c. 300 Emergence of Yamato state in Japan.

478 First Shinto shrine appears.

538 Buddhism reaches Japan via China and Korea.

592 Conflict between clans over Buddhism and local deities leads to execution of the emperor.

630 First Japanese ambassador at China's Tang court.

685 Buddhism becomes state religion of Japan; in 741, Buddhist temples are established throughout the land by government decree.

January 1, 1946, the Japanese emperor Hirohito (d. 1989) denied his own divinity. In 1947, the Japanese Constitution ended official statex Shinto. Modern Japan is a parliamentary democracy, in which the emperor is the head of state, but the elected prime minister is the head of government.

I.

n 1793, King George III sent an emissary to the court of Chinese emperor Qian Long. Arriving in what was then called Peking, the British ambassador displayed a lavish array of gifts for the Chinese ruler, including six hundred cases of scientific instruments. The emperor, a member of the Qing Dynasty, who had been on the throne for nearly sixty years, was polite but unimpressed. "There is nothing we lack," he told Lord McCartney, the British envoy. "We have never set much store on strange or indigenous objects, nor do we need any more of your country's manufactures." It was seemingly true. For much of its nearly 4,000-year-long history, China had thrived in splendid isolation, a mysterious and unwelcoming empire that neither needed nor desired contact with outsiders. Cut off from most of its neighbors by natural boundaries-the Himalayan mountains to the west, the Gobi desert and forbidding Mongolian territory to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the east-China had expended vast sums and countless lives building walls.* Behind these formidable barriers of earth and stone, sheltered from the gaze of potential invaders and eager Christian missionaries, China's successive dynasties had developed a civilization that was in many ways far more advanced than any of its contemporaries. Not only did the Chinese create a vast network of rural villages held together by a remarkable bureaucracy and a single written language, they invented paper, printing, gunpowder, fireworks, the seismograph, noodles, the compass, and ships capable of sailing the world long before Westerners did. China was, as historian Daniel Boorstin once called it, "an empire without wants."

Yet, in spite of its early history of writing, China did not leave the world's richest written mythic legacy. Unlike the Egyptians, who stored thousands of funeral texts in their grand tombs, the Chinese were seemingly far less concerned with elaborate burial rites, and left no detailed road maps to the afterlife, although they built expansive tombs. Though nearly every great ancient civilization composed epic poems of love and war, there is no ancient Chinese Gilgamesh, Iliad, or Ramayana. China certainly had its cornucopia of Creation and Flood accounts-as many as six separate Creation stories and four Flood narratives, each featuring different characters. But, intriguingly, these tales don't emphasize heavenly retribution for sinful behavior. And while the Chinese acknowledged a wide range of nature gods, mythical semidivine rulers, and prophetic priest-kings in their fourth-century treatise Questions of Heaven and their third-century encyclopedia of gods, The Classic of Mountains and Seas, it was human ingenuity-not divine intervention-that was seen as the solution to most problems.

No surprise, then, that myth never formed in China the deep cultural identity that is typically associated with Greece or India. Or became the monolithic state religion, or powerful priesthood associated with Egypt. Quite to the contrary, China's vast size and regional differences checked the development of a single "national" mythology that could unite the country. Even as generations of Chinese students immersed themselves in the myth-tinged works of Chinese literature called the Five Classics, their goal was not to become priests. They were preparing for the ancient Chinese SATs, or "civil service exams," required to climb the imperial bureaucratic ladder or advance in the army. (The Chinese even had an "examination god" named Kui Xing, who was called upon by scholars for divine assistance at test time.) But where myth failed to unify China, philosophy succeeded. Far more important than China's poets and storytellers were its sages and wise men. Think China, and you think Confucius, not a poet like Homer.

The two great strands of native Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and Taoism-both introduced around 500 BCE-clearly shaped China's history, government, and culture more than any myth or religious belief did. Emphasizing social order, loyalty to family and king, and ancestor worship, Confucianism is a moral code of proper behavior designed to achieve an ideally gentle world in which every individual has a place within the family and every family has a place within the society. Confucianism places the virtue of a disciplined communal order above the need to appease the gods, while Taoism, the second major school of Chinese thinking, stresses the importance of individuals living simply and close to nature. By far the more influential of the two, Confucianism was made the state religion in 136 BCE, during the powerful Han Dynasty-a 400-year period in Chinese history often equated with the Roman Empire in terms of its size and prestige. Just as Confucianism was being institutionalized, Buddhism was imported from India, adding a spicy new accent to China's philosophical potpourri and creating in China a picture markedly different from other great civilizations, where myth was often all-pervasive.

