According to Chinese mythology the Chinese civilization, begins with Pan Gu, the creator of the universe. Born from the egg of Chaos simultaneously with the initial separation of heavy and light elements (yin and yang) into the earth and heavens, he is said to have lived for 18,000 years. Components of his body transformed into the sun and moon, mountains, rivers and seas, and trees and plants, while the fleas on his body became the human race. sustenance, clothing, and shelter. Another legendary figure, Sui Ren, or "Producer of Fire," was believed to have been the man who brought down fire from heaven for the first time and employed it in the preparation of food. Before his time the people lived like wild beasts and ate their food raw.

After Pan Gu and Sui Ren, there was the Age of the Three Divine Rulers,"(San Huang) who taught the ancient Chinese to communicate and to find sustenance, clothing, and shelter.

1. Fu Xi, or "Conqueror of Animals." Fu Xi is the best known of all the traditional benefactors of primitive China. He is said to have been born miraculously somewhere in the province of Henan. In the ancient picture he is always represented with a human countenance, to which an addition has been made in the two horny protuberances which are signs of the lawmakers and man with superior mentality.

Among the many useful advances in the direction of civilization which are attributed to Fuxi are the following:

1. The ceremonies with which marriage was contracted.
2. The invention of musical instruments, especially that of the thirty-vie-stringed lute.
3. The use of writing in picture symbols.
4. The taming of animals, leading to the use of six domestic animals, namely, the horse, dog, ox, sheep, pig, and fowl.
5. The cultivation of the mulberry and the feeding of silkworms on the leaves.
6. The development of the Bigram, or divination by means of the whole and broken line, into the Eight Trigrams (Bagua), each the symbol of some particular element in Nature. On these was built in later times the whole complex system of Chinese divination by the Sixty-four Hexagrams giving in the I Ching ("Book of Changes").

2. Shen Nong, Some 1300 years after Fu Xi, the throne fell to Shen Nong, or "God of Agriculture," who taught the people the art of agriculture and the use of herbs as medicine.

3. Huangdi: or "Yellow Emperor," is a great solider who won victories over the earlier inhabitants of the land, but he was an inventive one also. He is said to have invented armor and wheeled vehicles.

Yao: Huangdi passed over an unworthy son to had over the governmetnn to his grandson Yao. Who is been described as being gifted without being proud, and exalted without being insolent. During his long reign he work hard for the welfare of the people. According to legends, Yao used to placed a tablet outside the palace on which any one might write advice with regard to the government. A drum near by enabled the man with a grievance to make known his desires to the King.

Shun: Shun was reverenced in China not only as a great ruler but at least equally as one of the "Twenty-four Examples of Filial Piety." His own mother died when he was a child and his father, a blind man, was not specially kind to him when he remarried. His father was unprincipled, his mother insincere, and his younger brother arrogant, yet he labored hard to support those who abused him, fishing, making pottery, and working in the fields. So he was enabled not only to live in peace but even brought about some improvement in his family relationships. Things prospered for so good a son. After he elevated to kingship, not only did he work hard at the great engineering problem, but became responsible for many important reforms. He regulated the calendar, standardized weights and measures and made mitigations of the punishments hitherto in vogue, altering the size of the whip which was used in the courts and the thickness of the birch rod employed for the chastisement of schoolboys. When Shun felt the end of his rule approaching, he followed precedent in choosing another likeminded to himself, the great Yu, the founder of Xia dynasty.