Xihe (deity)

Xihe

Xihe (Chinese: 羲和; pinyin: Xīhé; Wade–Giles: Hsi-ho), was a solar deity in Chinese mythology. One of the two wives of Di Jun (along with Changxi), she was the mother of ten suns in the form of three-legged crows residing in a mulberry tree, the Fusang, in the East Sea. 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 once, all ten sun birds came out on the same day, causing the world to burn; Houyi saved the day by shooting down all but one of the sun birds.

Gallery

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  Statue of the goddess Xihe charioteering the sun, being pulled by a Chinese dragon in Hangzhou

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  Xihe hitches her dragon-horse to the sun chariot (lower part) as depicted in a rubbing from the Wu Liang shrines reliefs, mid-2nd century

See also

• Shujun
• Mid-Autumn Festival

References

• Chinese myths