mountains of China and colors. Huangdi ( 黃帝 ),

3240-461: The Suwen and the Lingshu . The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic ( Huangdi Neijing , 黃帝內經 ) is the most important ancient text in Chinese medicine as well as a major book of Daoist theory and lifestyle. The text is structured as a dialogue between the Yellow Emperor and one of his ministers or physicians, most commonly Qíbó ( 岐伯 ), but also Shàoyú ( 少俞 ). One possible reason for using this device

3330-485: The Tongmenghui , featured the Yellow Emperor on its cover and called Huangdi "the first great nationalist of the world." It was one of several nationalist magazines that featured the Yellow Emperor on their cover in the early twentieth century. The fact that Huangdi meant "yellow" emperor also served to buttress the theory that he was the originator of the "yellow race". Many historians interpret this sudden popularity of

3420-671: The Yan Emperor were both leaders of a tribe or a combination of two tribes near the Yellow River . The Yan Emperor hailed from a different area around the Jiang River , which a geographical work called the Shuijingzhu identified as a stream near Qishan in what was the Zhou homeland before they defeated the Shang. Both emperors lived in a time of warfare. The Yan Emperor proving unable to control

3510-558: The Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi ( / ˈ hw ɑː ŋ ˈ d iː / ), is a mythical Chinese sovereign and culture hero included among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors , and an individual deity ( shen ) or part of the Five Regions Highest Deities ( Chinese : 五方上帝 ; pinyin : Wǔfāng Shàngdì ) in Chinese folk religion . Regarded as the initiator of Chinese culture , he

3600-698: The Zhou dynasty overthrew the Shang dynasty in the eleventh century BC, Zhou leaders reinterpreted Shang myths as meaning that the Shang had vanquished a real political dynasty, which was eventually named the Xia dynasty . By Han times – as seen in Sima Qian 's account in the Shiji – the Yellow Emperor, who as lord of the underworld had been symbolically linked to the Xia, had become a historical ruler whose descendants were thought to have founded

3690-467: The "yellow di ", was one of the latter. To emphasize the religious meaning of di in pre-imperial times, historians of early China commonly translate the god's name as "Yellow Thearch" and the first emperor's title as "August Thearch", in which "thearch" refers to a godly ruler. In the late Warring States period, the Yellow Emperor was integrated into the cosmological scheme of the Five Phases , in which

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3780-505: The 1920s by historians such as Gu Jiegang , one of the founders of the Doubting Antiquity School in China. In their attempts to prove that the earliest figures of Chinese history were mythological, Gu and his followers argued that these ancient sages were originally gods who were later depicted as humans by the rationalist intellectuals of the Warring States period. Yang Kuan , a member of

3870-535: The Communists, sponsored the production of the movie Children of the Yellow Emperor ( Huangdi zisun 黃帝子孫 ), which was filmed mostly in Taiwanese Hokkien and showed extensive passages of Taiwanese folk opera . Directed by Bai Ke (1914–1964), a former assistant of Yuan Muzhi , it was a propaganda effort to convince speakers of Taiyu that they were linked to mainland people by common blood. In 2009 Ma Ying-jeou

3960-491: The Neijing, the universe can be represented by various symbols and principles, such as yin and yang (--，—）, the wuxing （which must be interpreted as symbols no different than x,y, z or a, b, c in algebra), and qi . These systems of abstraction of natural phenomenon aid our understanding of natural processes of which human health is among. Man is a microcosm that mirrors the larger macrocosm. The principles of yin and yang,

4050-428: The Xia. Given that the earliest extant mention of the Yellow Emperor was on a fourth-century BC Chinese bronze inscription claiming that he was the ancestor of the royal house of the state of Qi , Lothar von Falkenhausen speculates that Huangdi was invented as an ancestral figure as part of a strategy to claim that all ruling clans in the " Zhou dynasty culture sphere" shared common ancestry. Explicit accounts of

4140-498: The Yellow Emperor as a reaction to the theories of French scholar Albert Terrien de Lacouperie (1845–94), who in a book called The Western Origin of the Early Chinese Civilization, from 2300 B.C. to 200 A.D. (1892) had claimed that Chinese civilization was founded around 2300 BCE by Babylonian immigrants. Lacouperie's " Sino-Babylonianism " posited that Huangdi was a Mesopotamian tribal leader who had led

