Bixie

Funerary sculpture from the Eastern Han period (25-220)

A Bixie (Chinese: 辟邪; pinyin: bìxié, Wade–Giles: Pi-hsieh; Japanese: 辟邪, へきじゃ, Hekija) is a type of lion-like mythological Chinese creature, or chimera. It is considered as an exorcising animal (辟邪 literally means "Avoid Evil") and is usually hornless.^[1][2] See also Pixiu.

The Bixie can have a pair of wings, which makes it rather similar to the Tianlu (Chinese: 天禄, Japanese: 天禄, てんろく, Tenroku) in following early Chinese sculptural traditions of winged celestial beasts.^[1]

The Bixie may have been an adoption from Mesopotamian art, through Persia and Bactria, as a consequence of extensive trade relations initiated by Emperor Han Wudi during the Han period.^[3]

Some western scholars of Chinese art use the word "chimera" generically to refer to the bixie, qilin, and tianlu.^[4]

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  Celadon from the Western Jin period (265-317)

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  Sculpture in the Shanghai Museum

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  Stone statue from Luoyang during the Eastern Han period (25-220)

See also

• Qilin
• Pixiu
• Stone sculptures at mausoleum of the southern dynasties in Nanjing

Notes

1. Chinese sculpture By Angela Falco Howard p.56
2. Text and ritual in early China By Martin Kern p.56
3. China: a history By Harold Miles Tanner p.129
4. Barry Till (1980), "Some Observations on Stone Winged Chimeras at Ancient Chinese Tomb Sites", Artibus Asiae, 42 (4): 261–281, JSTOR 3250032