Fuxi

Baoxi · First of the Three Sovereigns

First of the Three Sovereigns. Legend holds he devised the Eight Trigrams, taught fishing and animal husbandry, and initiated the age of civilization.

Fuxi, the first of the Three Sovereigns, is the civilizing hero who drew the Eight Trigrams and taught his people to hunt, fish and raise livestock. Paired with Nüwa as the ancestors of humankind, he is shown in Han stone reliefs as a serpent-bodied sage holding a carpenter’s square. Later tradition also credits him with the invention of marriage, nets and music.