4230-505: The Yellow Emperor started to appear in Chinese texts during the Warring States period . The earliest extant mention of Huangdi is an inscription on the Chen Hou Yinqi dui ( 陳侯因齊敦 ), cast during the first half of the fourth century BC by the royal family (surnamed Tian 田 ) of the state of Qi , a powerful eastern state. As the Tian family had usurped the throne of Qi , establishing such

4320-407: The Yellow Emperor to be a more historical figure than earlier legendary figures such as Fu Xi , Nüwa , and Shennong . Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian begins with the Yellow Emperor, while passing over the others. Throughout most of Chinese history, the Yellow Emperor and the other ancient sages were considered to be historical figures. Their historicity started to be questioned in

4410-605: The Yellow Emperor's "career". The Shiji ' s account was extremely influential in shaping how the Chinese viewed the origin of their history. The Shiji begins its chronological account of Chinese history with the life of Huangdi, whom it presents as a sage sovereign from antiquity. It recounts that Huangdi's father was Shaodian and his mother was Fubao ( 附寶 ). The Yellow Emperor had four wives. His first wife Leizu of Xiling bore him two sons. His other three wives were his second wife Fenglei ( 封嫘 ), third wife Tongyu ( 彤魚 ) and fourth wife Momu ( 嫫母 ). The emperor had

4500-580: The Yellow Race ( Huangshi 黃史 ), which was published serially from 1905 to 1908, Huang Jie ( 黃節 ; 1873–1935) claimed that the "Han race" was the true master of China because it was descended from the Yellow Emperor. Reinforced by the values of filial piety and the Chinese patrilineal clan , the racial vision defended by Huang and others turned vengeance against the Manchus into a duty owed to one's ancestors. The Yellow Emperor continued to be revered after

4590-411: The characteristics of all things, including the sun, moon, stars, clouds, lakes, rivers, oceans, as well as all manner of bird and beast. He began to create characters according to the special characteristics he found, and before long, had compiled a long list of characters for writing. To the delight of the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie presented him with the complete set of characters. The emperor then called

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4680-515: The color yellow represents the earth phase , the Yellow Dragon , and the center. The correlation of the colors in association with different dynasties was mentioned in the Lüshi Chunqiu (late 3rd century BC), where the Yellow Emperor's reign was seen to be governed by earth. The character huang 黃 ("yellow") was often used in place of the homophonous huang 皇 , which means "august" (in

4770-470: The concept of money , and cuju , an early Chinese version of football. He is also sometimes said to have been partially responsible for the invention of the guqin zither , although others credit the Yan Emperor with inventing instruments for Ling Lun 's compositions. There are other major traditions where Fuxi was the one who invented the calendar and the Yellow Emperor merely reformed and intercalated it. In traditional accounts, he also goads

4860-429: The discoveries at Mawangdui. Those medical texts also show that it is not one book, "but a collection of diverse writings, many of which disagree and some of which comment on others. He is also of the opinion that (as of 1998) "no available translation is reliable." They therefore challenge earlier arguments. Celestial Lancets (1980, by Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei-djen ) states that the consensus of scholarly opinion

4950-459: The disorder within his realm, the Yellow Emperor took up arms to establish his domination over various warring factions. Huangdi Neijing Huangdi Neijing ( simplified Chinese : 黄帝内经 ; traditional Chinese : 黃帝內經 ; pinyin : Huángdì Nèijīng ), literally the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor or Esoteric Scripture of the Yellow Emperor , is an ancient Chinese medical text or group of texts that has been treated as

5040-404: The end of the Chinese Civil War , Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT) ruled that the Republic of China (ROC) would keep paying homage to the Yellow Emperor on April 4, the National Tomb Sweeping Day , but neither he nor the three presidents that succeeded him ever paid homage in person. In 1955, the KMT, which was led by Mandarin speakers and still poised on retaking the mainland from

5130-452: The first ancestors of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, as well as the founders of the main ruling houses in the Zhou sphere – as descendants of Huangdi, giving the impression that Chinese history was the history of one large family. The Dai Dai Liji ( 大戴禮記 ), compiled by Dai De towards the end of the Western Han dynasty , carries a quote attributed to Confucius: 生而民得其利百年, 死而民畏其神百年, 亡而民用其教百年, 故曰三百年. When [the Yellow Emperor]