One other significant but very modern factor has diminished China's mythic legacy. The study of Chinese myths and mythic sources was severely stunted under Communist rule. The all-powerful official Chinese Communist Party that has governed China since 1949 largely suppressed all religions, which were regarded as mere superstition. Classical Confucianism was opposed by the Maoist "powers that be"-which created a mythology of its own to lionize Chairman Mao-because it emphasized the past and, in the Party view, justified social inequality.

The Five Classics, studied by aspiring bureaucrats and functionaries for two thousand years, were set aside in favor of Karl Marx and Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. During decades of strict Communist authoritarian rule, the Party turned Buddhist and Taoist temples into museums, schools, and meeting halls, and the study of mythology and other ancient Chinese traditions suffered. An entire generation of academics, scholars, and researchers was largely eliminated in the violent upheaval of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, when universities were shut down for years, and foreign embassies closed. Some 7 million students, teachers, and others in the professional classes were sent to be "reeducated" on rural collective farms, where many did not survive the purges and repression of the Red Guard era.*

The diplomatic "opening" of China that followed President Richard Nixon's historic 1972 visit has also unlocked China in other ways that relate to its mythic past. Ancient Chinese healing arts, such as acupuncture, "energy healing," and herbal medicines, are now a growing part of the Western medical arsenal. Many Westerners now decorate their homes and offices with careful attention to feng shui (fuhng shway), the ancient Chinese art of placing objects with the goal of creating a sense of balance and harmony. According to feng shui, the life-force energy called chi flows from every living and inanimate object, and can be promoted with the careful placement of furniture and the proper use of colors.

In the arts, a band of Chinese filmmakers known as the Fifth Generation has introduced American audiences to Chinese history and folk traditions in such films as Raise the Red Lantern, Yellow Earth, and Farewell My Concubine. Chinese-American filmmaker Ang Lee wowed the world with his legendary folktale Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Acclaimed Chinese-American writers such as Amy Tan, author of The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God's Wife, have reached wide audiences as they explored Chinese mythic and family traditions and their impact on a generation of Chinese-Americans. Even Disney got on the Chinese dragon-wagon with its animated Mulan, a 1998 "girl power" version of a Chinese folktale, whose heroine takes her father's place in battle and is the same Fa Mu Lan whom Maxine Hong Kingston wrote about in her award-winning memoir Woman Warrior.

During the past thirty years, along with this vanguard of a new "cultural revolution," a generation of archaeologists and scholars has also been allowed to peek over the "Great Wall" that surrounds China's ancient history. As they do, they have begun to reveal the rich, imaginative, and colorful myths born in "the empire without wants."

MYTHIC VOICES.

Thunder comes resounding out of the earth: The image of Enthusiasm.

Thus the ancient kings made music In order to honor merit, And offered it with splendor To the Supreme Deity, Inviting their ancestors to be present.

-from I Ching,

Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Banes, translators

What are oracle bones?

Near the end of the nineteenth century, a large number of so-called "dragon bones" began showing up in apothecary shops throughout China. Ground into powders to be used in folk medicines and aphrodisiacs, these bones were thought to possess magical powers, because they had strange markings on them. Scholars became aware of the "dragon bones" in the early twentieth century, and by the 1920s, when extensive excavations were made near some of the oldest human settlements along China's Yellow River, more than 100,000 of these bones had been unearthed in what proved to be an archaeological gold mine.*

Made from the bones of deer and oxen, and tortoise shells, these artifacts were later identified as "oracle bones" used by royal priests-and even by early Chinese kings themselves-in making prophecies, communicated through dead ancestors. Representing the earliest form of Chinese religion, the bones were marked with Chinese characters from one of the earliest known forms of written Chinese. In ancient divining sessions, the bones were marked with a shallow cut-which evolved into written "questions"-and then heated until the bone or shell cracked. The resulting fissures were then "read" by a priest, who made predictions based on the configuration of the cracks. Usually a simple "fortune-telling" question about the weather, the success of a hunt or battle, or the sex of an expected child would be asked. Interestingly, a "reading" of "yes" meant boy, while "no" meant girl-an indication of a very old Chinese preference for male children, still a concern in China today, where modern sex-screening methods are used to abort female fetuses.

