History Myth / ChineseMythology

* DragonsAreDivine: Dragons in general are seen as beings in charge of fundamental forces of nature. The Dragon Kings for instance represent each of the four seas of the world. They are capable of attaining a human form, and are believed to control all forms of moving water and the weather.

* EldritchAbomination: Hundun (Chaos), the legendary faceless being. In spite of this, it is actually [[DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu kind-hearted]] that the Emperor of the Southern Sea and the Emperor of the Northern Sea decided to drill seven holes in it as a return (because people have seven holes: nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, eye, eye, and they wanted to make Hundun feel the world like human did), but it died shortly thereafter.

* JudgementOfTheDead: The soul of the departed, obviously the defendant, is tried up against a mirror that plays instances of specific actions in his life. The defendant gets a supernatural lawyer who knows the laws of heaven. Unlike in most religions, you can argue your way out of a sentence in Chinese Hell. Chinese Hell resembles an Old Chinese torture chamber/prison, whereby you serve your punishment for a given amount of time (not unlike the mortal penal system), and then you're released either in the afterlife or you get reborn.

Chinese mythology is influenced by three sources: UsefulNotes/{{Taoism}}, Taoism, and various popular deities and spirits, all mixed in together. Buddhist gods are Chinese versions of various figures associated with Buddhism, such as Buddha, Avalokiteśvara, or The Four Vajras. Taoist gods are the immortals and holy men of the Taoist religion, such as Creator/{{Laozi}} or the [[KingOfAllCosmos Jade Emperor]]. Traditional gods are the gods that have been around since before Buddhism or Taoism got a foothold, as well as legendary figures hailed as gods. All three systems are interwined in a complex CelestialBureaucracy reflecting the ancient Chinese government. Naturally, this results in [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters loads and loads of gods.]] Also, these systems are not seen as practically incompatible, so there is little point splitting them up here.

Chinese mythology is influenced by three sources: UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}}, Taoism, and various popular deities and spirits, all mixed in together. Buddhist gods are Chinese versions of various figures associated with Buddhism, such as Buddha, Avalokiteśvara, or The Four Vajras. Taoist gods are the immortals and holy men of the Taoist religion, such as Creator/{{Laozi}} or the [[KingOfAllCosmos Jade Emperor]]. Traditional gods are the gods that have been around since before Buddhism or Taoism got a foothold, as well as legendary figures hailed as gods. All three systems are interwined in a complex CelestialBureaucracy reflecting the ancient Chinese government. Naturally, this results in [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters loads and loads of gods.]] Also, these systems are not seen as practically incompatible, so there is little point splitting them up here.

** A white rabbit that lives on the Moon knows the secret to creating an elixir that grants eternal life, which it produces by grading various ingredients together with a mortar and pestle.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Chinese mythology consists of three major religions, Shenism, Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. Shenism elevates many mortals to godhood. The pantheon is even called the Celestial Bureaucracy.