5220-524: The five elements, the environmental factors of wind, damp, hot and cold and so on that are part of the macrocosm equally apply to the human microcosm. Traditional medicine is a way for man to maintain this balance. Before archeological discoveries at Mawangdui , Hunan , in the 1970s, the work had been dated to between the Warring States period to as late as the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). However, excavations found medical texts that changed this opinion. Jianmin Li, Vivienne Lo and Donald Harper agree that

5310-408: The five phases and six qi, inserted over 5000 commentaries and reorganized the text into twenty-four juan (books) and eighty-one treatises. In his preface to his version of the Suwen , Wang Bing goes into great detail listing the changes he made. (See Veith, Appendix II and Unschuld pages 41–43.) Not much is known about Wang Bing's life but he authored several books. A note in the preface left by

5400-532: The historian Cangjie into creating the first Chinese character writing system, the Oracle bone script , and his principal wife Leizu invents sericulture and teaches his people how to weave silk and dye clothes. At one point in his reign the Yellow Emperor allegedly visited the mythical East sea and met a talking beast called the Bai Ze who taught him the knowledge of all supernatural creatures. This beast explained to him there were 11,522 (or 1,522) kinds of supernatural creatures. The Yellow Emperor and

5490-423: The larger characters that comprise the main or unannotated Suwen text. See Unschuld, pages 40 and 44.) According to Unschuld (pages 39 and 62) Wang Bing's version of the Suwen was based on Quan Yuanqi's (early sixth century) commented version of the Suwen consisting of nine juan (books) and sixty-nine discourses. Wang Bing made corrections, added two "lost" discourses, added seven comprehensive discourses on

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5580-490: The later editors of the Chong Guang Bu Zhu Huangdi Neijing Suwen (version compiled by 1053 editorial committee) which was based on an entry in Tang Ren Wu Zhi ( Record on Tang [Dynasty] Personalities ) states that he was an official with the rank of tai pu ling and died after a long life of more than eighty years. The "authoritative version" used today, Chong Guang Bu Zhu Huangdi Neijing Suwen 重廣補註黃帝內經素問 ( Huangdi Neijing Suwen: Again Broadly Corrected [and] Annotated ),

5670-406: The latter is said to represent the body of the Yellow Dragon ( 黃龍 Huánglóng ), Huangdi's animal form. Huangdi was also referred to as "Youxiong" ( 有熊 ; Yǒuxióng ). This name has been interpreted as either a place name or a clan name. According to British sinologist Herbert Allen Giles (1845–1935), that name was "taken from that of [Huangdi's] hereditary principality". William Nienhauser,

5760-442: The main character's significance in different ways. According to Huangfu Mi (215–282), the Yellow Emperor was born in Shou Qiu ("Longevity Hill"), which is today on the outskirts of the city of Qufu in Shandong. Early on, he lived with his tribe near the Ji River – Edwin Pulleyblank states that "there seems to be no record of a Ji River outside the myth" – and later migrated to Zhuolu in modern-day Hebei . He then became

5850-464: The most common media on which the earliest known Chinese inscriptions are found, including the Jiahu symbols . There are tombs dedicated to Cangjie in the provinces of Shandong , Henan , Hebei , and Shaanxi . His descendants are said to bear the surname Shǐ (史) , in recognition of his service as official historiographer. [REDACTED] Media related to Cangjie at Wikimedia Commons Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor , also known as

5940-404: The power of rain and clouds, whereas his mythical rival Chiyou (or the Yan Emperor ) stood for fire and drought. Also disagreeing with Yang Kuan's hypothesis, Sarah Allan finds it unlikely that such a popular myth as the Yellow Emperor's could have come from a taboo character. She argues instead that pre-Shang "'history'," including the story of the Yellow Emperor, "can all be understood as

6030-436: The premiers of each of the nine provinces together in order for Cangjie to teach them this new writing system. Monuments and temples were erected in Cangjie's honor on the bank of the river where he created these characters. Another version of the legend tells that Cangjie was inspired by observing the network of veins on a turtle. This version is particularly interesting relative to archaeology because turtle shells are one of

6120-422: The racial consciousness they thought was missing from their compatriots, and thus depicted the Manchus as racially inferior barbarians who were unfit to rule over Han Chinese . Chen's widely circulated pamphlets claimed that the "Han race" formed one big family descended from the Yellow Emperor. The first issue (Nov. 1905) of the Minbao 民報 ("People's Journal"), which was founded in Tokyo by revolutionaries of