Although they probably represent traditions that go back much further in Chinese history, many of the oracle bones are dated to 1300 BCE, during the Shang Dynasty (15231027 BCE), one of the first kingdoms in Chinese history for which there is significant archaeological evidence. Based in the Huang He Valley, the Shang was organized as a city-state with a king who probably served as high priest, similar to the organization in ancient Mesopotamia. Other finds from the Shang Dynasty include sophisticated bronze drinking vessels that show a high degree of metalworking skill. On the grimmer side of the archaeological ledger are Shang tombs in which kings and nobles were buried with treasures that included war chariots-often complete with horses and charioteers. Clearly, human sacrifices were made during the Shang period, and the remains of sacrificial victims, ceremonially beheaded in groups of ten, have been found in these tombs. Patricia Ebrey, a scholar of Chinese family and kinship, writes that one tomb of a Shang king, who ruled around 1200 BCE, "yielded the remains of ninety followers who accompanied him in death, seventy-four human sacrifices, twelve horses, and eleven dogs.... Some followers were provided with coffins and bronze ritual vessels or weapons of their own, some (generally female) with no coffins but with personal ornaments; others were provided with no furnishings and were beheaded, cut in two, or put to death in other mutilating ways." (Human sacrifice was apparently abolished during the next dynastic period, that of the Zhou Dynasty, 1027221 BCE.) During this very early period in Chinese history under the Shang, "religion" was largely based on the idea that each person had two souls-one a "physical" soul, and one an "eternal" soul-that could be kept alive through sacrifices performed by a male family member. With proper sacrifice, the eternal soul became a deity of power and influence that could respond to divination requests or perform other heavenly favors. But if a deceased ancestor's soul was neglected or treated poorly, that soul could become a demon and haunt the living. The vast majority of China's people throughout history have been rural peasants, and this farmer class had little to do with these lofty beliefs, which were reserved for the landed wealthy. Instead, the religion of the peasant farmers centered on the worship of local deities of soil and water and shamanistic cults featuring spirit mediums-practices largely dismissed by the upper classes of China. Just as there was human sacrifice at the royal level, there was a grim side to these local rites. In many farming villages, there were river festivals in which beautiful girls were selected as the "bride of the river." Set afloat in a boat, they were ultimately drowned as an offering to the river god.

Chinese religion developed without a powerful priestly class, and the sacrificial cult services were performed by the head of the family, or by state officials. The sacrifices included a variety of domesticated animals, or wine poured as a libation. The concept of proper sacrifice was so important, according to historians W. Scott Morton and Charlton Lewis, that the downfall of a kingdom would be attributed to times when "the sacrifices were interrupted."

The methods of divination that produced the ancient oracle bones became more sophisticated over time, and were formalized in an important Chinese classic called the I Ching (also commonly called Yi Jing, among other various Romanized spellings), or Book of Changes. Counted among the earliest and most influential of the ancient Chinese texts called the Five Classics, the I Ching probably originated about 1122 BCE, early in the Zhou Dynasty, which ruled China for more than 800 years, including the period in which Confucius lived. Grouped together with the I Ching were The Classic of History, material about early kings of questionable authenticity; The Classic of Poetry, a collection of folk and ceremonial songs; The Collection of Rituals (or Rites); and The Spring and Autumn Annals, attributed to Confucius. This family of books constituted the basis of study for the imperial examination that had to be mastered by anyone wanting to advance in the Chinese imperial bureaucracy right up to the early twentieth century.

Like oracle bones, the I Ching was first used to predict the future. A person with a question followed a specific ritual that involved tossing special sticks or coins and then referencing the appropriate commentary in the I Ching. Over time, with the growing influence of Confucianism, the function of the I Ching evolved, and by the 500s BCE, the I Ching was viewed as a book of philosophy.