!! Deities, Spirits and Creatures
* '''The Jade Emperor''': Ruler of Heaven in Daoist cosmology, and the head of the heavenly bureacracy.
** TopGod
* '''Pangu''': A massive giant whose birth heralded the creation of the universe and whose death created the world as we know it.
** CosmicEgg: Where he came from.
* '''The Three Pure Ones''': Three kings, one of which who ruled Heaven and Earth before giving the position to the Jade Emperor. They are the oldest beings in existence. They are more closely related to Taoism and do not play too much parts in rural Chinese belief.
* '''Xi Wang Mu''', Queen Mother of the West: Rules from the sacred Mount Kunlun. She is a guide to all Daoists, but in particular she guides women who wish to become immortals.
* '''Nüwa''': The serpent goddess who created humanity and saved mankind from many a catastrophe. Nüwa used yellow clay from a water bed to mould the first humans. These humans were very smart and successful since they were individually crafted. Nüwa then became bored of individually making every human by hand so she improved by putting a rope in the water bed. The small drops of clay that fell from it became more humans, not as smart as the first, i.e. the lower classes.
* '''Fuxi''': Nuwa's husband, and sometimes [[{{Twincest}} twin]] [[BrotherSisterIncest brother]]. A god of agriculture and learning, he was also the First Sovereign of China who laid down laws for the new humans to live by.
* '''The Eight Immortals''': Eight people from across China's social make-up: beggars, nobles, men and women - who all became immortal and are known for celebrating raucously. They are an exception to the 'Celestial Bureaucracy' part of being deities: they hold no official positions.
* '''Sun Wukong''': Also known as the Monkey King; the star of ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'', a tale (loosely) based on the journey of Xuanzang, a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk who went to India to get sacred scrolls.
** [[Characters/JourneyToTheWest Tropes could be found here]].
* '''Shangdi''': The closest equivalent chinese Myth got towards the christian God. Shangdi was regarded as the surpreme God with all other deities being messengers between him and the world and is a neutral character, transcendent towards the world. He is to distant to be worshipped by ordinary mortals, but could be persuaded by offerings from the emperor brought through the souls of the royal ancestors, who joined Shangdi in death. Shangdi was later merged with Tian(Heaven) during the Zhou dynasty, who created the mandate of heaven, a concept where the king is only favoured by the heaven, as long he does a good job and can be replaced if he does something awefull.
** {{God}}
* '''Buddha''': Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana Buddhism, and so is more related to gods and spirits than Therevada Buddhism.
* '''Guan Shi Yin''': The bodhisattva of mercy and compassion, originally based on the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. She is sometimes not conflated with Avalokitesvara, and Daoists also worship her as an Immortal. Her worship may be usefully compared to the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.
* '''Nezha''': A Daoist deity that was born as a lump of flesh, which split open to reveal Nezha as a boy instead of an infant. He killed the third son of the Dragon King of the East Sea, who confronted Nezha and threatened to flood Chentang Pass and report Nezha to the Jade Emperor. To save his family, Nezha flayed and disemboweled himself to return his body to his parents. The Dragon King was moved by his filial piety and spared his family. Nezha was later brought back to life by his teacher, Taiyi Zhenren, who used lotus roots to construct a human body for his soul.
** ArtificialHuman: Of the OrganicTechnology variety
** BadassAdorable: The cutest seven year old un-aging BloodKnight you'll ever meet in Chinese mythology
** BloodKnight: Just loved to fight and kill anybody who glanced at him the wrong way.
** EnfantTerrible: Killing Dragon Princes for perceived slights at seven years old.
** LongestPregnancyEver: His mother was pregnant with him for three years.
** RealMenWearPink: Usually wears a dress of lotus leaves, a red Chinese bra, and a collar of flower petals. He also fights with a ribbon called the Sky Muddling Damask.
* '''Chang-E''': A goddess who lives on the moon, thanks to her eating a pill of immortality meant for her husband Houyi.
** WhoWantsToLiveForever
** MoonRabbit: One of her companions on the moon.
* '''Houyi''': Husband of Chang'e, the lord of the sun. He was responsible for slaying the sun-birds that were scorching the Earth. He also accomplished many heroic tasks while in the World slaying monsters and demons that threaten humanity.
** ArcherArchetype
** ImprobableAimingSkills
** TheExile: After he had hunted down nine of the sun-birds, Emperor Dijun stripped him of his immortality and banished him from Tian.
* '''Huang Di''': The Yellow Emperor, and supposed ancestor of all modern ethnic Chinese. He was something of a ScienceHero, teaching the people how to build shelters, tame wild animals and grow the five Chinese cereals. He also invented carts, boats, clothing, the guqin, the diadem, palace rooms, the bow sling, astronomy, the calendar, calculations, sound laws, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking football]], and wrote the Inner Canon on internal medicine that all traditional Chinese medicine was based on. He commissioned Cang Jie to create the first Chinese characters, and his main wife Leizu taught people how to weave silk from silkworms and dye clothes.
* '''Yan Emperor''': The Flame (or "red") Emperor, also known as Shennong, literally "God farmer".
* '''Lord Wenchang''': God of bureaucrats, scholars typically pray to Wenchang Wang before taking exams, and keeping the Cinnamon Record, in which all men's deeds and fates are recorded, is his responsibility.
* '''Guan Yu''': The god of war and business, originally a general from the [[RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Three Kingdoms]] period. It is an interesting thing that both policemen and criminals pray to Guan Yu. Mainly because, among other things, Guan Yu is essentially the god of TrueCompanions.
** MemeticBadass: ''[[https://youtu.be/Ahnvk_vPQsM#t=68m53s He fights aliens!]]''

