The Three Emperors
The Chinese chronicles record that when the earth had solidified and the peoples were settling in the riverlands, Fu Hsi, the "Heavenly Emperor"(2953-2838 B.C.) , governed amoung them. He taught his tribes how to fish with nets,to hunt and to rear domestic animals, divided the people into clans, and instituted matrimony. From a supernatural tablet entrusted to him by a horse-shaped scaly monster out of the waters of the river Meng, he deduced the Eight Diagrams, which remain to this day the fundamental symbols of traditional Chinese thought. He had been born of a miraculous conception, after a gestationof twelve years; his body being that of a serpent, with human arms and the head of an ox.

Shen Nung, his successor, the "Earthly Emperor" (2838-2698 B.C.) , was eight feet seven inches tall, with a human body but the head of a bull. He had been miraculously conceived through the influence of a dragon. The embarrassed mother had exposed her infant on a mountainside, but the wild beasts protected and nourished it, and when she learned of this she fetched him home.

Shen Nungdiscovered in one day seventy poisonous plantsand their. antidotes; through a glass covering to his stomach he could observe the digestion of each herb. Then he composed a pharmacopoeia that is still in use. He was the inventor of the plough and a system of barter; he is worshiped by the Chinese peasant as the "prince of cereals" At the age of one hundred and sixty-eight he was joined to the immortals.

. . . Huang Ti, the "Yellow Emperor" (2697-2597 B.C.), was the third of the august Three. His mother, a concubine of the prince of the province of Chao-tien, conceived him when she one nightbeheld a golden dazzling light around the constellation of the Great Bear. The child could talk when he was seventydays old and at the age of eleven years succeded to the throne. His distinguishing endowment was his power to dream: in sleep he could visit the remotest regions and consort with immortals in the supernatural realm. Shortly following his elevation to the throne, Huang Ti fell into a dream that lasted three entire months, during which time he learned the lesson of the control of the heart. After a second dream of comparable length, he returned with the power to teach the people. He instructed them in the controlof the forces of nature in their own hearts.

This wonderful man governed China for one hundred years, and during his reign the people enjoyed a veritable golden age. He gathered six great ministers around him, with whose help he composed a calendar, inaugurated mathematical calculations, and taught the making of utensils of wood, pottery, and metal, the building of boats and carriages, the use of money, and the consturction of musical instruments of bamboo. He appointed public places for the worship of God. He instituted the bounds and laws of private property. His queen discovered the art of weaving silk. He planted one hundred varieties of grain, vegetables, and trees; favored the development of birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and insects; taught the uses of water, fire, wood, and earth; and regulated the movements of the tides. Before his death at the age of one hundred and eleven the phoenix and the unicorn appeared in the gardens of the Empire, in attestation to the perfection of his reign.

Campbell: 1949 p 317,318.