Chinese gods and immortals


is polytheistic; many deities are worshipped in a pantheistic view where divinity is inherent in the world. The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven, which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order. Many gods are ancestors or men who became deities for their heavenly achievements; most gods are also identified with stars and constellations. Ancestors are regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and therefore as the means connecting back to Heaven, which is the "utmost ancestral father".
Gods are innumerable, as every phenomenon has or is one or more gods, and they are organised in a complex celestial hierarchy. Besides the traditional worship of these entities, Confucianism, Taoism and formal thinkers in general give theological interpretations affirming a monistic essence of divinity. "Polytheism" and "monotheism" are categories derived from Western religion and do not fit Chinese religion, which has never conceived the two things as opposites. Since all gods are considered manifestations of 氣 qì, the "power" or pneuma of Heaven, some scholars have employed the term "polypneumatism" or "pneumatolatry", first coined by Walter Medhurst, to describe the practice of Chinese polytheism. In the theology of the classic texts and Confucianism, "Heaven is the lord of the hundreds of deities". Modern Confucian theology compares them to intelligence, substantial forms or entelechies as explained by Leibniz, generating all types of beings, so that "even mountains and rivers are worshipped as something capable of enjoying sacrificial offerings".
Unlike in Hinduism, the deification of historical persons and ancestors is not traditionally the duty of Confucians or Taoists. Rather depends on the choices of common people; persons are deified when they have made extraordinary deeds and have left an efficacious legacy. Yet, Confucians and Taoists traditionally may demand that state honour be granted to a particular deity. Each deity has a cult centre and ancestral temple where he or she, or the parents, lived their mortal life. There are frequently disputes over which is the original place and source temple of the cult of a deity.

Terminology

In Chinese language there is a terminological distinction between 神 shén, 帝 dì and 仙 xiān. Although the usage of the former two is sometimes blurred, it corresponds to the distinction in Western cultures between "god" and "deity", Latin genius and deus or 'Deva' and 'divus; dì, sometimes translated as ":wiktionary:thearch|thearch", implies a manifested or incarnate "godly" power. It is etymologically and figuratively analogous to the concept of di as the base of a fruit, which falls and produces other fruits. This analogy is attested in the Shuowen Jiezi explaining "deity" as "what faces the base of a melon fruit". The latter term 仙 xiān'' unambiguously means a man who has reached immortality, similarly to the Western idea of "hero".

God of Heaven

Chinese traditional theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the classic texts, and specifically Confucian, Taoist and other philosophical formulations, is fundamentally monistic, that is to say it sees the world and the gods who produce it as an organic whole, or cosmos. The universal principle that gives origin to the world is conceived as transcendent and immanent to creation, at the same time. The Chinese idea of the universal God is expressed in different ways; there are many names of God from the different sources of Chinese tradition.
The radical Chinese terms for the universal God are Tiān 天 and Shàngdì 上帝 or simply Dì 帝. There is also the concept of Tàidì 太帝. Dì is a title expressing dominance over the all-under-Heaven, that is all things generated by Heaven and ordered by its cycles and by the stars. Tiān is usually translated as "Heaven", but by graphical etymology it means "Great One" and a number of scholars relate it to the same Dì through phonetic etymology and trace their common root, through their archaic forms respectively *Teeŋ and *Tees, to the symbols of the squared north celestial pole godhead. These names are combined in different ways in Chinese theological literature, often interchanged in the same paragraph if not in the same sentence.

Names of the God of Heaven

Tian is known by many names. Besides Shangdi and Taidi, other names include Yudi, and Taiyi who, in mythical imagery, holds the ladle of the Big Dipper providing the movement of life to the world. As the hub of the skies, the north celestial pole constellations are known, among various names, as Tiānmén 天門 and Tiānshū 天樞.
Other names of the God of Heaven are attested in the vast Chinese religio-philosophical literary tradition:
Tian is both transcendent and immanent, manifesting in the three forms of dominance, destiny and nature of things. In the Wujing yiyi, Xu Shen explains that the designation of Heaven is quintuple:
All these designations reflect a hierarchical, multiperspective experience of divinity.

Lists of gods, deities and immortals

Many classical books have lists and hierarchies of gods and immortals, among which the "Completed Record of Deities and Immortals" of the Ming dynasty, and the Biographies of the Deities and Immortals or Shenxian Zhuan by Ge Hong. There's also the older Collected Biographies of the Immortals or Liexian Zhuan. Couplets or polarities, such as Fuxi and Nuwa, Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, and the highest couple of Heaven and Earth, all embody yin and yang and are at once the originators and maintainers of the ordering process of space and time.

Cosmic gods

In mythology, Huangdi and Yandi fought a battle against each other; and Huang finally defeated Yan with the help of the Dragon. This myth symbolises the equipoise of yin and yang, here the fire of knowledge and earthly stability. Yan 炎 is flame, scorching fire, or an excess of it. As an excess of fire brings destruction to the earth, it has to be controlled by a ruling principle. Nothing is good in itself, without limits; good outcomes depend on the proportion in the composition of things and their interactions, never on extremes in absolute terms. Huangdi and Yandi are complementary opposites, necessary for the existence of one another, and they are powers that exist together within the human being.

Gods of celestial and terrestrial phenomena

The worship of mother goddesses for the cultivation of offspring is present all over China, but predominantly in northern provinces. There are nine main goddesses, and all of them tend to be considered as manifestations or attendant forces of a singular goddess identified variously as the Lady of the Blue Dawn or Houtu, the goddess of the earth. Bixia herself is identified by Taoists as the more ancient goddess Xiwangmu, The general Chinese term for "goddess" is 女神 nǚshén, and goddesses may receive many qualifying titles including mǔ, lǎomǔ, shèngmǔ, niángniáng, nǎinai.
The additional eight main goddesses of fertility, reproduction and growth are:
Altars of goddess worship are usually arranged with Bixia at the center and two goddesses at her sides, most frequently the Lady of Eyesight and the Lady of Offspring. A different figure but with the same astral connections as Bixia is the Goddess of the Seven Stars. There is also the cluster of the Holy Mothers of the Three Skies, composed of Yunxiao Guniang, Qiongxiao Guniang and Bixiao Guniang. The cult of Chenjinggu present in southeast China is identified by some scholars as an emanation of the northern cult of Bixia.
Other goddesses worshipped in China include Cánmǔ or Cángū, identified with Léizǔ, Mágū, Sǎoqīng Niángniáng, Sānzhōu Niángniáng, and Wusheng Laomu. Mother goddess is central in the theology of many folk religious sects.

Gods of northeast China

Northeast China has clusters of deities which are peculiar to the area, deriving from the Manchu and broader Tungusic substratum of the local population. Animal deities related to shamanic practices are characteristic of the area and reflect wider Chinese cosmology. Besides the aforementioned Fox Gods, they include:
Gods who have been adopted into Chinese religion but who have their origins in the Indian subcontinent or Hinduism: