| Nuwa | |
|---|---|
 Nüwa repairing the pillar of heaven by Xiao Yuncong (1596–1673) | |
|
Other Names |
Nügua |
|
First Appearance |
Chinese Myth |
|
Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
Fuxi and Nüwa on a hanging scroll in color on silk.
Nüwa is a mother goddess, culture hero, and/or member of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese mythology. She is a goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven.
As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In other stories where she fulfills this role, she only created nobles and/or the rich out of yellow soil. The stories vary on the other details about humanity's creation, but it was a tradition commonly believed in ancient China that she created commoners from brown mud. A story holds that she was tired when she created "the rich and the noble", so all others, or "cord-made people", were created from her "dragg[ing] a string through mud".
In the Huainanzi, there is a description of a great battle between deities that broke the pillars supporting Heaven and caused great devastation. There was great flooding, and Heaven had collapsed. Nüwa was the one who patched the holes in Heaven with five colored stones, and she used the legs of a tortoise to mend the pillars.
There are many instances of her in literature across China which detail her in creation stories, and today, she remains a figure important to Chinese culture. She is one of the most venerated Chinese goddesses alongside Guanyin and Mazu.
In Chinese mythology, the goddess Nüwa is a legendary progenitor of all human beings. She also creates a magic stone. Her husband Fuxi is suggested to be the progenitor of divination and the patron saint of numbers.
The Ming dynasty fantasy novel Investiture of the Gods (1567) has Nüwa being an instigator of the Shang dynasty's collapse, as she sent the fox demon Daji to corrupt King Zhou for the latter verbally desecrating her statue at a temple.
The Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber (1754) narrates how Nüwa gathered 36,501 stones to patch the sky but left one unused. The unused stone plays an important role in the novel's storyline.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Nuwa from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Classic of Mountains and Seas
- Investiture of the Gods (1567)
- Dream of the Red Chamber (1754)