Within the ancient and resplendent cosmos of Chinese mythology, Changxi—the gentle and enigmatic goddess of the moon—illuminates the night in her own distinctive way. With her serene radiance, she soothes the human spirit, and as both “the Harmonizing Lady” and “Mother of the Moons,” she weaves balance between yin and yang, sustaining the cosmic order. In the timeless pages of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Changxi emerges vividly as the very embodiment of the moon, a guardian of universal rhythm and the ceaseless cycle of life. Today, we travel across millennia to uncover the mysteries behind this lunar deity and explore how she, as the Mother of Moons, harmonizes yin and yang to uphold the world’s enduring equilibrium.
In Chinese mythology, Changxi (常羲) is an ancient lunar goddess who is the second wife of Di Jun (帝俊). She is the mother of twelve moons, including the Earth’s Moon. Her myth can be taken literally or interpreted to mean that she gave birth to the twelve calendar months of the year.
Changxi—also known as Changyi—appears in the ancient text Shan Hai Jing as the mythical mother of the moons. Together with the solar deity, she is wife to the divine sovereign Dijun, and is said to have given birth to twelve moons, symbolic of the twelve months of the year. Owing to her role in regulating the lunar calendar, she came to be regarded as a creator figure who helps maintain cosmic order. Some sources record that she belonged to the Juzi clan, and in addition to the twelve moons, she bore other offspring such as Zhi, Xuya, and Yanyue. By observing the moon’s phases and orbital cycles, Changxi was believed to establish intercalary months and coordinate the celestial movements of sun and moon. In myth, each of the twelve moons bears a name—such as Duan, Xing, and Tao—marking the temporal order of the seasons.
The names “Changxi” and “Chang’e” are also linked through phonetic evolution. In the Lüshi Chunqiu, the phrase “Shangyi divines the moon” was annotated by Bi Yuan as a reference to Changyi, noting that this figure gradually transformed through linguistic shift into what later became known as Chang’e. The earliest textual mention of Changxi appears in the Shan Hai Jing passage “Dijun’s wife Changxi gives birth to twelve moons”; by the Western Han, her image began merging with the legend of Chang’e’s ascent to the moon.
Because their names are so similar, she is often confused with the other Chinese moon goddess, Chang’e (嫦娥), even though Changxi’s myth actually predates any mention of Chang’e. But, it’s believed that their legends may have originated from the same primitive Chinese lunar goddess.
Changxi is first mentioned in the Shān Hǎi Jīng (山海經) or The Classic of Mountains and Seas briefly in one line: “Di Jun married Changxi, and she gave birth to twelve moons.”
In the Shan Hai Jing, Changxi is further called “the Harmonizing Lady” and “Mother of the Moons.” She is revered as the Moon Mother because she birthed the twelve lunar months; she is named “the Harmonizer” because she holds the authority to balance yin and yang and maintain the order of time. This responsibility is rooted in the distinctive structure of the traditional Chinese calendar—a lunisolar system. Unlike the globally used solar calendar, the ancient Chinese calendar integrates both solar and lunar motions: the sun’s yearly cycle governs the seasons and the twenty-four solar terms, while the moon’s phases provide a natural and visible rhythm for marking days and months. This dual structure made the calendar practical for agriculture and daily life, yet it introduced a fundamental challenge: the solar and lunar cycles do not align. The solar year lasts about 365 days, whereas a lunar cycle spans roughly 28 days; twelve lunar months fall short by more than ten days. Without correction, the mismatch would soon lead to severe drift between seasons and months.
The solution was the insertion of intercalary months—an additional “leap month” added every few years—to realign lunar months with the solar seasons. Here lies the essence of Changxi’s title “the Harmonizer”: as the deity responsible for structuring the lunar system, she ensures that lunar time remains synchronized with the seasonal cycle, thereby maintaining the delicate balance of yin and yang.
The Shan Hai Jing states: “There is the realm of the Harmonizing Moon Mother… She dwells in the northeastern reaches, halting the sun and moon so that they do not fall out of sequence, and governing the measure of their cycles.” The northeast symbolizes the year’s end—a vantage point from which the cumulative motions of sun and moon were assessed and intercalation determined. This act of ensuring that “the sun and moon do not emerge out of turn” reflects Changxi’s role in preserving celestial harmony. Thus, her work extends far beyond birthing the moons: she stands as a guardian of cosmic order, a creator deity who ensures that the universe continues to unfold in steady, harmonious rhythm.