Traditionally, it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with Fu Hsi (Fu Xi), a creator god said to be one of China's legendary early rulers. (Who's Who of Chinese Gods.) It was also long accepted that Confucius himself had either written or edited the I Ching. During the past fifty years, however, discoveries in archaeology and linguistics have reshaped theories of the book's history. Scholars have been helped immensely by the discovery in the 1970s of intact Han Dynastyera tombs in Hunan Province. (The Han ruled China for roughly 400 years from about 200 BCE to 200 CE.) One of these tombs contained more or less complete second-century BCE texts of the I Ching that are centuries older than the previously discovered texts. Mostly similar to the well-known I Ching, these tomb texts include additional commentaries on the I Ching, previously unknown and apparently written as if they were meant to be attributed to Confucius. The bottom line is that, after considerable investigation, many modern scholars doubt the actual existence of the mythical ruler Fu Hsi (Fu Xi), and think that Confucius had nothing to do with the Book of Changes.

The oracle bones and divination texts of the Shang period contained another important Chinese mythical religious concept that dictated Chinese history for two thousand years. The Shang Dynasty had ruled because of the belief that they had "family connections." In the view of the ancient Chinese, the founders of China had been deities, and the Shang ancestors had joined these divine rulers in heaven. To the Shang, heaven was very active in earthly matters, and they ruled with the intercession of a supreme god they called Shang Di-the Lord on High.

The idea that heavenly connections guided an earthly king's reign evolved into a Chinese concept called "the mandate of heaven." In essence, the mandate was a sign of divine approval. If a king ruled well, he continued in power; if he ruled unwisely, heaven would be displeased and would give the mandate to someone else-sort of like a divine board of directors canning the CEO. The first people to exercise the mandate were the Zhou Dynasty (1027221) from western China, when they overthrew the Shang Dynasty. The Zhou made it clear, in explaining the mandate to the defeated people of the Shang Dynasty, that if their king had not been so evil, his mandate would not have been withdrawn. The same logic was later used to overthrow the Zhou.

One significant consequence of the idea of the mandate of heaven was that it was not necessary for a person to be of noble birth to lead a revolt and become a legitimate emperor. In fact, a number of dynasties were started by commoners, including the mighty Han, whose first emperor was a rebel army officer who seized power during a civil war. If the emperor ruled unwisely or failed to perform the proper rituals, he was out the door-whether a noble or commoner-and, most likely, without a generous "severance package."

On the other hand, the mandate of heaven also promoted the "might is right" idea, since any dynastic founder possessed the mandate by virtue of his success, and any failed ruler was considered to have lost it, no matter how great his personal virtue. The mandate also encouraged both Chinese unity and a disdainful attitude toward the outside world, since there was only one mandate, and so only one true ruler of humankind, the emperor of China.

When the Shang Dynasty was overthrown by the Zhou, the essential continuity of Chinese civilization continued. It was during the Zhou Dynasty that the major philosophers of Chinese history, Confucius and Lao-tzu, both lived and formulated the two schools of thought that would shape Chinese civilization-Confucianism and Taoism.

MYTHIC VOICES.

People say that when Heaven and earth opened and unfolded, humankind did not yet exist. Nu Kua kneaded yellow earth and fashioned human beings. Though she worked feverishly, she did not have enough strength to finish her task, so she drew her cord in a furrow through the mud and lifted it out to make human beings. That is why rich aristocrats are the human beings made from yellow earth, while ordinary poor commoners are the human beings made from the cord's furrow.

-from Chinese Mythology, Anne Birrell How did the ancient Chinese think the world began?

Eggs and mud. Yin and yang. A giant, a gourd, and children in peril. These ancient elements all figure prominently in China's Creation stories, which run the gamut from the profoundly primordial and primitive to the folkloric and fanciful, as they attempt to explain how the world got started.

Like other civilizations, China has several Creation stories that emerge from its many regions and long history. These stories come down through a variety of sources, including the Five Classics, Questions of Heaven (an ancient text from the fourth century BCE), and an anonymous compilation called The Classic of Mountains and Seas. The last of these works, collected between the third century BCE and second century CE, is the closest thing there is to a Chinese "encyclopedia" of myths, including more than two hundred mythical figures.

The most influential of China's Creation stories describes the universe simply coming into being from a cloud of vapor that is suspended in darkness. Out of this primordial chaos come the two essential forces, yin and yang. Dual opposites-stuck together like cosmic peanut butter and jelly-these forces profoundly affected Chinese culture and society, especially in the philosophic system that later emerged, called Taoism.

