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Yu the Great, a MythSource painting
Chinese

Yu the Great

01Identity

Yu the Great in Chinese tradition

Yu the Great is the flood-taming hero and founder figure described in these Chinese reference accounts. Oxford's entry calls him the Great Yu and says that some accounts call him Gaomi or Yuhuang, while also saying that Yu is sometimes known as the Jade Emperor. Those are source-specific variant statements, not a universal identity merge between Yu and Yu Huang.

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming): Y U entry, bounded complete entry· Dictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman): Yü2 entry, bounded from Yü2 through founder-of-first-dynasty sentence

  • flood-taming hero (The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming))
  • founder of the first Xia dynasty in Coleman's account (Dictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman))
02

Context

Roles

Oxford describes Yu as the hero who ends the great flood, while Coleman presents Yü as a builder of dams and an irrigation engineer who controls flood-waters. These accounts are kept as separate source-bound presentations.

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming): Y U entry, bounded complete entry· Dictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman): Yü2 entry, bounded from Yü2 through founder-of-first-dynasty sentence

Variants

Oxford records several alternatives for Yu's miraculous birth: a magic pearl after a shooting star, a seed found on a mountain, birth from a rock, and emergence as a dragon from Gun's body. They are alternatives, not one chronology.

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming): Y U entry, bounded complete entry

Oxford says Yu married Tushan and gives an account in which she became stone after seeing him turn into a bear; Yu then opened the stone to release their son. This remains a source-specific context variant.

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming): Y U entry, bounded complete entry

Oxford's wording that Yu is sometimes known as the Jade Emperor is retained as a qualified variant. In this variant, Yu the Great remains distinct from Yu Huang.

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming): Y U entry, bounded complete entry

Top questions

The quick answers

03Family

Yu the Great’s family, at a glance

GunNü Zhi
Yu the Great

with Tu Shan Shi

Qi of Xia
04The names

The names Yu the Great answers to

Ta Yü

Name variant in Coleman's Yü2 entry

SourceDictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman)

The Great Yü

English rendering in Coleman's Yü2 entry

SourceDictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman)

Gaomi

Name Oxford says is used for Yu in some accounts

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming)

Yuhuang

Name Oxford says is used for Yu in some accounts; not a canonical Yu Huang alias

SourceThe Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming)

05The myths

The myths of Yu the Great

2 myths, with sources recorded for each.

Yu Emerges from Gun and Stems the Flood

Oxford's Chinese flood account places a great flood during the reign of Yao. The high god Tiandi, or Sky-Earth, sends the waters because of the general wickedness of humanity, leaving people stranded on mountaintops among wild beasts. Gun pleads their case, but Tiandi rejects him. Gun then decides to act alone.

Gun tells an owl and a tortoise that Tiandi has magical earth that can stem the flood. He steals some of the substance and drops it into the waters, where it becomes land. The people rejoice at the ground rising from the water, but Tiandi sends the fire god Zhurong to kill Gun and recover the magic soil. The flood returns while Gun's followers guard his body and it regains life for those stranded above the waters.

Tiandi has Gun's body cut by a sword. From the cut emerges Gun's son, the great Dragon Yu, who stems the flood once again. Gun becomes a yellow dragon and lives at the bottom of the waters. The returning flood has found its answer in a son born from the body of the man who first tried to stop it.

Yu Emerges from Gun and Stems the Flood, a MythSource painting of the scene

1 source· checked 2026-09-07

  1. 1The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (David Leeming)T1

Yü Builds Dams and Controls the Flood-Waters

Coleman's Yü2 entry presents Yu, or Ta Yü and the Great Yü, as a winged dragon with horns and the father of Ch'i. In this account, the figure emerges from K'un's body three years after K'un is killed by Chu-jung for stealing the Swelling Earth from Huang Ti. Huang Ti then permits Yü to use the substance.

Yü becomes a builder of dams and an irrigation engineer who controls the flood-waters. Coleman says that he later becomes a master smith and makes nine cauldrons on which he inscribes the details of his works. Another version places those inscriptions on a stone tablet set on a mountain peak.

Yü sometimes takes the form of a bear, and his wife turns to stone when she sees him in that guise. In another account he is the son of Hsiu-chi and is born with a tiger-like nose and three nostrils. Coleman also says that he becomes emperor when Shun abdicates and is regarded as the founder of the first dynasty. His story joins flood-water, engineering and the making of an ordered human realm.

Yü Builds Dams and Controls the Flood-Waters, a MythSource painting of the scene

1 source· checked 2026-09-07

  1. 1Dictionary of Mythology (J. A. Coleman)T1