Fuxi - Fortune Telling

A legendary emperor of ancient China. It is said that the daughter of Huaxu stepped on a giant's footprint left in Lei Ze and became pregnant, and the child was born as Fuxi. Also written as Xi or Pao Xi, and also called Taihuo, Fuxi is counted as one of the Three Emperors and Five Sovereigns. In the Liezi, Fuxi is described as a human-headed snake-bodied man, and a stone image from the Han dynasty shows Fuxi with a snake-bodied body and Nüwa crossing their tails. He is said to have invented the Eight Trigrams of the I Ching, invented nets, taught the people how to hunt and fish, and even taught them how to cook their prey using fire instead of eating it raw, and the name Pao Xi is thought to represent this. He is also said to have invented many other things and established various systems, such as founding the institution of marriage, but these are merely manifestations of ancient Chinese traditions that prefer to attribute the origins of various cultural artifacts to the achievements of holy emperors, and are not historical facts. In the folklore, there is a legend that Fuxi and Nüwa married and became the ancestors of mankind, but it is more likely that this is the original image of Fuxi.

[Kiyoji Ito]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

中国古代の伝説上の帝王。華胥(かしょ)氏の娘が雷沢(らいたく)の中に残されていた巨人の足跡を踏んで懐妊し、生まれたのが伏羲であるという。羲(ふぎ)、庖犧(ほうぎ)とも書き、また太皥(たいこう)ともいわれて三皇五帝の1人に数えられる。『列子(れっし)』では伏羲は人頭蛇身とされ、漢代の画像石には蛇身の伏羲と女媧(じょか)が尾を交えている姿がみられる。易の八卦(はっけ)を考案したり、網を発明して民に狩猟や漁労の方法を教え、さらに獲物を生(なま)のままでなく火を使って料理することも教えたといい、庖犧の名はこれを表していると思われる。そのほか結婚の制度を創始するなど、さまざまな事物の発明や諸制度を創設したといわれるが、これらは諸文物の起源を好んで聖天子の功績に帰そうとする中国古伝承の現れであって、史実とはいえない。民間では、伏羲と女媧が結婚して人類の祖となったという伝承が語られているが、むしろこのような伏羲が本来のおもかげをとどめているものと考えられる。

［伊藤清司］

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