Often represented by a circle with dark and light areas, yin and yang exist in a delicate balance and underlie the entire Chinese universe. While yin is associated with the qualities of the "feminine"-cold, heaviness, darkness, and earth, yang is linked with the "masculine" qualities-warmth, light, brightness, heaven, and the sun. The interaction of these opposites is believed to have created a major portion of the universe, the seasons, and the natural world. Yin gave birth to water and the moon; yang gave birth to fire and the sun.

As historian Alasdair Clayre writes in The Heart of the Dragon, "Thinking in yinyang terms means analyzing the universe into pairs of fluidly netting opposites, such as shadowed and bright, decaying and growing, moonlit and sunlit, cold and hot, earthly and heavenly or female and male.... Men and women are not seen as exclusively yangor yin: each has only a predominance of the one aspect or the other.... The relation of the two elements of a yinyang pair is not a static one, but is thought of as a continuous cycle in which each tends to become dominant and responsive in turn."

The Creation is described in several other stories that were well known to the ancient Chinese. Two of most popular involve a pair of China's most important gods, Panku (Pan Gu, P'an Ku), a gigantic primeval deity described as the child of yin and yang, and Nu Gua (also Nu Kua, Nu Wa), a popular deity known as "gourd woman" or "woman Gua." The latter name refers to snail-like creatures that lose their shells and symbolize regeneration.

In the Creation myth of Panku, whose story became the widely accepted Chinese Creation myth by the third century Common Era, the world is an enormous egg filled with chaos, in which the giant Panku has been sleeping for 18,000 years. When Panku-whose name is translated as "coiled antiquity"-grows large enough to crack the egg, its clear, translucent fluid (the ethereal yang matter) oozes out and floats up and becomes the heavens. The yolk and heavy (yin) parts drip down to become the earth. Afraid that sky and earth might converge, Panku pushes the sky up with his head and the earth down with his feet. Like the Greek Atlas, he remains that way for another 18,000 years, until he realizes that the sky is high enough and won't fall. Exhausted by his efforts, Panku lies down to rest and dies in his sleep. As he is dying, his breath becomes the wind and the clouds, his voice the thunder. One of his eyes becomes the sun and the other the moon. His limbs become mountains and his veins turn into the roads. No part of his giant body goes unused in the creation of the world. In later versions of the story, even the flies, fleas, and other parasites on his body are transformed into the ancestors of man.

Prefer a Creation story that is a little more "dirty"? The chaste Chinese don't have a very sexy Creation tale, but there is one that involves playing in the mud.

Try a very old tale featuring Nu Gua, the fertility deity and mother of Creation, who is lonely after the world has come into being. Scooping up some wet clay from the bank of the Yellow River, Nu Gua presses it into tiny figures and impregnates each one with the force of yin or yang, so the figures come to life. Those who receive yang become men, and those who receive yin become women. When Nu Gua tires of molding the figures one by one, she spins clay off the end of a rope, or vine, that she has dragged in furrows across the muddy ground. The misshapen figures that come from the gobs of falling mud become humans born into poverty, while the handsome figures, molded by the goddess's hand from the clay of the Yellow River, become the Chinese nobility.

Nu Gua also appears in one of several Chinese Flood stories, appropriate for a region prone to violent flooding. (The Yellow River has been called "China's sorrow" for the ferocity of its devastating floods.) Unlike Flood tales in other civilizations, in which men such as Noah and Deucalion play the dominant roles, the Chinese version features Nu Gua, along with her brother, Fu Hsi, and their father. In this legend, a thunder god who is a fishlike deity with a green face, scales, and fins is angry with Nu Gua's family. Fearing the god, Nu Gua's father builds an iron cage outside his house and waits with a pitchfork in case of an attack by the fish god. In the midst of a great storm, the thunder god arrives and threatens Nu Gua's father. But the clever man is able to trap the god in the cage and plans to cook the fish god. With the thunder deity contained, father goes off to buy spices, so that the thunder god will taste delicious once he is stewed up, but first warns his children not to give the god anything to drink. When the thunder god whimpers that he is thirsty, Nu Gua takes pity on him and gives him a drink. Swallowing the water helps the thunder god regain all of his power, enabling him to break out of the cage. Before he escapes, he gives one of his teeth to the children. They plant it, and a tree soon grows, bearing an enormous gourd.

When the father returns, he sees that the god is gone and a tree is growing. Fearing that the thunder god will take revenge on him, he builds an iron boat and gets into it while the children climb inside the great gourd. When the incessant rains come, both the boat and the gourd float up toward heaven. The father bangs on the door of the king of heaven, who is so surprised by his unexpected visitors that he stops the rain. Instantly, the boat and the gourd fall one thousand miles back to earth. While the father dies, his two children in their gourd are spared, and Nu Gua and her brother Fu Hsi then repopulate the world.

In her book Chinese Mythology, Anne Birrell presents a slightly different version of this myth, in which Nu Gua and her brother Fu Hsi-whose name means "prostrate or sacrificial victim"-create humanity but are ashamed of their incest: Long ago when the world first began there were two people, Nu Gua and her older brother. They lived on Mount K'un-lun. And there were not yet any ordinary people in the world. They talked about becoming man and wife, but they felt shamed. So the brother at once went with his sister up Mount K'un-lun and made this prayer: Oh Heaven, if Thou wouldst send us two forth as man and wife, then make all the misty vapor gather.

If not, then make all the misty vapor disperse, At this, the misty vapor immediately gathered. When the sister became intimate with her brother, they plaited (wove) some grass to screen their faces. Even today, when a man takes a wife, they hold a fan, which is a symbol of what happened long ago.

By the time of the Han Dynasty (206 BCE220 CE), these two gods were often depicted as serpent figures with human heads and interlocking tails. And in Chinese tradition, Nu Gua is also the goddess of match-making and a go-between, who helps arrange marriages.

Another popular Flood story involves a god with the body of a serpent and the head of a human, named Gong Gong (Kung Kung or "common work"), who stirs the waters of earth so violently that they threaten the world with chaos. Gong Gong next tries but fails to overthrow his father, Zhu Rong, the benevolent lord of the cosmos. When Gong Gong angrily butts against one of the mountains of heaven that prop up the sky, it causes the cosmos to tip. This myth explains why the rivers on earth flow in a southwestern direction. As the protective creator goddess, Nu Gua restores order by filling the hole in the sky and then propping up the sky with the legs of a giant tortoise.

What role do "family values" play in Chinese myth?

Compared to the sex-obsessed, whoring, cheating, philandering, and otherwise sexually rapacious gods of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and the Celts, the Chinese gods seem like models of decorum. Sure, Chinese myths have their share of bad guys, evildoers, and greedy siblings. But there is no serial adulterer like Zeus in the Chinese pantheon. Nor is there a Cuchulainn on the lookout for any opportunity to deflower a maiden. As Anne Birrell comments, "Chinese heroic myth differs from other mythologies in its early emphasis on the moral virtue of the warrior hero." Chinese myth is rather G-rated and squeaky-clean.

Even when there is a suggestion of incest in Chinese mythology, as in the Flood story featuring Nu Gua and her brother, who repopulate the world, the two siblings feel shame over their behavior and "screen their faces." Sleeping around is not sanctioned in Chinese myth; "love children" have no place; and little tolerance is shown for feuding in families, which are meant to be honored.

Instead, the Chinese gods are usually hardworking, creative types. Nu Gua's brother, the god Fu Hsi, for instance, invents nets and teaches the people how to fish. The engineer god Yu figures out how to stop the dangerous flooding of the river and is rewarded with immortality. Huang Di ("Great God Yellow") invents clothing and coins, while Shen Nong reveals the medicinal value of plants and even dies in the attempt to make new medicines. Author Anne Birrell suggests that the clean-living nature of this pantheon may lie with those who later compiled China's myths-a post-Confucian set who placed virtue above racy storytelling. "The theme of love is rare," she writes, "and is narrated in a sexually non-explicit manner, which may suggest early prudish editing."

WHO'S WHO OF CHINESE GODS In the Chinese pantheon, there are literally hundreds of gods, both major and minor, who were worshipped locally as well as nationally. The Classic of Mountains and Seas specifies more than two hundred different gods. Some of these deities clearly emerge from distant Chinese history and may have been actual early rulers whose accomplishments entitled them to be elevated to the status of a god. Some of these mythical emperors/deities were even assigned dates of their reigns. Three of these were called the "three sovereigns" and three were called the "sage kings."

