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Bi Gan
Prince Bigan (), surnamed " Zi" (子), was a prominent Chinese figure during the Shang dynasty. He was a son of King Wen Ding, and an uncle of King Zhou, and served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Shang. He was later worshipped as the God of Wealth. History Prince Bigan was the prime minister of the Kingdom of Shang during the late Shang dynasty, and a member of the Shang royal family. His surname was " Zi" (子). He was the son of King Wen Ding and served his nephew, King Zhou. Zhou, the last king of the Shang dynasty, has been traditionally regarded as notoriously cruel, immoral, and wasteful. According to the account recorded by Sima Qian in his ''Records of the Grand Historian'', King Zhou's minister Prince Weizi admonished him to reform his ways several times, but his admonitions fell on deaf ears. Prince Weizi then decided to withdraw from the court, but Prince Bigan argued that to serve as minister meant doing what was right even if it meant death. Prince Biga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Xia Dynasty
The Xia dynasty (; ) is the first dynasty in traditional Chinese historiography. According to tradition, it was established by the legendary figure Yu the Great, after Emperor Shun, Shun, the last of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Five Emperors, gave the throne to him. In traditional historiography, the Xia was succeeded by the Shang dynasty. There are no contemporaneous records of the Xia, and they are not mentioned in the oldest Chinese texts, the earliest oracle bone inscriptions dating from the Late Shang period (13th century BC). The earliest mentions occur in the oldest chapters of the ''Book of Documents'', which report speeches from the early Western Zhou period and are accepted by most scholars as dating from that time. The speeches justify the Zhou conquest of the Shang as the passing of the Mandate of Heaven and liken it to the succession of the Xia by the Shang. That political philosophy was promoted by the Confucian school in the Eastern Zhou period. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Deified Chinese Men
Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The original sense of apotheosis relates to religion and is the subject of many works of art. Figuratively "apotheosis" may be used in almost any context for "the deification, glorification, or exaltation of a principle, practice, etc.", so normally attached to an abstraction of some sort. In religion, apotheosis was a feature of many religions in the ancient world, and some that are active today. It requires a belief that there is a possibility of newly created gods, so a polytheistic belief system. The major modern religions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism do not allow for this, though many recognise minor sacred categories such as saints (created by a process called canonization). In Christian theology there is a concept of the faithful bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Chinese Gods
Chinese gods and immortals are beings in various Chinese religions seen in a variety of ways and mythological contexts. Many are worshiped as deities because traditional Chinese religion is polytheistic, stemming from a pantheistic view that divinity is inherent in the world. The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating, and propagating the way of heaven (, ''Tian''), 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 of connecting back to Heaven, which is the "utmost ancestral father" (, ). There are a variety of immortals in Chinese thought, and one major type is the ''xian'', which is thought in some religious Taoism movements to be a human given long or infi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Taoist Deities
Chinese theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the Chinese classics and Chinese folk religion, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations, is fundamentally monistic, that is to say it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. This is expressed by the concept that "all things have one and the same principle" ( zh, p=wànwù yīlǐ, c=萬物一理). This principle is commonly referred to as , a concept generally translated as "Heaven", referring to the northern culmen and starry vault of the skies and its natural laws which regulate earthly phenomena and generate beings as their progenitors. Ancestors are therefore regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and hence as the means connecting back to Heaven which is the "utmost ancestral father" (). Chinese theology may be also called , a term already in use in the 17th and 18th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Wenquxing
In Chinese mythology, Wenquxing (文曲星, 'Star of Literature') is a god responsible for overseeing literary pursuits and examinations. Those who excel in literary skills and hold high-ranking positions in the imperial court are often associated with the incarnation of Wenquxing to the mortal realm. Unlike other literary deities such as Wenchang Wang and Kui Xing, Wenquxing emphasizes romantic literary talents, while Wenchang Wang focuses on achieving fame and fortune, and Kui Xing specializes in literary composition and examinations. He is mostly worshipped by students wishing for success or to enter a better school or position. Folk beliefs In folk beliefs, it is believed that various figures, such as Bi Gan, the prince of Shang, Yi Yin, the prime minister of the Shang dynasty, Zhang Dongzhi, the prime minister of the Tang dynasty, Fan Zhongyan, the prime minister of the Song dynasty, Bao Zheng, the magistrate of Kaifeng, Wen Tianxiang, the Grand Chancellor of the Song dynast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Jiang Ziya
