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Qianliyan
Qianliyan is a Chinese sea and door god. He usually appears with Shunfeng'er as a guardian of the temples of the sea goddess Mazu. Name The name "Qianliyan" literally means "He of the Thousand-Mile" or "League Eyes" but may be taken more generally as "Hawkeye", "Lynx-Eyed",. "Far-Seeing", or even " All-Seeing" or "Clairvoyant". as a distance of 1,000 li was idiomatic in Chinese for any great distance. It also appears as . and His partner Shunfeng'er's name similarly means "Sharp-Eared" or "All-Hearing". Under the Ming, Qianliyan was also known as LiLou. History Qianliyan is first attested in the early-16th century novel ''Journey to the West'', where he appears as the personified form of the Taoist Jade Emperor's eyes and one of his lieutenants. There is, however, an earlier depiction of him in the caves of Shimen ''Shíménshān'') in Sichuan which has been dated to the Southern Song. The Chinese folk tale about the Ten Brothers also probably long predates its first pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shunfeng'er
Shunfeng'er is a Chinese sea and door god. He usually appears with Qianliyan as a guardian of the temples of the sea goddess Mazu. Name The name "Shunfeng'er" literally means "Wind Accompanying Ears" in reference to his ability to hear any sound carried upon the wind. The unusual idiom is translated variously as "Ears that Hear with the Wind", "Ears that Hear what Comes on the Wind", "Ears that Hear the Sounds Taken with the Wind", "Wind-Accompanying Ears", "Downwind Ears", or even "Sharp Ears", "Far-Hearing", or " All-Hearing". The god's role in helping sailors distinguish favorable winds also prompts the translations "Fair-Wind Ears" and "Favorable-Wind Ears". It also appears as . and His partner Qianliyan's name similarly means "Sharp-Eyed" or "All-Seeing". Under the Ming, Shunfeng'er was also known as ShiKuang. He is also sometimes known as Wanli'er, which has similar meaning, as the Chinese word ''wàn''—like the English " myriad"—simultaneously means the number 10,00 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lin Moniang
Mazu or Matsu is a Chinese sea goddess also known by several other names and titles. She is the deified form of the legendary figure Lin Mo or Lin Moniang, a Fujianese shamaness whose life span is traditionally dated from 960 to 987. Revered after her death as a tutelary deity of seafarers, including fishermen and sailors, her worship spread throughout China's coastal regions and overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia and overseas, where some Mazuist temples are affiliated with famous Taiwanese temples. She was thought to roam the seas, protecting her believers through miraculous interventions. She is now generally regarded by her believers as a powerful and a benevolent Queen of Heaven. Mazu worship is popular in Taiwan as large numbers of early immigrants to Taiwan were Hoklo people; her temple festival is a major event in the country, with the largest celebrations around her temples at Dajia and Beigang. Names and titles In addition to Mazu.. o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mazu (goddess)
Mazu or Matsu is a Chinese sea goddess also known by several other names and titles. She is the deified form of the legendary figure Lin Mo or Lin Moniang, a Fujianese shamaness whose life span is traditionally dated from 960 to 987. Revered after her death as a tutelary deity of seafarers, including fishermen and sailors, her worship spread throughout China's coastal regions and overseas Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia and overseas, where some Mazuist temples are affiliated with famous Taiwanese temples. She was thought to roam the seas, protecting her believers through miraculous interventions. She is now generally regarded by her believers as a powerful and a benevolent Queen of Heaven. Mazu worship is popular in Taiwan as large numbers of early immigrants to Taiwan were Hoklo people; her temple festival is a major event in the country, with the largest celebrations around her temples at Dajia and Beigang. Names and titles In addition to Mazu.. or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Door God
Menshen or door gods are divine guardians of doors and gates in Chinese folk religions, used to protect against evil influences or to encourage the entrance of positive ones. They began as the divine pair Shenshu ( ) and Yulü () under the Han, but the deified generals Qin Shubao () and Yuchi Gong () have been more popular since the Tang. In cases where a door god is affixed to a single door, Wei Zheng or Zhong Kui is commonly used. History The gates and doors of Chinese houses have long received special ritual attention. Sacrifices to a door spirit are recorded as early as the ''Book of Rites''.. By the Han, this spirit had become the two gods Shenshu and Yulü, whose names or images were painted into peachwood and attached to doors. When the Great Ancestor of the Tang ("Emperor Taizong") being plagued by nightmares, he ordered portraits of his generals Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong to be affixed to gates. They eventually came to be considered divine protectors, replacing S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shenshu (deity)