Four Ao The four Ao are water gods who take the form of dragons and are under the command of the Jade Emperor. In control of the rain and sea, each was given an area of land and sea to control.

Fu Hsi (Fu Xi) First of the three sovereigns and the brother of Nu Gua, Fu Hsi (translated as "great brilliance" in some traditions and "sacrificial victim" in others) is a god who, from the fourth century BCE on, is deemed an important creator and protector of the human race, especially in floods and other calamities. Fu Hsi is believed to be responsible for the invention of writing, hunting, and, most important, with the process of divination through the oracle bones, which later became the Book of Changes (I Ching). When Fu Hsi observes the markings on all the birds and beasts, he contemplates the divine order of things, and creates the first written markings from which humans can make prophecies.

In one charming tale, Fu Hsi watches a spider spinning a web and is inspired to devise nets from knotted cords, which he uses to teach humans how to hunt and fish.

By the time of the Han Dynasty, Fu Hsi was declared to have been the first emperor, who ruled from 28522737 BCE.

Guan Di (Kuan Yu, Kuan Kung) A figure out of Chinese Confucian folklore, Guan Di is a war god who may have once been an actual army general, executed as a prisoner of war during a time of division in China. While perhaps once a man, the god was supposedly nine feet tall with enormous strength, and Guan Di is usually depicted with a red face and a forked beard. But unlike the fierce war gods of other mythologies, Guan Di is known for courtesy, faithfulness, and being most contented when peace prevails. In 1594, Guan Di was recognized as a god by the Chinese emperor, who offered sacrifices to him.

Hou T'ou (Ti, She) Known as a "prince of the earth," Hou T'ou is the agricultural and fertility deity who manifests itself as the whole planet. Each year in ancient China, the emperor and village officials all around the country turned over the first spadeful of earth at planting time as part of a fertility ceremony, reflecting China's preoccupation with feeding its many people.

Huang Di (Huang-Ti) The third of the three sovereigns and a mythical leader whose name means "great god yellow," Huang Di is also called the "yellow emperor."* Credited with bringing civilization to China, Huang Di is the supposed inventor of upper and lower garments, weapons, the compass, coins, and government. A peace-loving warrior who has four faces so he can see everything, Huang Di fights four battles. In one battle, he uses water to defeat his brother, the fire god Yan Di, the "great god flame," and gain the sovereignty of the world. In another battle, Huang Di uses drought to defeat the war god "Jest Much," who has the weapon of rain.

In the Taoist tradition, Huang Di becomes the supreme god and dreams of a paradise where people live in harmony with nature.

Jade Emperor A deity sometimes known as Yu Huang or Huang Shang-Ti, the Jade Emperor becomes the divine ruler of heaven during the Song Dynasty (9601279 CE). He lives in a heavenly palace similar to those on earth, and governs through a civil service just like that of China. His consort is Xi Wang Mu, "the queen mother of the West," who is more like the Wicked Witch of the West. A powerful tyrant, Xi Wang Mu sends plagues and punishment down to earth, keeps the elixir of immortality, and presides over paradise.

Lung Although not really a god, Lung is the benevolent dragon associated in Chinese folklore with clouds, mist, rain, and rivers. Less like the demonic creature done in by St. George and more like the benevolent "Puff, the Magic Dragon" of song fame, Lung is such an appealing creature that sometimes the gods take the form of dragons, which eventually will become the symbol of Chinese royalty. The Chinese dragon probably evolved from the serpent, an early royal symbol deemed immortal, since it was able to renew itself when it shed its skin.

Nu Gua (Nu Kua, Nu Wa) The great creator goddess, Nu Gua is a very ancient fertility deity who has remained popular in myth and legends throughout China's long history. As the divinity who created humans and saved the universe from catastrophe when Gong Gong (Kung Kung) threatened, she is a powerful protector. In the later Han Dynasty times (202 BCE220 CE), she is viewed as both Fu Hsi's sister and his wife. In the latter role, she is credited with teaching people how to procreate and raise children.

Panku (Pan Gu) The primal creator god who is a child of yin and yang, Panku is born from a cosmic egg in one of China's most important Creation myths. With his death, his body parts become the various bits of the universe and earth, and the insects that come from his body become "the black-haired people" (the Chinese). Many scholars think that Panku may have originated elsewhere in Central Asia and arrived in China in the second or third century CE.