** MoonRabbit: Her only companion.

* Everything began as formless chaos. The world was created when this chaos coalesced into the form of Pan Gu, the first being, in equal measures of Yin and Yang. Pan Gu then used his great axe to split the Yin and Yang into Earth and Heaven respectively, then kept them seperated by pushing up the sky. This took 18,000 years, after which Pan Gu died. His breath became the wind, his voice the thunder. His left eye became the Sun and his right the Moon, his hair the Stars and Milky Way. His body became the mountains, his blood the rivers, his muscles the fertile soil, his fur the plants, his bones the valuable minerals, his bone marrows the sacred diamonds. His sweat fell as rain, and the fleas on his fur became the fish and animals of the land. This is more or less the [[UsefulNotes/{{Taoism}} Taoist]] creation story, although scholars have suggested that the Pan Gu story is not Chinese in origin at all.

* '''Shangdi''': The closest equivalent chinese Myth got towards the christian God. Shangdi was regarded as the surpreme God with all other deities being messengers between him and the world and is a neutral character, transcendent towards the world. He is to distant to be worshipped by ordinary mortals, but could be persuaded by offerings from the emperor brought through the souls of the royal ancestors, who joined Shangdi in death. Shangdi was later merged with Tian(Heaven) during the Zhou dynasty, who created the mandate of heaven, a concept where hte king is only favoured by the heaven, as long he does a good job.

* EldritchAbomination: Hundun (Chaos), the legendary faceless being. In spite of this, it is actually kind-hearted that the Emperor of the Southern Sea and the Emperor of the Northern Sea decided to drill seven holes in it as a return (because people have seven holes: nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, anus, the other one, and they wanted to make Hundun feel the world like human did), but it died shortly thereafter.

* NarniaTime: Used in a number of stories; see the trope page for details.

* SeaMonster: Gong Gong, the Chinese dragon god of water who damaged the pillars of heaven and ''tilted the Earth's axis'' by headbutting against a sacred mountain

* EldritchAbomination: Hundun, the legendary faceless being. It or he was said to have been the chaos before the universe was formed.

* [[TakeAThirdOption Or]]: the world as it is now began when the Emperor of the Southern Sea and the Emperor of the Northern Sea found Chaos, an enormous sapient [[EldritchAbomination lump of flesh]]. Being obliging sorts, they drilled seven holes in it (because people have seven holes: nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, anus, the other one), but it died shortly thereafter, and the world was formed from Chaos' corpse.

** MemeticBadass

* '''Fuxi''': Nuwa's husband, and sometimes [[{{Twincest}} twin]] [[BrotherSisterIncestbrother]]. A god of agriculture and learning, he was also the First Sovereign of China who laid down laws for the new humans to live by.

* '''Fuxi''': Nuwa's husband, and sometimes [[BrotherSisterIncest twin brother]]. A god of agriculture and learning, he was also the First Sovereign of China who laid down laws for the new humans to live by.

Chinese mythology is influenced by three sources: {{Buddhism}}, Taoism, and various popular deities and spirits, all mixed in together. Buddhist gods are Chinese versions of various figures associated with Buddhism, such as Buddha, Avalokiteśvara, or The Four Vajras. Taoist gods are the immortals and holy men of the Taoist religion, such as {{Laozi}} or the [[KingOfAllCosmos Jade Emperor]]. Traditional gods are the gods that have been around since before Buddhism or Taoism got a foothold, as well as legendary figures hailed as gods. All three systems are interwined in a complex CelestialBureaucracy reflecting the ancient Chinese government. Naturally, this results in [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters loads and loads of gods.]] Also, these systems are not seen as practically incompatible, so there is little point splitting them up here.

* '''Sun Wukong''': Also known as the Monkey King; the star of ''JourneyToTheWest'', a tale (loosely) based on the journey of Xuanzang, a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk who went to India to get sacred scrolls.

* TopGod: The Jade Emperor is a KingOfGods; occasionally (such as at the beginning of ''JourneyToTheWest'') the Buddha shows up as a GodOfGods. Shang Di is either this or {{God}} himself, or possibly both.