6210-607: The same current of historiography , noted that only in the Warring States period had the Yellow Emperor started to be described as the first ruler of China. Yang thus argued that Huangdi was a later transformation of Shangdi , the supreme god of the Shang dynasty 's pantheon . Also in the 1920s, French scholars Henri Maspero and Marcel Granet published critical studies of China's accounts of high antiquity. In his Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne ["Dances and legends of ancient China"], for example, Granet argued that these tales were "historicized legends" that said more about

6300-422: The second century BCE. The work subsequently underwent major editorial changes. Du Fu , a fourteenth-century literary critic, was of the opinion that the Suwen was compiled by several authors over a long period. Its contents were then brought together by Confucian scholars in the Han dynasty era. In 762 CE, Wang Bing finished his revision of the Suwen after labouring for twelve years. Wang Bing collected

6390-473: The sense of 'distinguished') or "radiant", giving Huangdi attributes close to those of Shangdi, the Shang supreme god. The Records of the Grand Historian , compiled by Sima Qian in the first century BC, gives the Yellow Emperor's name as "Xuan Yuan" ( traditional Chinese : 軒轅 ; simplified Chinese : 轩辕 ; pinyin : Xuān Yuán < Old Chinese ( B-S ) * qʰa[r]-[ɢ]ʷa[n] , lit. "Chariot Shaft" ). Third-century scholar Huangfu Mi , who wrote

6480-419: The state of Qi, Robin D. S. Yates hypothesizes that Huang–Lao originated in that region. The cult of Huangdi became very popular during the Warring States period (5th century – 221 BC), a period of intense competition between rival states which ended with the unification of the realm by the state of Qin . In addition to his role as ancestor, he became associated with "centralized statecraft" and emerged as

6570-407: The statues became filled with the breath of creation and eventually began to move [after the 300 years]. Huang Di...received his magic powers when he was 100 years old. He [became a xian ] and, riding a dragon , rose to heaven where he became one of the five [ Wufang Shangdi ]. Huang Di himself rules over the fifth cardinal point, the centre." In traditional Chinese accounts, the Yellow Emperor

6660-494: The systematic medical theory in the Neijing shows significant variance from Mawangdui Silk Texts , which were sealed in a royal tomb in 168 BCE. Because of this, they consider the Neijing to have been compiled after the Mawangdui texts. Historian of science Nathan Sivin (University of Pennsylvania) concluded that the Suwen and Lingshu probably date to the first century BCE, far later than most scholars would have dated it before

6750-490: The theories of yin/yang and the five elements play in the physiology and pathology indicates that these medical theories are not older than about 320 BCE. The German scholar Paul U. Unschuld says several 20th-century scholars hypothesize that the language and ideas of the Neijing Suwen were composed between 400 BCE and 260 CE, and provides evidence that only a small portion of the received text transmits concepts from before

6840-461: The time when they were written than about the time they purported to describe. In the "middle of the [20th] century, a group of" Chinese "historians proposed the theory that [the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors ]" were originally Chinese gods who became thought of as human during the later period of the Zhou dynasty . Most scholars now agree that the Yellow Emperor originated as a god who

6930-415: The twentieth-century promoters of a universal calendar starting with the Yellow Emperor. Huangdi's cult is first attested in the Warring States period , and became prominent late in that same period and into the early Han dynasty , when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as the Huangdi Neijing ,

7020-405: The two Japanese authors advocated. Anti-Manchu intellectuals and activists who searched for China's "national essence" ( guocui 國粹 ) adapted Sino-Babylonianism to their needs. Zhang Binglin explained Huangdi's battle with Chi You as a conflict opposing the newly arrived civilized Mesopotamians to backward local tribes, a battle that transformed China into one of the most civilized places in

7110-464: The various versions and fragments of the Suwen and reorganized it into the present eighty-one chapters (treatises) format. Treatises seventy-two and seventy-three are lost and only the titles are known. Originally his changes were all done in red ink, but later copyists incorporated some of his additions into the main text. However, the 1053 version discussed below restored almost all of his annotations and they are now written in small characters next to