Shen Nong Depicted as a divine being with a bird's head, Shen Nong ("fiery emperor") is the second of the three sovereigns, a legendary emperor who is the inventor of the cart and who teaches people how to farm. Shen Nong is also the ancient god of the pharmacy, who reveals the healing properties of plants to humanity. In myth, he has a see-through stomach, which enables him to view the effects of his experiments with medicinal herbs. Unfortunately, he tests a kind of grass that causes his intestines to burst.

Shun (Yu Di Shun) One of the three sage rulers of antiquity, Shun is another virtuous ruler-god to whom heaven sends birds to weed his crops and pull his plow.

Tsao Chun (Zao Jun) The very ancient "kitchen god" of Chinese myth, Tsao Chun is the most important domestic deity in China and lives in the niche near the cooking stove in Chinese homes. Portrayed as a kindly old man surrounded by children, he supplies the chi, or energy, that aids nourishment. Every New Year, he is said to visit heaven and give an accounting of each household. Before he goes, each household tries to "bribe" him and smears the mouth of Tsao Chun's idol with sweet paste or honey, to help him speak "sweet words" and avoid saying anything bad when he arrives in heaven.

In her novel The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan has an American character ask if the kitchen god is like Santa Claus. An elderly Chinese woman replies in a huff, "He is not Santa Claus. More like a spy-FBI agent, CIA, Mafia, worse than IRS, that kind of person. And he does not give you gifts, you must give him things. All year long you have to show him respect-give him tea and oranges. When Chinese New Year's time comes, you must give him even better things-maybe whiskey to drink, cigarettes to smoke, candy to eat, that kind of thing. You are hoping all the time his tongue will be sweet, his head a little drunk, so when he has his meeting with the big boss, maybe he reports good things about you." Then the Chinese mother adds, "His wife was the good one, not him."

Yao (Tang Di Yao) Another of the three sage rulers of antiquity, Yao is a mythical emperor who is elevated to the status of a god. Yao lives frugally and always cares for his people. But because his son is not worthy to ascend to the throne, Yao chooses his son-in-law as his successor, and Confucius singles him out for praise as a model ruler.

Yi (Hou I, Hou Yi) Perhaps the greatest of the Chinese hero-gods, Yi is the great archer who figures in a myth dating from the sixth century BCE. In this tale, there are ten suns, each one the son of the ruler of heaven. When they all appear at the same time, their intense heat withers the crops and the lord of heaven sends the archer Yi to restore order. But instead of commanding the suns to go home, Yi shoots nine of them with his arrows. Even though the farmers are happy, Yi is banished by the lord of heaven to live as a mortal on earth with his wife, Chang E. Upset at losing her immortality, Chang E acquires a special elixir from the Queen Mother of the West and consumes it all, even though half is meant for her husband. For her disobedience, Chang E is sent to the moon and becomes the moon goddess. Yi accepts his mortality, but in some accounts, goes back to heaven after being forgiven.

Yu (Da Yu) Another of the three sage rulers of antiquity, Yu is a god and an engineer who appears in a foundation myth. When the Emperor Shun (above) asks Yu to work on containing the waters of the great flood, he leaves his wife and children to do the job. Instead of building a boat to escape the deluges, Yu spends thirteen years creating canals to control the floodwaters that periodically threaten parts of China. Yu is awarded the throne for his work. He is said to have founded the legendary first Chinese dynasty, the Xia, between 2205 and 2197 BCE, but there are no confirmed historical accounts of any such dynasty.

MYTHIC VOICES.

The Master said, At fifteen I set my heart upon learning. At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground. At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities. At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven. At sixty, I heard them with docile ear. At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart, for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.

-from The Analects of Confucius He [Confucius] has had a greater influence on China than any other human being. Yet almost nothing is known about him as a man.... The central teaching of Confucius was that nothing is more important to man than man. He himself refused to have anything to do with four kinds of thing: what was violent, what was disorderly, what was strange and what had to do with the supernatural. "One should revere the ghosts and gods," he once said, "but still keep them distant."

-from Alasdair Clayre, The Heart of the Dragon What do fortune cookies have to do with Chinese religion?

"Confucius say..."