Where Does the Account of Fuxi Creating the Trigrams Come From?
The influential account of Fuxi creating the trigrams appears in Yijing: Xici II and grounds symbols in observing the world.
Historical setting
Fuxi is at once a culture hero, ancestral deity and figure in royal genealogy. Trigrams, nets, animal keeping, marriage and paired Fuxi–Nüwa images belong to different periods and media rather than one contemporary biography.
Texts and material evidence
The passage moves from patterns in heaven and earth to birds, beasts, local conditions, the body and distant things.
What the sources show
Reading “Where Does the Account of Fuxi Creating the Trigrams Come From?” requires separating its narrative role, the date of the surviving wording, and whether images or sites independently support the same conclusion. Details without a traceable witness remain later interpretation rather than early evidence.
Comparative reading
Yijing: Xici II preserves the influential accounts of trigrams and hunting nets. Han visual culture pairs Fuxi with Nüwa, while later genealogies and local worship add further roles.
Cultural significance
The trigrams thus symbolize the conversion of observation into classification, divination and order.
Continue reading
Fuxi · Why Are Nets and Hunting Attributed to Fuxi?
References
- The Fuxi passage in Yijing: Xici II
- Three Sovereigns material in Baihu Tongyi and related works
- Han reliefs, bricks and paintings of Fuxi and Nüwa