Shentu or Shenshu ( zh, t=神荼) and Yulü or Yulei ( zh, t=鬱壘, s=郁垒) are a pair of deities in Chinese mythology who punished evil spirits by binding them in reed ropes and feeding them to tigers. Their images together with reed rope seasonally adorned the doors or gates to ward off evil, and are considered the earliest examples of ''Menshen'' (, 'gate deities' or 'door gods') venerated under such practice. Later traditions identified other gods or deified people as gate deities. The description dates to writings from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, during the Eastern Han dynasty, and the attribution to the ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'' dating much earlier appears to be spurious. Early sources The earliest record of Shentu and Yulü occurs in a passage quoted from ''Shanhaijing'' (; ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'') in Wang Chong (d., c. 97 AD)'s ''Lunheng'' (, "Discourses in the Balance"), although the passage is not found in surviving recensions of the ''Shanhajing' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ten Brothers
''Ten Brothers'' () is a Chinese legend known to be written around the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644). It has been told and spun off in various adaptations and remains popular since it is one of the oldest Chinese legends to feature characters in a superhero fashion. Story The more modern version of the story has a couple swallow ten pearls and give birth to ten brothers. Each one of the ten brothers possesses a different supernatural power, though they develop their powers as the story progresses. At the end, the brothers battle some form of an antagonist and they only win when working in unity. However, if the ten brothers come into contact with limestone, their powers disappear and they become helpless. Characters The number of brothers varies among Chinese ethnicities. The Yi people have nine brothers, the Zhuang people have eight brothers, the Han people have five brothers and the Li people have 10 brothers. * ''1st and Oldest Brother'' - Capable of seeing miles awa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sichuan
Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the Sichuan Basin and the easternmost part of the Tibetan Plateau between the Jinsha River on the west, the Daba Mountains in the north and the Yungui Plateau to the south. Sichuan's capital city is Chengdu. The population of Sichuan stands at 83 million. Sichuan neighbors Qinghai to the northwest, Gansu to the north, Shaanxi to the northeast, Chongqing to the east, Guizhou to the southeast, Yunnan to the south, and the Tibet Autonomous Region to the west. In antiquity, Sichuan was the home of the ancient states of Ba and Shu. Their conquest by Qin strengthened it and paved the way for Qin Shi Huang's unification of China under the Qin dynasty. During the Three Kingdoms era, Liu Bei's state of Shu was based in Sichuan. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern Song
The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The Song often came into conflict with the contemporaneous Liao dynasty, Liao, Western Xia and Jin dynasty (1115–1234), Jin dynasties in northern China. After retreating to southern China, the Song was eventually conquered by the Mongols, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The dynasty is divided into History of the Song dynasty, two periods: Northern Song and Southern Song. During the Northern Song (960–1127), Northern Song (; 960–1127), the capital was in the northern city of Kaifeng, Bianjing (now Kaifeng) and the dynasty controlled most of what is now Eastern China. The #Southern Song, 1127–1279, Southern Song (; 1127–1279) refers to the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fable
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a concise maxim or saying. A fable differs from a parable in that the latter ''excludes'' animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as actors that assume speech or other powers of humankind. Conversely, an animal tale specifically includes talking animals as characters. Usage has not always been so clearly distinguished. In the King James Version of the New Testament, "" ("''mythos''") was rendered by the translators as "fable" in the First Epistle to Timothy, the Second Epistle to Timothy, the Epistle to Titus and the First Epistle of Peter. A person who writes fables is a fabulist. History The fable is one of the most enduring forms of folk literat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Journey To The South
The ''Four Journeys'' () is a collection of four shenmo novels that were published during the Ming dynasty Wanli era, and they consist of ''Journey to the North'', ''Journey to the South'', ''Journey to the East'', and ''Journey to the West''. *'' Journey to the North'' () was composed by Yu Xiangdou ( 余象斗). *''Journey to the South'' () was composed by Yu Xiangdou ( 余象斗). *''Journey to the East'' () was composed by Wu Yuan-tai ( 吳元泰, 1522-1526). *''Journey to the West'' () is composed by Yang Zhihe ( 楊致和).Yang Zhihe's novel is based on the same subject as, but distinct from, Wu Cheng'en's epic novel ''Journey to the West''. Bibliography *Gary Seaman (tr.): ''Journey to the North''. University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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