Chinese gods and immortals
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Chinese traditional religion is polytheistic; many deities are worshipped in a pantheistic view where divinity is inherent in the world.[1] The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven (Tian 天), 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.[2] Ancestors are regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society,[3] and therefore as the means connecting back to Heaven, which is the "utmost ancestral father" (曾祖父 zēngzǔfù).[4]
Gods are innumerable, as every phenomenon has or is one or more gods, and they are organised in a complex celestial hierarchy.[5] Besides the traditional worship of these entities, Confucianism, Taoism and formal thinkers in general give theological interpretations affirming a monistic essence of divinity.[6] "Polytheism" and "monotheism" are categories derived from Western religion and do not fit Chinese religion, which has never conceived the two things as opposites.[7] Since all gods are considered manifestations of 氣 qì, the "power" or pneuma of Heaven, some scholars have employed the term "polypneumatism" or "(poly)pneumatolatry", first coined by Walter Medhurst (1796–1857), to describe the practice of Chinese polytheism.[8] In the theology of the classic texts and Confucianism, "Heaven is the lord of the hundreds of deities".[9] Modern Confucian theology compares them to intelligence, substantial forms or entelechies (inner purposes) as explained by Leibniz, generating all types of beings, so that "even mountains and rivers are worshipped as something capable of enjoying sacrificial offerings".[10]
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.[11]
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 (meaning a generative principle, "spirit") and deus or 'Deva' (Sanskrit) and 'divus; dì, sometimes translated as "thearch", implies a manifested or incarnate "godly" power.[note 1][13] 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".[14] The latter term 仙 xiān unambiguously means a man who has reached immortality, similarly to the Western idea of "hero".[15]
God of Heaven[]
