Chinese
mythology.

盘古 Pángǔ

The giant of a creation tradition who separates heaven and earth. Accounts of his body becoming the landscape add a second way of imagining the world’s origins.

女娲 Nǚwā

Known for repairing heaven and, in separate traditions, creating people. Serpent-bodied images and her pairing with Fuxi connect her to the ordering of life.

伏羲 Fúxī

A legendary culture hero associated with the eight trigrams and the beginnings of human arts. Often paired with Nüwa in art; their precise relationship varies by tradition.

神农 Shénnóng

Shennong is associated with farming and the testing of plants. Often identified with the Flame Emperor in later traditions, the two names should not be treated as interchangeable in every early text.

黄帝 Huángdì

A legendary ruler linked to cultural inventions and conflict with Chiyou. Ancestor traditions and accounts of early history overlap here; legendary reign dates are not secure historical dates.

西王母 Xīwángmǔ

Early descriptions give her formidable animal features; later art and stories often show a regal immortal associated with peaches and the west. “Wangmu” is not always the same character in every work.

后羿 Hòuyì

The archer who relieves the catastrophe of many suns, commonly linked with Chang’e. Early references to Yi and historical-legendary Hou Yi require care rather than one combined biography.

嫦娥 Cháng’é

Her ascent after taking an elixir makes the moon a place of longing. Her motivation and even her lunar form differ across the long history of the story.

共工 Gònggōng

A powerful figure associated with water. His collision with Mount Buzhou explains the damaged supports of the world in a well-known Huainanzi account.

大禹 Dà Yǔ

A flood-taming culture hero and legendary founder of the Xia. Ethical accounts emphasize service and labor; other texts supply divine and fantastic episodes.

精卫 Jīngwèi

A drowned girl transformed into a bird that carries wood and stones to the sea. The girl 女娃 is distinct from the goddess 女娲.

夸父 Kuāfù

A giant whose pursuit of the sun ends in overwhelming thirst. His story has supported both admiration of great ambition and reflection on its limits.

玉皇大帝 Yùhuáng Dàdì

A major heavenly ruler in popular religion and many later stories. The bureaucratic court familiar from fiction is one influential image, not a universal hierarchy for all Chinese traditions.

孙悟空 Sūn Wùkōng

The Monkey King of Journey to the West, recognized by his transformations and iron staff. His journey turns a challenge to heaven into the demanding work of protecting a pilgrimage.

哪吒 Nézhā

A youthful deity whose lotus rebirth and magical weapons are especially familiar through Investiture of the Gods. His temple, Buddhist and literary histories reach beyond any one screen adaptation.

二郎神 Èrláng Shén

Often depicted with a third eye and a hunting hound. Many later works identify him as Yang Jian, but local cults and earlier accounts preserve other identities.

观音 Guānyīn

The Chinese form of the Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Guanyin appears widely in art, devotion and fiction; calling this figure simply a native Chinese goddess misses the Buddhist background.

八仙 Bāxiān

Lü Dongbin, Li Tieguai, Zhongli Quan, Zhang Guolao, He Xiangu, Lan Caihe, Han Xiangzi and Cao Guojiu form the familiar group. Their sea-crossing tale lets each use a different ability.

龙王 Lóngwáng

Dragon rulers appear in local worship and Buddhist, Daoist and literary settings. The four sea kings are well known from novels, while communities may honor more localized water deities.

妈祖 Māzǔ

A sea-protecting goddess rooted in traditions about a woman from Meizhou. Mazu belief remains a living community tradition, especially among coastal and diaspora communities.

织女 Zhīnǚ

A celestial weaver and star figure who becomes the heroine of the Cowherd romance. Qixi’s requests for skill recall her work as well as her love story.

白素贞 Bái Sùzhēn

The white snake spirit of later legend, drama and opera. Her portrayal changes from threatening supernatural outsider to sympathetic heroine across retellings.

蚩尤 Chīyóu

A powerful opponent of Huangdi at Zhuolu. The Shiji frames their conflict as a struggle for rulership; the Shanhaijing gives Chiyou the aid of wind and rain. His identity and reception vary, so defeat in one telling should not become a universal moral judgment.

炎帝 Yándì

The ancestral ruler opposed to Huangdi at Banquan in the Shiji. Later traditions frequently identify him with Shennong, though titles, individuals and lineages do not always coincide. His daughter Nüwa in the Jingwei story is 女娃, a different name from the creator 女娲.

仓颉 Cāngjié

The culture hero credited with writing, often cast as Huangdi’s recorder. The Huainanzi makes heaven and spirits react to his invention. His story personifies a long cultural process; it is not a literal account of one person designing the entire Chinese script.

嫘祖 Léizǔ

Named in the Shiji as Huangdi’s wife and remembered in later traditions as a founder of sericulture. Her story places skilled work and the care of silkworms within ancestral memory. She is one of several figures associated with silk origins.

