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Wudaxian
The Wǔdàxiān (五大仙 "Five Great Immortals"), also known as Wǔdàjiā (五大家) and Wǔdàmén (五大门), meaning the "Five Great Genii", are a group of five zoomorphic deities of northeastern Chinese religion, and important to local shamanic practices. They are the localised adaptation of the Five Forms of the Highest Deity (五方上帝 ''Wǔfāng Shàngdì'') of common Chinese theology. Names and meanings In some places of Hebei, the cult comprises four instead of five zoomorphic gods, including the Fox, the Weasel, the Hedgehog and the Snake Gods (四大仙 ''Sìdàxiān'', 四大门 ''Sìdàmén''). While the Fox God and the Weasel God always remain the two prominent members of the cult, the other positions vary in some regions including the Tiger, the Wolf, the Hare and the Turtle Gods. Li Qingchen (?-1897), a scholar of Tianjin, explained the images of the Five Great Immortals as follows: :: ..the Five Immortals ..are: 狐 ''Hú'' is fox, 黄 ''Huáng'' is wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northeast China Folk Religion
Northeast China folk religion is the variety of Chinese folk religion of northeast China, characterised by distinctive cults original to Hebei and Shandong, transplanted and adapted by the Han Chinese settlers of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang (the three provinces comprising Manchuria) since the Qing dynasty. It is characterised by terminology, deities and practices that are different from those of central and southern Chinese folk religion. Many of these patterns derive from the interaction of Han religion with Manchu shamanism. Prominence is given to the worship of zoomorphic deities, of a " totemic" significance. In the region the terms '' shen'' ("god") and ''xian'' ("immortal being") are synonymous. Figures of ritual specialists or shamans perform various ritual functions for groups of believers and local communities, including ''chūmǎxiān'' ( "riding for the immortals"), dances, healing, exorcism, divination, and communication with ancestors. History The formation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Five Forms Of The Highest Deity
The Wǔfāng Shàngdì ( "Five Regions' Highest Deities" or "Highest Deities of the Five Regions"), or simply Wǔdì ( "Five Deities") or Wǔshén ( "Five Gods") are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven ( ''Tiān''). This theology dates back at least to the Shang dynasty. Described as the "five changeable faces of Heaven", they represent Heaven's cosmic activity which shapes worlds as ''tán'' , "altars", imitating its order which is visible in the starry vault, the north celestial pole and its spinning constellations. The Five Deities themselves represent these constellations. In accordance with the Three Powers ( Sāncái) they have a celestial, a terrestrial and a chthonic form. The Han Chinese identify themselves as the descendants of the Red and Yellow Deities. They are associated with the five colors, the five phases of the continuous creation, the five key planets of the Solar System and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huli Jing
Huli jing () are Chinese mythological creatures usually capable of shapeshifting, who may either be benevolent or malevolent spirits. In Chinese mythology and folklore, the fox spirit takes variant forms with different meanings, powers, characteristics, and shapes, including '' huxian'' (), ''hushen'' (), ''husheng'' (), ''huwang'' (), ''huyao'' (), and ''jiuweihu'' (). Fox spirits and nine-tailed foxes appear frequently in Chinese folklore, literature, and mythology. Depending on the story, the fox spirit's presence may be a good or a bad omen. The motif of nine-tailed foxes from Chinese culture was eventually transmitted and introduced to Japanese and Korean cultures. Descriptions The nine-tailed fox occurs in the '' Shanhaijing'' (''Classic of Mountains and Seas''), compiled from the Warring States period to the Western Han period (circa fourth to circa first century BC). The work states: In chapter 14 of the ''Shanhaijing'', Guo Pu, a scholar of the Eastern Jin dyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nüwa
Nüwa, also read Nügua, is the mother goddess of Chinese mythology. She is credited with creating humanity and repairing the Pillar of Heaven. As creator of mankind, she molded humans individually by hand with yellow clay. In the Huainanzi, there is described a great battle between deities that broke the pillars supporting Heaven and caused great devastation. There was great flooding, and Heaven had collapsed. Nüwa was the one who patched the holes in Heaven with five colored stones, and she used the legs of a tortoise to mend the pillars. There are many instances of her in literature across China which detail her in creation stories, and today remains a figure important to Chinese culture. Name The character ''nü'' ( zh, t=女, l=female) is a common prefix on the names of goddesses. The proper name is ''wa'', also read as ''gua'' ( zh, t=媧). The Chinese character is unique to this name. Birrell translates it as 'lovely', but notes that it "could be construed as 'frog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuxi
Fuxi or Fu Hsi (伏羲 ~ 伏犧 ~ 伏戲) is a culture hero in Chinese legend and mythology, credited along with his sister and wife Nüwa with creating humanity and the invention of music, hunting, fishing, domestication, and cooking as well as the Cangjie system of writing Chinese characters around 2,000BC. Fuxi was counted as the first of the Three Sovereigns at the beginning of the Chinese dynastic period. Origin Pangu was said to be the creation god in Chinese mythology. He was a giant sleeping within an egg of chaos. As he awoke, he stood up and divided the sky and the earth. Pangu then died after standing up, and his body turned into rivers, mountains, plants, animals, and everything else in the world, among which is a powerful being known as Huaxu (華胥). Huaxu gave birth to a twin brother and sister, Fuxi and Nüwa. Fuxi and Nüwa are said to be creatures that have faces of human and bodies of snakes. Fuxi was known as the "original god", and he was said to ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yin And Yang
Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and yang and formed into objects and lives. Yin is the receptive and yang the active principle, seen in all forms of change and difference such as the annual cycle (winter and summer), the landscape (north-facing shade and south-facing brightness), sexual coupling (female and male), the formation of both men and women as characters and sociopolitical history (disorder and order). Taiji or Tai chi () is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which yin and yang originate. It can be compared with the old '' wuji'' (, "without pole"). In the cosmology pertaining to yin and yang, the material energy, which this universe has created itself out ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragon God
The Dragon King, also known as the Dragon God, is a Chinese water and weather god. He is regarded as the dispenser of rain, commanding over all bodies of water. He is the collective personification of the ancient concept of the '' lóng'' in Chinese culture. There are also the cosmological "Dragon Kings of the Four Seas" (; ''Sihai Longwang''). Besides being a water deity, the Dragon God frequently also serves as a territorial tutelary deity, similarly to Tudigong "Lord of the Earth" and Houtu "Queen of the Earth". Singular Dragon King The Dragon King has been regarded as holding dominion over all bodies of water, and the dispenser of rain, in rituals practiced into the modern era in China. One of his epithets is Dragon King of Wells and Springs. Rainmaking rituals Dragon processions have been held on the fifth and sixth moon of the lunar calendar all over China, especially on the 13th day of the sixth moon, held to be the Dragon King's birthday, as ritualized supplicat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Huáng Dàxiān
Wong Tai Sin or Huang Daxian () is a Chinese Taoist Deity popular in Jinhua, Zhejiang, and Hong Kong with the power of healing. The name, meaning the "Great Immortal Wong (Huang)", is the divine form of Huang Chuping or Wong Cho Ping (; c. 328 – c. 386), a Taoist hermit from Jinhua during the Eastern Jin dynasty.Geertz, Armin W. McCutcheon, Russell T. Elliot Scott S. McCutcheon, Russell. 000(2000) Perspectives on Method and Theory in the Study of Religion. Brill Academic Publishers. Legend According to the text ''Self-Description of Chisongzi'' (; "Master Red Pine"), Wong Tai Sin was born Huang Chuping (Wong Cho Ping in Cantonese) in 328 in Lanxi, Jinhua, Zhejiang province.Self-Descriptions of Chisongzi at the temple Western sources have him listed at c. 284 to 364 CE. Wong Cho Ping is said to have experienced poverty and hunger, becoming a shepherd when he was eight years old.Siksikyuen.Siksikyuen" "Bio." Retrieved on 007-04-18 He began practising Taoism at the age of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yellow Deity
The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors and cosmological Five Regions' Highest Deities (). Calculated by Jesuit missionaries on the basis of Chinese chronicles and later accepted by the twentieth-century promoters of a universal calendar starting with the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi's traditional reign dates are 2697–2597 or 2698–2598 BC. Huangdi's cult became prominent in the late Warring States and early Han dynasty, when he was portrayed as the originator of the centralized state, as a cosmic ruler, and as a patron of esoteric arts. A large number of texts – such as the ''Huangdi Neijing'', a medical classic, and the '' Huangdi Sijing'', a group of political treatises – were thus attributed to him. Having waned in influence during most of the im ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Axis Mundi
In astronomy, axis mundi is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles. In a geocentric coordinate system, this is the axis of rotation of the celestial sphere. Consequently, in ancient Greco-Roman astronomy, the ''axis mundi'' is the axis of rotation of the planetary spheres within the classical geocentric model of the cosmos. In 20th-century comparative mythology, the term axis mundi — also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, center of the world, or world tree — has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing "the connection between Heaven and Earth" or the "higher and lower realms." Mircea Eliade introduced the concept in the 1950s. Axis mundi closely relates to the mythological concept of the '' omphalos'' (navel) of the world or cosmos. Items adduced as examples of the ''axis mundi'' by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Kunlun (mythology)
The Kunlun () or Kunlun Shan is a mountain or mountain range in Chinese mythology, an important symbol representing the ''axis mundi'' and divinity. The mythological Kunlun is based on various sources — mythologic and geographic — of the modern so-called Kunlun Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and Mount Kailash (as an archetypal ''omphalos''). The term "Kunlun" has also been applied to Southeastern Asian lands or islands and seemingly even Africa — although the relationship to the mountain is not clear beyond the nomenclature. In any case, Kunlun refers to distant, exotic, and mysterious places. Different locations of Kunlun have been ascribed in the various legends, myths, and semi-historical accounts in which it appears. These accounts typically describe Kunlun as the dwelling place of various gods and goddesses where fabled plants and mythical creatures may also be found. Many important events in Chinese mythology were based around Kunlun. Historical development As the my ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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