7200-489: The world. Zhang's reinterpretation of Sima Qian's account "underscored the need to recover the glory of early China." Liu Shipei also presented these early times as the golden age of Chinese civilization. In addition to tying the Chinese to an ancient center of human civilization in Mesopotamia, Lacouperie's theories suggested that China should be ruled by the descendants of Huangdi. In a controversial essay called History of

7290-412: Was a variant Chinese character for huang 皇 ("august") or was used as a way to avoid the naming taboo for the latter. Yang's view has been criticized by Mitarai Masaru and by Michael Puett. Historian Mark Edward Lewis agrees that huang 黄 and huang 皇 were often interchangeable, but disagreeing with Yang, he claims that huang meaning "yellow" appeared first. Based on what he admits

7380-414: Was alive, people benefited from his rule for a hundred years; after he died, people stood in awe of his spirit for a hundred years; after [his spirit] disappeared, people used his teachings for a hundred years. For this reason, people say [that the Yellow Emperor lived for] three hundred years. The Yellow Emperor was credited with an enormous number of cultural legacies and esoteric teachings. While Taoism

7470-550: Was first referred to as the ancestor of all Chinese people . Starting in 1903, radical publications started using the projected date of his birth as the first year of the Chinese calendar . Intellectuals such as Liu Shipei (1884–1919) found this practice necessary in order to "preserve the [Han] race" ( baozhong 保種 ) from both dominance by Manchu people and foreign encroachment. Revolutionaries motivated by Anti-Manchuism such as Chen Tianhua (1875–1905), Zou Rong (1885–1905), and Zhang Binglin (1868–1936) tried to foster

7560-400: Was for the (anonymous) authors to avoid attribution and blame. The Neijing departs from the old shamanistic beliefs that disease was caused by "demonic influences" (邪气）which is to be interpreted as any disease causing element, be it virus, bacteria or carcinogen, which can further be categorised by imbalance in diet, lifestyle, emotions, environment and the premature aging, etc. According to

7650-603: Was forbidden in the People's Republic of China until the end of the Cultural Revolution. The prohibition was halted during the 1980s when the government reversed itself and resurrected the "Yellow Emperor cult". Starting in the 1980s, the cult was revived and phrases relating to the "Descendants of Yan and Huang" were sometimes used by the Chinese state when referring to people of Chinese descent. In 1984, for example, Deng Xiaoping argued for Chinese unification saying " Taiwan

7740-451: Was later represented as a historical person. K. C. Chang sees Huangdi and other cultural heroes as "ancient religious figures" who were " euhemerized " in the late Warring States and Han periods. Historian of ancient China Mark Edward Lewis speaks of the Yellow Emperor's "earlier nature as a god", whereas Roel Sterckx , a professor at University of Cambridge , calls Huangdi a "legendary cultural hero". The origin of Huangdi's mythology

7830-549: Was listed in the Hanshu bibliography corresponded with two different books that circulated in his own time: the Suwen and the Zhenjing 鍼經 ("Needling Canon"), each in 9 juan. Since scholars believe that Zhenjing was one of the Lingshu' s earlier titles, they agree that the Han dynasty Huangdi Neijing was made of two different texts that are close in content to the works we know today as

7920-514: Was popular among Taoists. The earliest mention of the Huangdi Neijing was in the bibliographical chapter of the Hanshu 漢書 (or Book of Han , completed in 111 CE), next to a Huangdi Waijing 黃帝外經 ("Outer Canon of the Yellow Emperor") that is now lost. A scholar-physician called Huangfu Mi 皇甫謐 (215–282 CE) was the first to claim that the Huangdi Neijing in 18 juan 卷 (or volumes) that

8010-595: Was the first ROC president to celebrate the Tomb Sweeping Day rituals for Huangdi in person, on which occasion he proclaimed that both Chinese culture and common descent from the Yellow Emperor united people from Taiwan and the mainland. Later the same year, Lien Chan  – a former Vice President of the Republic of China who is now Honorary Chairman of the Kuomintang  – and his wife Lien Fang Yu paid homage at

8100-419: Was unable to create even one character. One day, Cangjie suddenly saw a phoenix flying in the sky above, carrying an object in its beak. The object fell to the ground directly in front of Cangjie, and he saw it to be an impression of a hoof-print. Not being able to recognize which animal the print belonged to, he asked for the help of a local hunter passing by on the road. The hunter told him that this was, without

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