Pixiu (bixie)
A winged, horned beast like a lion. In the Han dynasty it was the bixie, the “warder-off of evil”, carved in stone beside the roads to tombs; today, as the pixiu, it is a charm for wealth, worn in jade or kept in the home.
Meaning
The pixiu (貔貅, píxiū) goes by several names. Beijing’s official tourism site gives pixiu, tianlu and bixie, calls it one of the five auspicious animals of Chinese culture with the dragon, the phoenix, the turtle and the Qilin, and says Chinese people call it the “fortune beast”. The name bixie (辟邪) means “to ward off evil”, the National Palace Museum in Taipei explains, and that was its first work: Han dynasty bixie were winged, four-legged beasts set up in stone along the spirit roads leading to tombs. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts describes the bixie as a chimera with a dragon’s head, a lion’s body and a bird’s wings, and calls it an auspicious symbol of peace and prosperity. Many people wear jade pixiu today, the Beijing site notes, and it is made in copper, wood and jade.
Origin and history
The winged beast probably came to China from Western Asia, the National Palace Museum and the Montreal museum agree; Montreal says it travelled across the steppes. In Han China it guarded the dead. Large stone bixie stood in front of mausoleums, the V&A notes, and small figures were placed in tombs to protect the dead from evil spirits and, Montreal adds, to discourage looters. Jade bixie were worn by the living: the V&A’s carving, a lion-like animal with a single horn, was meant to protect its wearer, and the National Palace Museum’s large Han jade bixie, which has a long, horse-like snout where others have a tiger’s, was once part of the imperial collection, with a stand inscribed as an imperial curio of the Qianlong emperor and an imperial poem carved on its chest.
From warder of evil to fortune beast
The bixie of the Han tombs drove evil away. The pixiu of today draws money in, and it has a story of its own. In the version on Beijing’s tourism site, the pixiu is the ninth son of the Dragon King and eats gold, silver and jewels. One day, having eaten too much, it relieved itself in the Jade Emperor’s palace, and the angry emperor beat it and took away its anus. Once the story spread, the site says, people regarded the pixiu as an auspicious animal that helps make fortunes.
The pixiu in feng shui
Feng shui practitioners, the same site says, hold that the pixiu protects homes, drives out devils and raises its owner’s fortune and power. These are beliefs about the figure, held by those who keep it. The older reading, the beast that guards against evil, is the one the Han tomb guardians in the museums carry.
Pixiu, qilin or lion?
The pixiu is easily mixed up with the Qilin and with the Guardian lions (foo dogs). The Han bixie has wings, which the qilin and the gate lions do not, and the V&A’s jade has a single horn. The qilin has a deer’s body and no wings; the gate lions have curled manes and stand in pairs with a ball and a cub.
Read next
- Next in Chinese mythology and symbolsAzure Dragon (Qinglong)The Azure Dragon (青龍, Qīnglóng) is the dragon of the east, one of the Four Symbols, the animals of the four quarters of the sky in Chinese cosmology. It stands for the east and for spring, and on Han mirrors and tombs it faces the White Tiger of the west.
- The same shape in Cryptids and folklore creaturesMothmanA winged, red-eyed creature reported around Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1966, now the town's best-known legend.
See also
Qilin, Guardian lions (foo dogs), Chinese dragon (long), Flaming pearl, Fenghuang (Chinese phoenix), Vermilion Bird (Zhuque).
Sources
- Jade Pi-Hsieh, auspicious beast (National Palace Museum, Taipei), National Palace Museum, Taipei, “Jade Pi-Hsieh, auspicious beast”, Han dynasty, Google Arts & Culture, National Palace Museum, object description
- Chimera, Eastern Han dynasty (Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Chimera, Eastern Han dynasty (25–220), inv. 1962.Ed.34, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, object description
- Jade bixie (Victoria and Albert Museum), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, jade figure of a bixie, Victoria and Albert Museum, summary description
- Legend of Pixiu (Visit Beijing), Visit Beijing (Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism), “Legend of Pixiu”, 12 August 2013, Beijing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, article text
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
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