An ancient painting of Nüwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang, holding the tools of creation - compass and square.
Hugh Nibley gave a lecture in 1975 on “Sacred Vestments” which was later transcribed and included in the collected works volume Temple and Cosmos (pgs. 91-132). The entire paper is fascinating, and highly recommended reading. One of the things he wrote about were certain Chinese artifacts which had been found depicting two mythological gods, Nüwa and Fuxi, and the tools they hold:
Most challenging are the veils from Taoist-Buddhist tombs at Astana, in Central Asia, originally Nestorian (Christian) country, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in 1925… We see the king and queen embracing at their wedding, the king holding the square on high, the queen a compass. As it is explained, the instruments are taking the measurements of the universe, at the founding of a new world and a new age. Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe. Among the stars depicted, Stein and his assistant identified the Big Dipper alone as clearly discernable. As noted above, the garment draped over the coffin and the veil hung on the wall had the same marks; they were placed on the garment as reminders of personal commitment, while on the veil they represent man’s place in the cosmos. (pg. 111-12)
Nibley included drawings of this depiction found on veils in the Astana Tombs in Xinjiang, China, with a caption that reads:
In the underground tomb of Fan Yen-Shih, d. A.D. 689, two painted silk veils show the First Ancestors of the Chinese, their entwined serpect bodies rotating around the invisible vertical axis mundi. Fu Hsi holds the set-square and plumb bob … as he rules the four-cornered earth, while his sister-wife Nü-wa holds the compass pointing up, as she rules the circling heavens. The phrase kuci chü is used by modern Chinese to signify “the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square. (pg. 115)
See the photos at the end of the post for more examples of this icon. The veil redrawn in Temple and Cosmos is shown photographed in the second row, fourth from the left.
Wikipedia notes, “Nüwa and Fuxi were pictured as having snake like tails interlocked in an Eastern Han dynasty (206 – 220 A.D.) mural in the Wuliang Temple in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province.” It also notes the various roles of Nüwa (and sometimes with Fuxi) in Chinese mythology:
- Creator
- Woman/Man
- Mother
- Goddess
- Wife
- Sister
- Tribal leader (emperor)
- Maintainer
- Repairer
- Sun god/moon god
- Adam and Eve
Some have even suggested that “Nüwa” might be related to “Noah” from the Genesis account, with some parallels between the accounts, such as Nüwa’s sealing of the sky with five colored stones connected with Noah’s rainbow.
Another description of Nüwa and Fuxi and their tools is found in a book entitled The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China by Alfred Schinz:
It appears from these legends that civilization, i.e. ordered human life, begins with two personages, both portrayed as being semi-human and with mermaid tails. Nüwa and Fuxi, originally sister and brother, later became wife and husband after they had invented proper marriage procedures and family names to prevent marriages between people from the same family. Nüwa, in her own legend, had restored order between heaven and earth after a horrible catastrophe had caused heaven to tilt to the north so that it no longer covered all of the earth. This may refer to the first observation of the oblique elliptic and the angle of the pole star. Nüwa found it necessary to reestablish the four cardinal points, which she did, thereby creating the prerequisites for further observations. In the oldest pictures of her she carries a compass, the instrument related to heavenly observations. Her brother Fuxi became the first legendary emperor, which also implies the establishment of government, of law and order… On another, more practical level he is said to have invented axes for splitting wood, the carpenter’s square, ropes for hunting and fishing nets. It is worthy of special attention that the two words for compass and square, gui ju, used together denote -the rule, custom, usage- and -good behavior-, i.e., keeping order. Furthermore, it should be observed that the male-female system, the yang-yin philosophy, is expressed here in a complex manner, first as Fuxi and Nüwa, second as compass (male) and square (female), and third as Nüwa (female) with compass (male) and Fuxi (male) with square (female). The compass-square dichotomy is similar to the heaven-earth, yang-yin, relationship, which in this case means that man (Fuxi) establishes harmonious order between heaven and earth. This is also expressed in the Chinese character for king, wang, the upper and lower line indicating heaven and earth and the middle line man, all three connected by the vertical line. This represents the position and function of the ruler; it is he who establishes and keeps order by placing himself in a balanced and harmonious position between heaven and earth, so that yang and yin cooperate in a beneficial way.
