China's Yellow Emperor was a god before 'emperor' even meant a human ruler
Legend credits the Yellow Emperor with boats, carts, the calendar and early writing. But the word di in his name originally pointed to gods, not kings; only in 221 BC did the first Qin ruler borrow it as an imperial title. The culture hero began life as a colourful deity.
Huangdi sits among the legendary Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and is still worshipped in Chinese folk religion, sometimes alone and sometimes as one of the Five Regions Highest Deities. Tradition hands him a long list of inventions, from wooden houses and the compass needle to Taoism and cuju, an early ball game.
The name matters. Before Qin Shi Huang coined the title huangdi in 221 BC, di referred to Shangdi, supreme god of the Shang dynasty, and in the Warring States period to deities of the five sacred mountains and colours. Huangdi was the yellow one. Historians therefore often call him the Yellow Thearch, a thearch being a divine ruler. In the Five Phases scheme, yellow stood for earth, the Yellow Dragon and the centre, and the character for yellow was often treated as equivalent to one meaning august or radiant.
His cult is first recorded in the Warring States period and peaked late in it and into the early Han, when he was cast as founder of the centralised state, cosmic ruler and patron of esoteric arts. Texts like the Huangdi Neijing, a medical classic, were attributed to him. Han writings also called him the Yellow God, and older accounts tie him to light and thunder. Sima Qian's first-century BC history opens with him, treating him as more historical than earlier figures such as Fu Xi and Shennong.
Even his names are contested. Sima Qian calls him Xuan Yuan, literally chariot shaft, and gives his family name as Gongsun, while the dictionary Shuowen Jiezi says he took the name Ji from a river. Another title, Youxiong, has been read as a clan near modern Xinzheng in Henan or, by Rémi Mathieu, as possessor of bears. After fading for much of the imperial era, he became a rallying symbol in the early twentieth century against Qing rule and remains potent in modern Chinese nationalism.
Source: Yellow Emperor
