Nüwa, also read Nügua, 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 Fu Xi is suggested to be the progenitor of divination and the patron saint of numbers.
Name The character pinyin: nü (Chinese: 女; lit. 'female') is a common prefix on the names of goddesses. The proper name is wa, also read as gua (媧). The Chinese character is unique to this name. Birrell translates it as 'lovely', but notes that it "could be construed as 'frog'", which is consistent with her aquatic myth. In Chinese, the word for 'whirlpool' is wo (渦), which shares the same pronunciation with the word for 'snail' (蝸). These characters all have their right side constructed by the word wa (咼), which can be translated as 'spiral' or 'helix' as noun, and as 'spin' or 'rotate' when as verb, to describe the 'helical movement'. This mythical meaning has also been symbolically pictured as compasses in the hand which can be found on many paintings and portraits associated with her. Her reverential name is Wahuang (媧皇; 'Empress Wa').
Description
The Huainanzi relates Nüwa to the time when Heaven and Earth were in disruption:
Going back to more ancient times, the four pillars were broken; the nine provinces were in tatters. Heaven did not completely cover [the earth]; Earth did not hold up [Heaven] all the way around [its circumference]. Fires blazed out of control and could not be extinguished; water flooded in great expanses and would not recede. Ferocious animals ate blameless people; predatory birds snatched the elderly and the weak. Thereupon, Nüwa smelted together five-colored stones in order to patch up the azure sky, cut off the legs of the great turtle to set them up as the four pillars, killed the black dragon to provide relief for Ji Province, and piled up reeds and cinders to stop the surging waters. The azure sky was patched; the four pillars were set up; the surging waters were drained; the province of Ji was tranquil; crafty vermin died off; blameless people [preserved their] lives. The catastrophes were supposedly caused by the battle between the deities Gonggong and Zhuanxu (an event that was mentioned earlier in the Huainanzi), the five-colored stones symbolize the five Chinese elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water), the black dragon was the essence of water and thus cause of the floods, Ji Province serves metonymically for the central regions (the Sinitic world). Following this, the Huainanzi tells about how the sage-rulers Nüwa and Fuxi set order over the realm by following the Way (道) and its potency (德). The Classic of Mountains and Seas, dated between the Warring States period and the Han dynasty, describes Nüwa's intestines as being scattered into ten spirits. In Liezi (c. 475 – 221 BC), Chapter 5 "Questions of Tang" (卷第五 湯問篇), author Lie Yukou describes Nüwa repairing the original imperfect heaven using five-colored stones, and cutting the legs off a tortoise to use as struts to hold up the sky. In Songs of Chu (c. 340 – 278 BC), Chapter 3 "Asking Heaven" (问天), author Qu Yuan writes that Nüwa molded figures from the yellow earth, giving them life and the ability to bear children. After demons fought and broke the pillars of the heavens, Nüwa worked unceasingly to repair the damage, melting down the five-coloured stones to mend the heavens. In Shuowen Jiezi (c. 58 – 147 AD), China's earliest dictionary, under the entry for Nüwa author Xu Shen describes her as being both the sister and the wife of Fuxi. Nüwa and Fuxi were pictured as having snake-like tails interlocked in an Eastern Han dynasty mural in the Wuliang Temple in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province. In Duyi Zhi (獨異志; c. 846 – 874 AD), Volume 3, author Li Rong gives this description.
Long ago, when the world first began, there were two people, Nü Kua and her older brother. They lived on Mount K'un-lun. And there were not yet any ordinary people in the world. They talked about becoming husband and wife, but they felt ashamed. So the brother at once went with his sister up Mount K'un-lun and made this prayer: "Oh Heaven, if Thou wouldst send us two forth as man and wife, then make all the misty vapor gather. If not, then make all the misty vapor disperse." At this, the misty vapor immediately gathered. When the sister became intimate with her brother, they plaited some grass to make a fan to screen their faces. Even today, when a man takes a wife, they hold a fan, which is a symbol of what happened long ago. There are stories that have her as the "consort" of Fuxi rather than his sister. In Yuchuan Ziji (玉川子集 c. 618 – 907 AD), Chapter 3 ("與馬異結交詩" 也稱 "女媧本是伏羲婦"), author Lu Tong describes Nüwa as the wife of Fuxi.
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