[Caption] Fuxi and his sister Nüwa, he with the carpenter’s square and she with the pair of compasses. From the decoration incised in the wall of the Wu Lang tombs in Jiaxiang, Shandong, second century AD. The Chinese words for carpenter’s square, ju, and a pair of compasses, gui, together form the expression to establish order. This is what, according to their legends, Fuxi and Nüwa did. The carpenter’s square also stands for the square that is the symbol of the earth, while the pair of compasses represent the circle, the symbol of heaven. Fuxi, the male (yang), gives order to the earth (yin), and Nüwa, the female (yin), gives order to the heaven (yang). ((Schinz, The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China, 25-26, link.))
A book entitled The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam by Victor J. Katz and Annette Imhausen relates a practical tradition about the use of these tools in Chinese history:
Here Fu Xi – the first of the “Three Sovereigns” – is shown on the right holding a ju or carpenter’s square. In some versions of this legend Fu Xi is said to have invented both the carpenter’s square and the compass, or gui – which is held in the above depiction by his consort Nü Wa (on the left). According to the Chronicles of the famous Chinese historian Sima Qian, the Emperor Yu of Xia (who reigned in the twenty-first century BCE), when attending to floods, carried with him “a plumbline in his left hand and a gnomon and compass in his right” in order to do the surveying required to bring the floods under control [Li and Du 1987, 3]. ((Katz and Imhausen, The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam, 191, link.))
The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-williams connects the concepts of the compass and the square with the circle and the square:
In traditional Chinese cosmology the earth was square and the heavens round and thus Fuxi holds a set square to draw the former, and Nüwa a pair of compasses to draw the circle of the earth. ((Whitfield and Sims-williams, The Silk Road, 329, link.))
Noted by Mark Edward Lewis in Writing and Authority in Early China, these symbols were used to represent cosmic order, a link between heaven and earth, and a favorable environment for the deceased:
This role of linking Heaven to Earth also figures in the depictions of Fu Xi and Nü Wa. First, in Han tombs their elongated, serpent bodies stretch from the bottom of the register to the top, and in later depictions this vertical ascent becomes even clearer. In Sichuan sarcophagi they play the iconographic role of the dragons on the Mawangdui banners who physically link the earthly realm to that of Heaven. This idea is reinforced through the regular inclusion of two other iconogrpahic traits. Fu Xi and Nü Wa are often depicted with the sun and moon, and they are shown holding a carpenters square (Fu Xi) and a drawing compass (Nü Wa). The former are metonyms for Heaven and the celestial equivalents of yin and yang. The latter suggests the linking of square Earth to the round Heaven. Most scholars agree that the role of the intertwined Fu Xi and Nü Wa was to depict the interaction of yin and yang that underlies cosmic order and thereby secure an auspicious environment for the denizen of the tomb. ((Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 204, link.))
Santillana and Dechend offer more explanation for the figures of Nüwa and Fuxi:
The Chinese picture illustrates in true archaic spirit (which means that only hints are given, and the spectator has to work out for himself the significance of the details) the surveying of the universe. The two characters surrounded by constellations are Fu Hsi and Nu Kua, i.e., the craftsman god and his paredra, who measure the “squareness of the earth” and the “roundness of heaven” with their implements, the square with the plumb bob hanging from it, and the compass. The intertwined serpent-like bodies of the deities indicate clearly enough, although in a peculiar “projection,” circular orbits intersecting each other at regular intervals. ((Giorgio De Santillana, Hertha Von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill, 272, link.))
In another place some Chinese commentators have noted the uses of these tools in construction or building:
All “great instruments” were invented by the ancients to help lesser men “first rule the self and then rule others.” Although all are needed in construction, by no means do all these tools work in the same way. Level and line determine straight horizontal and vertical lines, while compass and square are needed to form perfect circles and corners. By analogy, each of the social institutions, including ritual, has its own function in building civilization, with each addressing a separate human need. It is characteristic of the sage-ruler that he always knows which tool to apply to the specific problem at hand. ((Yan Hsiuing, Xiong Yang, Michael Nylan, The Elemental Changes: The Ancient Chinese Companion, 54, link.))
There are probably hundreds of other sources which describe these symbols in Chinese tradition and mythology. You can find more by doing a Google Books search for “nuwa square compass.”
I’ve done some image searching and these two figures are almost always depicted holding the same symbols in their hands, and which have been described by many different scholars as the tools of creation and divine order. See the images below.
