THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
The Classic of the Great Wilderness: South places a Country of Xihe beyond the southeastern sea, between the waters of Gan. There a woman named Xihe is bathing a sun in the Sweet Gulf. The text states her identity plainly: she is a wife of Di Jun and gave birth to ten suns. Her children roost on the Fusang tree in the hot springs valley of the east, nine on the lower branches and one on the upper, taking the sky in turn; bathing each newborn sun is the pose in which the classic fixes her forever.
In transmitted literature she traveled two opposite roads. The 'Canon of Yao' in the Book of Documents split her into the Xi and He clans of calendar officials, four brothers dispatched to the four quarters to 'observe the sun, moon and stars and respectfully give the seasons to the people' — the mother of suns historicized into astronomers. The Songs of Chu kept the myth alive: in the Li Sao the poet begs 'Xihe, slacken your pace, do not press toward Yanzi mountain', casting her as the sun's charioteer. From the Han period onward the image settled: six dragons drawing the sun's chariot, Xihe holding the reins.
China's first solar observation satellite, launched in 2021, was named Xihe, keeping the sun-mother's name attached to the business of watching the sun.
