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Shennong , also known as the Yan Emperor or the Emperor of the Five Grains , is a legend
Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
ary ruler of China
Emperor of China

The Emperor of China refers to any monarch of Imperial China reigning since the founding of the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912....
 and culture hero
Culture hero

A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery . A typical culture hero might be credited as the discoverer of fire, or agriculture, folk music, tradition and religion, and is usually the most important legendary figure of a people, sometimes as the founder of its ruling dyna...
 of Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology

File:Nine-Dragons1.jpgChinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written form....
 who is believed to have lived some 5,000 years ago, and taught ancient China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 the practices of agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
. Appropriately, his name means "the Divine Farmer". Considered to be the father of Chinese agriculture, Shennong taught his people how to cultivate grains as food, so as to avoid killing animals.

He is said to have tasted hundreds of herb
Herb

A herb is a plant that is valued for qualities such as medicinal properties, flavor, scent, or the like....
s to test their medical value.






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Shennong , also known as the Yan Emperor or the Emperor of the Five Grains , is a legend
Legend

A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude ....
ary ruler of China
Emperor of China

The Emperor of China refers to any monarch of Imperial China reigning since the founding of the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC until the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912....
 and culture hero
Culture hero

A culture hero is a mythological hero specific to some group who changes the world through invention or discovery . A typical culture hero might be credited as the discoverer of fire, or agriculture, folk music, tradition and religion, and is usually the most important legendary figure of a people, sometimes as the founder of its ruling dyna...
 of Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology

File:Nine-Dragons1.jpgChinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written form....
 who is believed to have lived some 5,000 years ago, and taught ancient China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 the practices of agriculture
Agriculture

Agriculture refers to the production of food and goods through farming and forestry. Agriculture was the key development that led to the rise of civilization, with the animal husbandry of domestication animals and plants creating food surpluses that enabled the development of more Population density and Social stratification societies....
. Appropriately, his name means "the Divine Farmer". Considered to be the father of Chinese agriculture, Shennong taught his people how to cultivate grains as food, so as to avoid killing animals.

He is said to have tasted hundreds of herb
Herb

A herb is a plant that is valued for qualities such as medicinal properties, flavor, scent, or the like....
s to test their medical value. The most well-known work attributed to Shennong is the The Divine Farmer's Herb-Root Classic – first compiled some time during the end of the Western Han Dynasty, several thousand years after Shennong existed – which lists the various medical herbs such as reishi which were discovered by Shennong and given grade and rarity ratings. This work is considered to be the earliest Chinese pharmacopoeia
Pharmacopoeia

Pharmacopoeia , in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of samples and the preparation of compound medicines, and published by the authority of a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society....
. It includes 365 medicines derived from minerals, plants, and animals. Shennong is credited with identifying hundreds of medical (and poisonous) herb
Herb

A herb is a plant that is valued for qualities such as medicinal properties, flavor, scent, or the like....
s by personally testing their properties, which was crucial to the development of Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine

Traditional Chinese medicine includes a range of traditional medicine practices originating in China. Although well accepted in the mainstream of medical care throughout East Asia, it is considered an alternative medicine system in much of the western world....
. Legend has it that Shennong had a transparent body and thus could see the effects of different plants and herbs on himself. Tea
Tea

Tea refers to the agricultural products of the leaves, leaf buds, and internodes of the Camellia sinensis plant, prepared and cured by various methods....
, which acts as an antidote against the poisonous effects of some seventy herbs, is also said to be his discovery. Chinese legend places this discovery in 2737 B.C., according to which Shennong first tasted tea from tea leaves on burning tea twigs, which were carried up from the fire by the hot air, and landed in his cauldron of boiling water. Shennong is venerated as the Father of Chinese medicine. He is also believed to have introduced the technique of acupuncture
Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a technique of inserting and manipulating fine wikt:filiform needles into specific points on the body to relieve pain or for therapeutic purposes....
.

A close kinsman of the Yellow Emperor
Yellow Emperor

Huang-di, or the Yellow Emperor, is a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero who is considered in Chinese mythology to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese....
, he is said to be a patriarch
Patriarch

Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised Autocracy authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy....
 of the Chinese. The Han Chinese
Han Chinese

Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the Earth.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the population of Singapore, and about 19 percent...
 regarded them both as their joint ancestors. He is also considered one of the ancestors of the Vietnamese people
Vietnamese people

The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from what is now northern Vietnam and southern People's Republic of China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other List of ethnic groups in Vietnam....
 (De Minh, grandfather of L?c Long Quân, was a third generation descendent of Shennong in Vietnamese mythology). He was deified as one of the San Huang for his contributions to mankind.

Shennong is said to have played a part in the creation of the Guqin
Guqin

The is the modern name for a plucked seven-string List of traditional Chinese musical instruments of the zither family. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favored by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote "a gentleman does not part with his qin'...
, together with Fuxi and the Yellow Emperor
Yellow Emperor

Huang-di, or the Yellow Emperor, is a legendary Chinese sovereign and culture hero who is considered in Chinese mythology to be the ancestor of all Han Chinese....
.

Scholarly works mention that the paternal family of famous Song Dynasty
Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling Chinese dynasty in China between 960–1279 AD; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty....
 General Yue Fei
Yue Fei

Yue Fei was a famous China patriot and military general who fought for the Song Dynasty against the Jurchen armies of the Jin Dynasty . Since the Emperor had executed him, Yue Fei has evolved into the standard model of loyalty in Culture of China....
 traced their origins back to Shennong.

See also

  • Shen Nong Stream
    Shen Nong Stream

    Shen Nong Stream is a tributary of the Yangtze River, located in the Hubei Province of central Peoples Republic of China. Originally the Shen Nong Stream watercourse consisted of a wild river traversing a tortuous alignment flanked by almost vertical limestone cliffs; however, since the beginning of the construction of the Three Gorges Dam do...
  • Song Yingxing
    Song Yingxing

    Song Yingxing was a China scientist and encyclopedist who lived during the late Ming Dynasty . He was the author of an encyclopedia that covered a wide variety of technical subjects, including the use of gunpowder weapons....