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Great post!
Very Interesting.
-David
In Chinese cosmogonic art during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.) two royal creator deities were depicted holding architectural implements that were used in the formation of heaven and earth—the compass and set-square (see Yves Bonnefoy, comp., Asian Mythologies [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993], 234–35). In a funerary context these beings served as “doorkeepers” or “guardians of boundaries” who “marked the division between inner and outer” spaces (cf. Gen. 3:24; Ex. 26:31). The depiction of these deities signified “transfer to another realm.” As early as the Warring States Period (475–221 B.C.E.) the Chinese compass and square “symbolized fixed standards and rules that impose order on unruly matter.” The Chinese deity who was shown holding the compass was associated with bringing “ordered space out of the chaos of the flood” (cf. the Hebrew concept) while the other, who held the square, was “credited with the invention of kingship” (Mark E. Lewis, The Flood Myths of Early China [Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006], 125–27).
Interesting that the original picture came from Astana in Kazakhstan, around a region where some propose that some of the lost tribes were led.
Bryce you seem to indicate that some of the pictures at the end are from the veil that Nibley references in the second quote above. I don’t have T&C with me at work so can you point out which of the pix is from the tomb?
Great job! Thanks for taking these things I’ve always had interest in and known about, if only superficially, and shedding an enormous amount of light on them.
Thanks for the post Bryce! In addition to Google Book Search, here is an HTML version of Hamlet’s Mill. A few years ago I put together a list of all of Nibley’s references to Hamlet’s Mill and de Santillana’s other works. Nibley held him in high esteem. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send you a copy of them. Love the pictures by the way. And thanks for the tip in searching for them. I’ll be posting my perspectives on this interesting work at Believe All Things at some point in the future.
Greg
Had another comment after re-reading your post. The statement that “Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe” reminded me of Joseph Smith’s teaching to Benjamin F. Johnson about there being “twelve kingdoms or planets, revolving around our solar system”. Fascinating…
great research and gathering Bryce.
The Astana tombs are located in China, the Xinjiang Autonomous region not far from Turpan, by the way.
The compass and the square motif pervades Chinese literature much earlier than the 7th century CE, so I would rule out any transmission from Christian sources. The Mencius and Analects, for instance both employ it, and these were works that were constructed sometime in the 4th or 5th centuries BCE. I’m interested to know what you (or anyone else) thinks these kinds of parallels prove. Is it that there was cross-cultural interaction in the ancient world? And perhaps related to this, that what we are seeing are remaining vestiges of sacred rituals which began in one common source? Or that human beings tend to conceptualize the world in similar ways; in other words, the compass and square motif is found in multiple places because people in multiple places recognized the significance of constructing certain shapes in building and orderly world, and took them as symbols for orderly ethical lives? And, said in a related way, that God reveals these kinds of things to multiple places?
BTW, it would be interesting to have Tim Davis weigh in on this. He’s the new hire in BYU’s History Department, and just completed his dissertation (at Columbia) on Chinese burial inscriptions.
Notice in The Works of Mencius, Book IV, Part I, that the compass, square, level, and line are connected with the ‘ways of the ancient kings.’
Shucks, my previous comment didn’t take as my browser timed-out so this will be a bit shorter and to the point.
I believe there has been multiple revelatory dispensations when these things could have been given in their perfect form, but through apostasy and degeneration they get somewhat spread around, changed, and lost, and subsequently the process starts over.
While I’m largely sympathetic to this perspective, all too often it is employed in a negative fashion. What I mean by “negative fashion” is that it often amounts to studying other traditions for the sake of reaffirming the truthfulness of our own. IMO this diminishes valuable learning experiences and demeans other traditions by putting us in a position where our tradition becomes the lens by which to see the other. For instance, in many of the passages cited here, the compass and square are employed along with the plumb line, water-leveler (to attain “true” horizontal), and various weights and scales. Why shouldn’t we take these other items as symbols equally sacred as the compass and square? To ask the question in a more general manner, why don’t we look to the Chinese tradition to actually learn something new (or something we once had, if you will) , rather than to simply identify things we already take to be true?
So when I see patterns in other traditions which support the gospel, I am ready and willing to investigate them. Even if certain things do not stand out as conspicuously supportive of the gospel, if they are good, and promote light and knowledge, and teach us to believe in Christ, then they are of God, and we can learn from them.
