Yu
(East Asian mythology)
Semi-legendary Chinese emperor, renowned as an hydraulic engineer. According to the Shu Ching (Book of History), Yu was asked to contain the deluge by Shun, a divine monarch. ‘The inundating waters seemed to assail the heavens’, Yu said, ‘and in their extent embraced the hills and over-topped the great mounds, so that the people were bewildered and overwhelmed. … I opened the passages for the streams throughout the nine provinces and conducted them to the seas.’ Thirteen years Yu spent ‘mastering the waters’ without once returning home to see his wife and children. By his skill he brought ‘water benefits’ to the people—floods ceased and fields were irrigated; to his own family came the privilege of founding the first dynasty, the Hsia. The Yellow River valley permitted irrigation on a small scale and then encouraged not only irrigation but schemes of drainage and flood prevention on an increasingly larger scale. For Confucians, Yu was a paragon of virtue, the ancient standard of public duty: but the Taoists were certain that his organization of labour in hydraulic engineering had represented a divergence from the natural way of doing things. They feared the inhibition of feudal relationships.
Many mythological (see Chinese Mythology) tales are told in China of the great Yu, sometimes called Gaomi, the man considered to be the first Xia emperor (see Chinese Emperors, Chinese Deities). As a prime example of intelligence, leadership, and adherence to duty, Yu was the epitome of the Chinese ideal hero. It was he who ended the Great Flood (see Chinese Flood). Sometimes Yu is considered a Dragon. There are several myths regarding his birth. According to one, Yu's Mother, after seeing a shooting star, swallows a magic pearl and becomes pregnant (see Virgin Birth). Her chest breaks open to release him. In another version, the mother picks up a seed on a mountain, eats it, becomes pregnant, and gives birth to Yu from her side. Some say Yu, like his son and successor, was born from a rock. Still others say that Yu sprang as a great dragon from the body of his father, Gun (see Gun), who had been put to death for failing to stop the Flood. Gun and his father were associated with mythical aquatic animals. It was they who organized the fields and waterways for agriculture and in so doing organized the world. In effect, Yu became a high god—the god of the soil. He married the daughter of the Earth Mountain, Tushan. When by mistake Tushan saw her husband changed into a bear, she turned into a stone. Yu then had to cut her open to release his son, Qui.
