Fuxi’s Eight Trigrams Pavilion

Fuxi’s Eight Trigrams Pavilion

Thirty li east of the ancient city of Cai (now the urban area of Shangcai County) on Cai Ridge (present-day around Baigui Temple), atop an eight-foot-high platform and nestled among several ancient cypresses, stands an octagonal pavilion with upturned double eaves, tiled with simple clay tiles, and adorned with exquisite carvings. This is the long-historied Fuxi’s Eight Trigrams Pavilion.

It is said that in ancient times, this was a high platform by the banks of the Cai River. The platform covered an area of over twenty hectares, densely overgrown with milfoil grass. Among the grass grew some stalks with dragon-like heads and phoenix-like tails, hence the place came to be known as “Milfoil Grass Platform.” As noted by Sima Qian, “Hundreds of stalks grow in clusters, shaded above by azure clouds and guarded below by a spiritual turtle,” referring to this very grass. Another legend says that within the Cai River, there once swam a white turtle over a foot long with a pale shell and white body. People of the time believed it to be the “spiritual turtle” guarding the milfoil grass (later, the site became known as Baigui Temple).

To divine the auspiciousness and inauspiciousness of the world, Fuxi (also known as Taihao), the progenitor of humankind, created the Eight Trigrams. After devising the Eight Trigrams diagram, he used milfoil grass and turtle shells for divination on this Milfoil Grass Platform. He believed the local milfoil grass and turtle shells were the most spiritually potent, thus calling them “superior grade.” To commemorate the visit of this ancestor, later generations built two pavilions on the Milfoil Grass Platform: one inscribed with the Earlier Heaven Eight Trigrams and the other with the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams, collectively named “Fuxi’s Eight Trigrams Pavilion” (also known as the Eight Trigrams Platform). The best milfoil grass around the pavilion was selected and protected within a fenced area, called the “Milfoil Grass Garden” (also known as the Milfoil Grass Enclosure). The exact time of the pavilion’s construction is unknown due to the great lapse of history. However, based on a surviving stone tablet inscribed with the four characters “Fuxi Milfoil Platform,” written by Cai Yong and dating back to the Kangxi era of the Qing Dynasty, the pavilion is believed to have been built before the Eastern Han Dynasty. Later, a magnificent temple was constructed near the Eight Trigrams Pavilion — this is the Fuxi Temple. The details of the temple’s construction are also unclear. Moreover, through the vicissitudes of time, including wars, fires, and the rise and fall of dynasties, the original structures of the temple have completely disappeared.