Pi Yao

Also Known As: also Pixiu, 貔貅; the single-horned form Tianlu, 天祿, “heavenly emolument,” and the double-horned form Bixie, 辟邪, “warding off evil”; classically the male Pi and the female Xiu
Region/Culture: East Asia
Mythos: Chinese Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Monsters and Beasts
Mythical Attributes: An auspicious guardian beast said to devour gold and silver, draw wealth toward its owner from every direction, and turn back malignant spirits.
Role in Mythos: A war-beast of the legendary emperors that later became a tomb guardian and household protector, hoarding fortune and repelling evil.
Relation to Humans: People set carved pixiu at tomb approaches and doorways to drive off harmful spirits, and in feng-shui practice they keep small jade or bronze figures to attract and hold money. The creature is treated as loyal and endlessly hungry, rewarding the household that feeds and strokes it.

On the stone-paved spirit road that runs toward a Han emperor’s tomb, a pair of beasts crouch in the long grass, each the size of a warhorse and cut from a single block of limestone. Rain has worn their manes down to soft ridges, but the muscle still reads under the stone: the deep chest of a lion, wings folded tight along the flanks, a head that is neither quite a lion’s nor quite a dragon’s, its mouth open on teeth meant to unsettle anyone who came up the road with the wrong intentions. Sculptors set them there to walk the dead into the next world unmolested. People have called them by an older, blunter name for two thousand years. Pixiu.

The word carries two creatures inside it. In the oldest usage the male was Pi and the female Xiu, and the ancients spoke of them as a pair, the way one speaks of a mated set of hounds. Later commentators fixed the difference in the horns. Writing in the third century, Meng Kang distinguished the single-horned beast, the tianlu or “heavenly emolument,” from the double-horned bixie, “the one that wards off evil.” The two share a body and a temperament and split only in what they are asked to do: one draws fortune in, the other keeps harm out. A great many carvings blur the line entirely, and most people today simply say pixiu and mean both.

Before it guarded anything, the beast fought. The Book of Documents, recording the muster before the battle of Muye, has King Wu of Zhou tell his troops to be “like tigers, like pixiu,” a line meant to put iron in men about to break the armies of Shang. Older still is the account in the Records of the Grand Historian, where the Yellow Emperor trains bears, leopards, tigers and pixiu and leads them against the Yan Emperor in the wild country of Banquan. For that service the beast was said to have been enfeoffed, given a rank and a name of its own. Armies carried its image on their standards, and to march under the pixiu banner was to claim its ferocity.

The physical record begins in earnest in the Han dynasty, when the first stone guardians were raised and the first clear descriptions written down. The animal that emerges is a composite: the horned, whiskered head of a dragon set on a lion’s powerful frame, eyes that bulge, a wide fanged mouth, and the cloven hooves of a qilin beneath it. Wings sweep back from the shoulders, a feature that arrived partly through contact with the winged lions and griffins of the lands to the west, folded into a shape that stayed thoroughly Chinese. The stone versions are heavy, low, and coiled, built to look as though they might rise off the plinth if provoked.

Where it came from depends on who is telling it. One tradition counts the pixiu among the nine sons of the dragon, each son taking a different form and a different duty, which places it in a whole family of hybrid guardians perched on roofs, bells and bridges across China. Another simply treats it as one of the strange auspicious animals that the Classic of Mountains and Seas catalogues without much ceremony. The tomb sculptures and the battle standards came first in the visible record; the tidy genealogies came later.

The role most people know now is younger than the rest, and it grew up around a single appetite. In feng-shui tradition the pixiu is a creature of insatiable hunger for gold and silver, drawing what practitioners call cai qi, the breath of wealth, toward it from all directions. A popular story explains why it never gives any back. The beast, it is said, offended heaven and was punished by the Jade Emperor, who sealed its rear so that it could swallow treasure but never pass it. What goes into the pixiu stays there. A jade figure on a merchant’s counter, turned to face the door, is meant to catch fortune coming in and let none leak out, and its owner strokes it the way one might settle a working animal before the day’s labor.

Its powers all follow from that double nature as fighter and hoarder. It repels evil spirits, which is why it stood on the spirit road and stands now at thresholds and bank entrances. It gathers and guards money, loyal to the household that keeps it. In older tellings its sheer battlefield ferocity was the whole point, and the wealth came later, an appetite refined into a blessing.

The limits are mostly rules for handling it. Feng-shui custom holds that a pixiu should face outward, toward a door or window, never the bed, and that covering its mouth or its eyes blinds it to the fortune it is meant to find. It is reckoned jealous and best kept singly or in balanced pairs. And there is the plainest limit of all, the one the punishment story turns on. It eats, and nothing comes out. A creature built to take in everything and release nothing is a fine servant for a person who wants to grow rich, and a strange thing to wish upon anything alive.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Pi Yao (Pixiu)?

Pi Yao, more standardly written Pixiu, is a winged hybrid beast of Chinese mythology with a dragon-like horned head and a lion’s body. It appears in ancient texts as a fierce war-animal and in later tradition as a guardian that draws in wealth and wards off evil spirits.

What is the difference between Tianlu and Bixie?

Tianlu and Bixie are the two forms of the pixiu, distinguished by their horns. The third-century commentator Meng Kang described the single-horned beast as the tianlu, “heavenly emolument,” associated with fortune, and the double-horned beast as the bixie, “warding off evil,” associated with protection.

Why is Pixiu a symbol of wealth?

Pixiu is famed for a voracious hunger for gold and silver and is believed to pull wealth toward its owner from every direction. A popular legend says the Jade Emperor sealed the beast’s rear as punishment, so it can swallow treasure but never release it, meaning fortune flows in and never out.

Where does Pixiu appear in ancient Chinese sources?

Pixiu appears in the Book of Documents, where King Wu urges his troops to be “like tigers, like pixiu,” and in the Records of the Grand Historian, where the Yellow Emperor leads pixiu and other beasts into battle at Banquan. From the Han dynasty onward it was carved as a monumental stone guardian along the spirit roads leading to imperial tombs.

How is a Pixiu used in feng shui?

In feng-shui practice, people keep small jade or bronze pixiu figures to attract and hold money. Custom holds that the figure should face a door or window rather than the bed, that its mouth and eyes must be left uncovered so it can find fortune, and that stroking it keeps the beast favorable to the household.