Jiang Ziya ( century BC – 11th century BC), also known by several other names, also known by his posthumous name as the Duke Tai of Qi, was the founding monarch of the Qi state. He was a military general and strategist who assisted King Wen of Zhou and King Wu of Zhou overthrow the Shang dynasty and establish the Zhou dynasty. Following their victory in the Battle of Muye, he continued to serve as a Zhou minister. He remained loyal to the regent Ji Dan (Duke Wen of Zhou) during the Rebellion of the Three Guards; following the Ji Dan's punitive raids against the restive Dongyi, Jiang was enfeoffed with the land of Qi. He established his seat at Yingqiu (in modern-day Linzi, Zibo, Shandong). He has been worshipped as a war god since the Han and, especially, Tang dynasties. He is also celebrated in Chinese literature, and is one of the main heroes in the Ming-era ''Investiture of the Gods''. Names The first ruler of Qi bore the given name Shang. The nobi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
The Investiture Of The Gods
''The Investiture of the Gods'', also known by its Chinese titles () and is a 16th-century Chinese novel and one of the major vernacular Chinese works in the gods and demons (''shenmo'') genre written during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Consisting of 100 chapters, it was first published in book form between 1567 and 1619. Another source claims it was published in a finalized edition in 1605. The work combines elements of history, folklore, mythology, legends and fantasy.Chew, Katherine Liang (2002). ''Tales of the Teahouse Retold: Investiture of the Gods''. Page XI. . The story is set in the era of the decline of the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) and the rise of the Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC). It intertwines numerous elements of Chinese mythology, Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, including deities, demons, immortals and spirits. The authorship is attributed to Xu Zhonglin. Plot The novel is a romanticised retelling of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Ming Dynasty
The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, the majority ethnic group in China. Although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng (who established the short-lived Shun dynasty), numerous rump state, rump regimes ruled by remnants of the House of Zhu, Ming imperial family, collectively called the Southern Ming, survived until 1662. The Ming dynasty's founder, the Hongwu Emperor (1368–1398), attempted to create a society of self-sufficient rural communities ordered in a rigid, immobile system that would guarantee and support a permanent class of soldiers for his dynasty: the empire's standing army exceeded one million troops and the naval history of China, navy's dockyards in Nanjing were the largest in the world. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Caishen
Caishen () is the mythological figure worshipped in the Chinese folk religion and Taoism. He has been identified with many historical figures, viewed as his embodied forms, among whom Zhao Gongming (, Wade–Giles: ''Chao Kung-ming''; also known as Zhao Gong Yuanshuai "Lord Zhao the Marshal"), Fan Li, and Bi Gan. A large temple of Caishen was built in the 2000s in Zhouzhi, Xi'an, Shaanxi. Caishen's name is often invoked during the Chinese New Year celebrations. He is often depicted riding a black tiger and holding a golden rod. He may also be depicted with an iron tool capable of turning stone and iron into gold. Historical personages Several versions of Caishen's incarnations' political affiliation and way of deification are circulated. It is unclear whether they are genuine historical figures, though most of the stories agree that Caishen's most popular incarnation lived during the early Qin dynasty. Most probably it represents the merging of several heterogeneous le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Daji
Daji ( zh, c=妲己, p=Dájǐ, w=Ta2-chi3) was the favourite consort of King Zhou of Shang, the last king of the Shang dynasty in ancient China. In legends and fictions, she is portrayed as a malevolent fox spirit who kills and impersonates the real Daji. Her identification as a fox spirit seems to have originated from at least the Tang dynasty. These accounts have been popularized in works such as the (), the , and the . She is considered a classic example of how a beautiful femme fatale can cause the downfall of a dynasty in Chinese culture. In the Song dynasty, fox spirit cults, including those dedicated to Daji, became outlawed, but their suppression was unsuccessful. For example, in 1111, an imperial edict was issued for the destruction of many spirit shrines within Kaifeng, including those of Daji. Biography Daji was from a noble family of Yousu (); her style name is Da (), and her clan name is Ji (). Hence, she is also known as Su Da Ji or Da Ji in ancient sources. At ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Wei Zheng
Wei Zheng (580 – 11 February 643), courtesy name Xuancheng, posthumous name Duke Wenzhen of Zheng, was a Chinese politician and historian. He served as a chancellor of the Tang dynasty for about 13 years during the reign of Emperor Taizong. He was also the lead editor of the official history of the Sui dynasty, the '' Book of Sui'', which was composed in 636. Wei Zheng was born to a poor family in modern Hebei, and joined Li Mi's rebellion against the Sui dynasty in his youth. After Li Mi's submission to the Tang Empire, Wei Zheng became a Tang official and eventually served on the staff of Li Jiancheng, the Crown Prince and eldest son of Emperor Gaozu, the Tang dynasty's founding emperor. As such, he served against the interests of Li Jiancheng's younger brother, Li Shimin (the Prince of Qin), with whom Li Jiancheng was locked in an intense rivalry. In 626, Li Shimin ambushed and killed Li Jiancheng, and then effectively forced Emperor Gaozu to yield the throne to him. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
