Shangdi (Chinese: 上帝; pinyin: Shàngdì; Wade–Giles: Shang4 Ti4), also called simply Di (Chinese: 帝; pinyin: Dì; lit. 'God'), is the name of the Chinese Highest Deity or "Lord Above" in the theology of the classical texts, especially deriving from Shang theology and finding an equivalent in the later Tiān ("Heaven" or "Great Whole") of Zhou theology.
Chinese folk religion comprises a range of traditional religious practices of Han Chinese, including the Chinese diaspora. This includes the veneration of shen ('spirits') and ancestors, and worship devoted to deities and immortals, who can be deities of places or natural phenomena, of human behaviour, or progenitors of family lineages. Stories surrounding these gods form a loose canon of Chinese mythology. By the Song dynasty (960–1279), these practices had been blended with Buddhist, Confucian, and Taoist teachings to form the popular religious system which has lasted in many ways until the present day. The government of China generally tolerates popular religious organizations, but has suppressed or persecuted those that they fear would undermine social stability.
A xian is any manner of immortal, mythical being within the Taoist pantheon or Chinese folklore. Xian has often been translated into English as "immortal".
Songzi Niangniang, also referred to in Taiwan as Zhusheng Niangniang (註生娘娘), is a Taoist fertility goddess. She has been identified with many historical figures. She is often depicted as Guan Yin herself in drawings, or alternatively as an attendant of Guan Yin; Guan Yin herself is also often referred to as "Guan Yin Who Brings Children". She is depicted as an empress figure, much like Xi Wangmu and Mazu. She is often portrayed as an attendant to Bixia Yuanjun.
Hòutǔ or Hòutǔshén, also known as Hòutǔ Niángniáng, otherwise called Dimǔ or Dimǔ Niángniáng, is the deity of all land and earth in Chinese religion and mythology. Houtu is the overlord of all the Tudigongs, Sheji, Shan Shen, City Gods, and landlord gods worldwide.
Húxiān, also called Húshén or Húwáng is a deity in Chinese religion whose cult is present in provinces of north China, but especially in northeast China where it can be said to be the most popular deity.
Dǒumǔ, also known as Dǒumǔ Yuánjūn, Dòulǎo Yuánjūn and Tàiyī Yuánjūn, is a goddess in Chinese religion and Taoism. She is also named through the honorific Tiānhòu, shared with other Chinese goddesses, especially Mazu, who are perhaps conceived as her aspects. Other names of her are Dàomǔ and Tiānmǔ.
Manchu folk religion or Manchu traditional religion is the ethnic religion practiced by most of the Manchu people, the major Tungusic group in China. It can also be called Manchu shamanism because the word "shaman" being originally from Tungusic [šamán] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |3= (help), later applied by Western scholars to similar religious practices in other cultures.
Northeast China folk religion is the variety of Chinese folk religion of northeast China, characterised by distinctive cults original to Hebei and Shandong, transplanted and adapted by the Han Chinese settlers of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang since the Qing dynasty. It is characterised by terminology, deities and practices that are different from those of central and southern Chinese folk religion. Many of these patterns derive from the interaction of Han religion with Manchu shamanism.
Chinese folk religion plays a dynamic role in the lives of the overseas Chinese who have settled in the countries of this geographic region, particularly Burmese Chinese, Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Thai Chinese, Indonesian Chinese and Hoa. Some Chinese Filipinos also still practice some Chinese traditional religions, besides Christianity of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, with which some have also varyingly syncretized traditional Chinese religious practices. Chinese folk religion, the ethnic religion of Han Chinese, "Shenism" was especially coined referring to its Southeast Asian expression; another Southeast Asian name for the religion is the Sanskrit expression Satya Dharma.
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". This principle is commonly referred to as Tiān 天, 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 therefore as the means connecting back to Heaven which is the "utmost ancestral father". Chinese theology may be also called Tiānxué 天學, a term already in use in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Cánshén or Cánwáng is the deity of silkworm and sericulture in Chinese religion. There are two main Canshen, who are two deified mytho-historical personalities who contributed to the invention and diffusion of sericulture in China.
The Wǔfāng Shàngdì, or simply Wǔdì or Wǔshén are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven. This theology dates back at least to the Shang dynasty. Described as the "five changeable faces of Heaven", they represent Heaven's cosmic activity which shapes worlds as tán 壇, "altars", imitating its order which is visible in the starry vault, the north celestial pole and its spinning constellations. The Five Deities themselves represent these constellations. In accordance with the Three Powers they have a celestial, a terrestrial and a chthonic form. The Han Chinese identify themselves as the descendants of the Red and Yellow Deities.
The Wǔdàxiān, also known as Wǔdàjiā (五大家) and Wǔdàmén (五大门), meaning the "Five Great Genii", are a group of five zoomorphic deities of northeastern Chinese religion, and important to local shamanic practices. They are the localised adaptation of the Five Forms of the Highest Deity of common Chinese theology.
Cāngdì of Dōngyuèdàdì is the manifestation of the supreme God associated with the essence of wood and spring, for which he is worshipped as the god of fertility. The Bluegreen Dragon is both his animal form and constellation, and as a human, he was Tàihào 太昊. His female consort is the goddess of fertility Bixia. His astral body is Jupiter.
Bixia Yuanjun, also known as Taishan Niangniang, is the goddess of Mount Tai, childbirth and destiny in Chinese traditional religion (Taoism).
Chìdì or Chìshén, also known as the Nándì or Nányuèdàdì, as a human was Shénnóng, who is also the same as Yándì, a function occupied by different gods and god-kings in mytho-history. Shennong is also one of the Three Patrons, specifically the patron of humanity, and the point of intersection of the Three Patrons and Huangdi.
Emperor Dongyue is a Daoist deity of the sacred mountain Mount Tai. He is also believed to be the leader of a large bureaucratic celestial ministry overseeing the maintenance of the Book of Life (生死簿), a register of the due dates on which each and every human soul must be summoned before the Judges of Hell for judgement. Dongyue Dadi is also considered significant in Chinese Buddhism. He is the personification of Cangdi as the "Great Deity of the Eastern Peak" (东岳大帝), which is Mount Tai. As the incarnation of Mount Tai, he is the holy messenger of communication between heaven and the world, and the patron saint of the emperors of all dynasties who was ordered by the sky to govern the world.
