Xiangliu (/ʃæŋ.ljuː/), known in the Classic of Mountains and Seas as Xiangyao (/ʃæŋ.jaʊ/),[1] is a venomous nine-headed snake monster that brings floods and destruction in Chinese mythology.
Xiangliu may be depicted with his body coiled on itself. The nine heads are arranged differently in different representations. Modern depictions resemble the hydra with each head on a separate neck.[2] Older wood-cuts show the heads clustered on a single neck, either side-by-side or in a stack three high, facing three directions.
According to the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing), Xiangliu (Xiangyao) was a minister of the snake-like water deity Gonggong. Xiangliu devastated the ecology everywhere he went. He was so gluttonous that all nine heads would feed at the same meal. Everywhere he rested or breathed upon (or that his tongue touched, depending on the telling) became boggy with poisonously bitter water, devoid of human and animal life. When Gonggong received orders to punish people with floods, Xiangliu was proud to contribute to their troubles.[3] Eventually, Xiangliu was killed, in some versions of the story by Yu the Great, whose other labors included ending the Great Flood of China, in others by Nüwa after he was defeated by Zhurong. The Shanhaijing says his blood stank to the point it was impossible to grow grain in the land it soaked and the area flooded, making it uninhabitable. Eventually Yu had to restrain the waters in a pond, over which the Sky Lords built their pavilions.[4]
Sun Jiayi identified Xiangliu as an eel:
Sun señala que la anguila es el animal más importante en los cuentos sobre inundaciones de los aborígenes de Formosa . Ying-lung , que... hacía los lechos de los ríos moviendo su cola en el suelo fangoso y así ayudaba a Yü a regular la inundación, también era una especie de anguila: Hsiang-liu [Xiangliu] detuvo el agua con su cuerpo. ; Ying-lung con su cola la hizo correr libremente, así como el padre de Yü, Kun, detuvo el agua, mientras Yü la hacía correr. Kun, que según la leyenda fue ejecutado por su incapacidad para detener la inundación, se convirtió en un "pez oscuro"; y algunos textos… llaman al Kun “El desnudo”. Ambos nombres encajan bastante bien con la anguila.
— Eberhard (1968: 350–351), se omitieron los comentarios entre paréntesis
En 1983 se recopiló en Sichuan una versión oral del mito de Xiangliu, en el que se representa a Xiangliu como una serpiente de nueve cabezas responsable de inundaciones y otros daños.