What does it mean to “support” the gospel? And what does it mean to “promote light and knowledge”, be “good”, and “teach us to believe in Christ”? So this doesn’t become too abstract of a discussion (my apologies if that seems like what I am trying to do), let’s use the Chinese case as an example. What have we learned from it?
In theory I agree with you that the gospel embraces all truth, and that the Holy Ghost can lead us there. The question is how in practice we bring these things to pass. I will await your response. Have a great time at the Alma 32 Seminar.
Where is an example of the compass and square on Chinese “garments”?
Bryce, thanks for entertaining my question.
Most of the things you list are things we already knew and accepted previous to having any interaction with the Chinese material. For those that are not, such as #6, I’m not sure what the implications are for LDS belief. Nonetheless, I’m glad to see this listed here, because it does sound interesting. My underlying point is attending to the question of “why study another tradition”? If it’s because we can truly learn something from them, then perhaps things such as the compass and square should be put in proper context. By “proper context” I’m referring to the fact that the compass and square, while significant, are not nearly as significant as other concepts such as “ritual propriety”, “benevolence”, etc. Why should the compass and square be chosen rather than some of the more fundamental concepts? My problem with much of Nibley’s work is his assumption that ultimately we will find ourselves in others. And while in principle I agree with that, I don’t believe that we should read ourselves into others in order to arrive at that conclusion. I find it better to try and understand them on their own terms.
To illustrate this in another context, I’ve known some people who are Yiguandao, a religious sect in Taiwan and other parts of East Asia. It literally translates as “they Way of the one thread” (coming from a passage in the Analects), in other words it’s an attempt to tie all truths into one. When missionaries meet these people, they will often accept the BoM by placing it along with their other sacred texts on their alter. They of course don’t join our church, and probably don’t read much of the BoM; but from their perspective they’ve “accepted” Mormonism.
Now, from our perspective they’ve taken the BoM completely out of context and wholesale adapted it to their religious purpose. My guess is that most Mormons would see this as an uninformed (and in some ways illegitimate) usage of LDS material to further their own goals. Can it not be said that you are doing something similar in your venture?
I’d posted this over at FPR but figured I’d modify it and post it here as well. I should ‘fess up somewhat as well. As a Freshman in college I took a class on history of eastern civilization. One of the main assignments was a major paper taking off on some element mentioned in class but not focused on. At the same time I was getting into Nibley heavily. So of course I wrote a paper on Chinese temples as it related to spatial and functional parallels (i.e. relation to dead, names, washings, etc.) It was fairly audacious and in hindsight I shouldn’t have done it. But I was naive and a Freshman. Needless to say the teacher (a visiting scholar from Japan) called me out on it (although the other professor liked it, albeit agreeing with his co-teacher). The point being that one has to be careful with parallels.
Here’s what I wrote at FPR.
I think the problem is that there are compelling reasons to think though that temple parallels in the near east tell us something significant. That’s because (1) the temple purports to have some genealogical connection to that era; (2) our western tradition including masonry, hermeticism, etc. traces to that area and era; (3) there were people with the gospel in some form in that place.
When one moves to China and the surrounding locals things become more tricky because (1) there is no purported revelation of the temple there; (2) it is far more alien to the western tradition; and (3) we don’t know how many had the gospel as we understand it.
In addition to all this though are what for lack of a better term I’ll call the psychological structuralists. This would include Jung, Campbell, and others. (Roughly the scholarship from the 40’s through the 60’s) These people see the parallels because they believe they reflect some cognitive structure (ignoring for the moment what they considered the mind to be). I’ve long thought Nibley ought be taken in that category both because of the period of his training but also his methodology is similar. While I don’t think these figures are taken that seriously anymore – often due to big methadological problems (decontextualizing) there is something to be said for the stance. That is if there are common cognitive structures in human beings we ought expect those to be reflected in our oral narratives, rituals, etc.
From and LDS stance though if there is a spirit with some level of a veil of forgetfulness then the notion of this collective unconscious found in the psychological structuralists will manifest itself as a kind of repressed remembrance of a premortal life manifesting itself in human behavior. Now making the move from the general claim to the claim that this structure is significant will be much more problematic. But I think one should be careful here.