燧人氏 Suìrénshì

A sage who kindles fire and changes the way people prepare food in the Hanfeizi. The text uses this useful invention to discuss the needs of different ages. His title remembers a practice, not an archaeologically established inventor.

有巢氏 Yǒucháoshì

The maker of wooden nest-like shelters in the Hanfeizi’s account of remote antiquity. Protection from dangerous animals brings public recognition, making the construction of a home an act of cultural founding.

鲧 Gǔn

Yu’s father, whose flood-control work fails in several traditions. The Shanhaijing has him take the growing earth xirang without permission and suffer divine punishment. His role combines rescue, transgression and the unfinished task inherited by Yu.

祝融 Zhùróng

Associated with fire and the southern direction across traditions, and named as the agent of Gun’s punishment in the Shanhaijing. A deity, an ancestral figure and a title of office can overlap under this name; they should not be flattened into one fixed biography.

应龙 Yìnglóng

The dragon who aids Huangdi in the Shanhaijing and is connected with water and rain-making. Different passages give different accounts of his deeds and his inability to return above. The winged form familiar in later imagery is part of his reception.

女魃 Nǚbá

The heavenly woman Ba stops Chiyou’s rain in the Shanhaijing. Unable to ascend afterward, she brings drought where she remains. Her story explains the difficult aftermath of divine intervention; later drought monsters are not automatically the same figure.

刑天 Xíngtiān

A warrior who challenges Di, loses his head and continues to wield shield and axe with a transformed body. The Shanhaijing leaves the opponent’s personal name unspecified. Later poetry turns the image into a lasting emblem of resolve.

羲和 Xīhé

Wife of Dijun and mother of ten suns in the Shanhaijing’s southern wilderness. Her bathing of the suns gives celestial order a scene of nurture. Other texts assign the name different solar or calendrical roles.

常羲 Chángxī

Dijun’s wife who bears and bathes twelve moons in a brief Shanhaijing passage. Her story is distinct from Chang’e’s flight with an elixir; possible connections between the figures should be presented as interpretation.

帝俊 Dìjùn

A divine ancestral figure prominent in the Shanhaijing, connected to Xihe, Changxi and several lines of descendants. The name should not be treated as a straightforward alias of Huangdi, Di Ku or the later Jade Emperor without explaining the particular interpretation.

烛龙 Zhúlóng

A vast human-faced, serpent-bodied being in northern Shanhaijing descriptions. Opening and closing its eyes establish day and night; its breath is associated with seasonal change. Related names and details differ across passages.

愚公 Yúgōng

The elderly protagonist of the Liezi’s mountain-moving fable. His answer to doubt extends the task beyond his own lifetime, while the original ending relies on divine help. The nickname invites readers to reconsider who is actually wise.

吴刚 Wú Gāng

In the Tang Youyang Zazu, Wu Gang is punished for a fault while learning immortality and ordered to cut a moon tree whose wounds heal immediately. The source does not specify the fault in the detail familiar from some modern adaptations.

钟馗 Zhōng Kuí

A protective figure in stories, seasonal images and painting. The dream of Emperor Xuanzong is one account of his emergence. Fierce appearance serves a reassuring role, while artists repeatedly give the guardian new settings and expressions.

姜子牙 Jiāng Zǐyá

A figure in traditions of Zhou’s rise, transformed by Investiture of the Gods into the intermediary between human war and divine office. Historical traditions and the novel’s supernatural biography should be read as different kinds of account.

雷震子 Léi Zhènzǐ

A supernatural hero of Investiture of the Gods, associated with King Wen’s family and transformed through an encounter with marvelous food. His wings and thunder-like name make him memorable, but he is not simply identical to every older thunder deity.

后稷 Hòujì

The agricultural ancestor celebrated in the Book of Odes. His extraordinary birth to Jiang Yuan leads into skilled cultivation and ritual offerings. Other texts also remember him as a teacher of farming under ancient rulers.

姜嫄 Jiāng Yuán

The mother at the opening of Sheng Min. Her encounter with a divine footprint begins the poem’s account of Houji’s birth. She belongs to a particular ancestral and ritual narrative, not a generic mother of all humanity.

布洛陀 Bùluòtuó

A central name in Zhuang ritual scriptures concerned with origins and life’s order. Surviving manuscripts preserve local differences. The Mandarin pinyin here reads the Chinese transliteration and does not replace the name in its own language.

蝴蝶妈妈 Húdié māma

A maternal figure in particular Miao narratives and textile imagery. The Guizhou Museum example places her origin in a maple tree, connecting different living forms. Local versions deserve their own names and contexts.

密洛陀 Mìluòtuó

A maternal creator associated with the Bunu Yao epic of world and human origins. The community setting is essential: this is one rich tradition among the diverse traditions of Yao groups.

唐三藏 Táng Sānzàng

The monk protected by Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing and the White Dragon Horse in Journey to the West. The character draws on memories of the historical Xuanzang, but the novel’s monsters, ordeals and companions belong to literary storytelling.