I should also note that while a lot see Nibley’s parallels as evidence a perhaps too naive and optimistic diffusionism I think this more Freudean like element is at least as present. Indeed if you look at his writings on the Manic vs. Sophist you’ll see that provides the philosophical ground for his structuralism and ends up being fairly similar to Freud or Jung with even more of a Platonic thrust. (Hardly uncommon in the structuralism of the era) Even if Nibley ultimately has a different ontology.
This is a terrific site, I have used it as a reference in my web site/book. I would be interested in having a link with your site. I have chapter in my book (chapter 3) devoted to Fu Hsi, Nu Wa, and the carpenter’s square (aka, the gnomon). I think you would find it interesting, the name of my book is Number, Time, and Archetype.
Thank-you for your time,
Dr. Robert Dickter
My eye caught this discussion on your fine web site. I specialize in Mesoamerican iconography. In the tomb of the great Pakal of Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico (683 A.D.), there are two objects that were in the hands of the deceased King Pakal. In his right hand was a cube, and his left hand held a sphere. To the Maya, the right side of the body is male, and the left is female. The cube (square) would represent the earth, and the sphere the heavens (of course the compass makes a round like a sphere, which can represent the heavens). The objects held in the Chinese mythology are the square by the male and the compass by the female. The gender association with these symbols are the same in Pakal’s tomb.
Hi Diane. Do you happen to have a reference or web site you can point us to? I would love to see an image if there is one available on the web. Also, your comments in relation to the “squareness” of the earth caught my attention. I recently blogged about the Four Corners of the Earth which seems to be a related concept.
Hi Greg:
There’s an illustration in The Code of Kings. I’ll give you the web site and you can arrow to the page before.
http://books.google.com/books?id=QRxr0uuxw3kC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=cube+sphere+pakal+schele&source=bl&ots=MTd3ger6Xh&sig=GwX4GmdmXEJ7Y23VxENGSsdlvAg&hl=en&ei=1vLYSYSOMaPNlQecpZneDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1
If you have trouble bringing it in, Google: cube sphere pakal schele
There is a photograph of the sphere and square, but I’ll have to find it in my library. They were laying next to the hands of the skeleton of Pakal, so they know he was holding these objects.
I’m working on a paper entitled “Paradise Themes,” and I will download it to you shortly. It has a lot to do with the four streams and four trees at the corners of the earth. You can give me your opinion as well.
Diane
Thanks Diane – Using the information you provided I found reference to it on page 127 in the book. Thanks for pointing this reference out. I look forward to reading your paper!
Here is a good explanation of the significance of the gammadia and its use in early Christian art.
http://luo-shu.com/book/part_one/chapter_eight/illuminated_books_symbols_carpernter%E2%80%99s_square_circle
Thanks for the informative web site and the great references.
I have started a time line for the gammadia on my web site at this link:
http://luo-shu.com/book/illuminated_books_carpenters_square
(I gave the wrong URL before, this one will work)
Scroll to the very bottom, Appendix I.
I have a start date of the Third Century, BC from Nibley’s book, Temple and Cosmos, p. 112.
I am most interested in the cross cultural use (and more time line info). So far, beginning in the Third Century BC thru the Seventh Century AD (one thousand years) , the use spread from Egypt to Judea, China, Egypt, Italy, and Egypt.
I am most interested in the Meso-American usage of the carpenter’s square and a start date.
Thanks for the link Robert. Very interesting information.
Chinese Symbolism and Temples | Wheat and Tares
[…] Many of the Chinese societies have their own signs and tokens that are interesting to look at (e.g. here). What is fun about these is that they date back to 200 A.D. or earlier. […]
Temple Blindness | FairMormon Blog
[…] also “Nüwa and Fuxi in Chinese Mythology: Compass & Square” at TempleStudy.com. Note that the compass and square have meaning in the context of Creation […]
I happened upon this image on a tour of Xian, China last summer. We went to a small art museum and one of the paintings that was explained to us is a version of these images. The guide told us that it was a replica of the original which was held by the Chinese government and that it was 2,000 years old. She then told us that it was of the Chinese version of Adam and Eve and that they were holding the compass and square… Being LDS my ears really perked up at this. She then continued to explain that the disc represented the sun and that there were stars. I later pulled her aside to make sure I heard her correctly. She then told me that the serpent represented royalty or divine heritage. I took a picture of the replica and its caption. It is different from the images you have on your post. I would be happy to send you my images if you are interested.