!! Creation Stories
* Everything began as formless chaos. The world was created when this chaos coalesced into the form of Pan Gu, the first being, in equal measures of Yin and Yang. Pan Gu then used his great axe to split the Yin and Yang into Earth and Heaven respectively, then kept them seperated by pushing up the sky. This took 18,000 years, after which Pan Gu died. His breath became the wind, his voice the thunder. His left eye became the Sun and his right the Moon, his hair the Stars and Milky Way. His body became the mountains, his blood the rivers, his muscles the fertile soil, his fur the plants, his bones the valuable minerals, his bone marrows the sacred diamonds. His sweat fell as rain, and the fleas on his fur became the fish and animals of the land. This is more or less the [[UsefulNotes/{{Taoism}} Taoist]] creation story, although scholars have suggested that the Pan Gu story is not Chinese in origin at all.
* Alternately, the world was created and run by Shang-Di, variously understood either as {{God}}, a GodOfGods, or Heaven itself, and literally meaning "High Sovereign". Shang-Di is a monotheistic or semi-monotheistic concept which predates Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, and works through the other various gods and spirits, who were regarded as either intermediaries (and thus comparable to [[OurAngelsAreDifferent angels]]), and/or lesser deities in their own right. Worship of Shang-Di faded out around the Zhou dynasty, in favour of ''Tian'', which means 'sky' or 'heaven'. The modern or Abrahamic God is translated as Shangdi too.
* [[TakeAThirdOption Or]]: the world as it is now began when the Emperor of the Southern Sea and the Emperor of the Northern Sea found Chaos, an enormous sapient [[EldritchAbomination lump of flesh]]. Being obliging sorts, they drilled seven holes in it (because people have seven holes: nostril, nostril, mouth, ear, ear, anus, the other one), but it died shortly thereafter, and the world was formed from Chaos' corpse.

Chinese mythology is influenced by three sources: {{Buddhism}}, Taoism, and various popular deities and spirits, all mixed in together. Buddhist gods are Chinese versions of various figures associated with Buddhism, such as Buddha, Avalokiteśvara, or The Four Vajras. Taoist gods are the immortals and holy men of the Taoist religion, such as {{Laozi}} or the [[KingOfAllCosmos Jade Emperor]]. Traditional gods are the gods that have been around since before Buddhism or Taoism got a foothold, as well as legendary figures hailed as gods. All three systems are interwined in a complex CelestialBureaucracy reflecting the ancient Chinese government. Naturally, this results in [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters loads and loads of gods.]] Also, these systems are not seen as practically incompatible, so there is little point splitting them up here.

Modern-day Chinese rural and festival mythology is mostly based on the Jade Emperor system, with added Buddhism figures. Officially, they would be classified either as Buddhists or Taoists, but in practice they are mostly secular.

!! Deities, Spirits and Creatures
* '''The Jade Emperor''': Ruler of Heaven in Daoist cosmology, and the head of the heavenly bureacracy.
** TopGod
* '''Pangu''': A massive giant whose birth heralded the creation of the universe and whose death created the world as we know it.
** CosmicEgg: Where he came from.
* '''The Three Pure Ones''': Three kings, one of which who ruled Heaven and Earth before giving the position to the Jade Emperor. They are the oldest beings in existence. They are more closely related to Taoism and do not play too much parts in rural Chinese belief.
* '''Xi Wang Mu''', Queen Mother of the West: Rules from the sacred Mount Kunlun. She is a guide to all Daoists, but in particular she guides women who wish to become immortals.
* '''Nüwa''': The serpent goddess who created humanity and saved mankind from many a catastrophe. Nüwa used yellow clay from a water bed to mould the first humans. These humans were very smart and successful since they were individually crafted. Nüwa then became bored of individually making every human by hand so she improved by putting a rope in the water bed. The small drops of clay that fell from it became more humans, not as smart as the first, i.e. the lower classes.
* '''Fuxi''': Nuwa's husband, and sometimes [[BrotherSisterIncest twin brother]]. A god of agriculture and learning, he was also the First Sovereign of China who laid down laws for the new humans to live by.
* '''The Eight Immortals''': Eight people from across China's social make-up: beggars, nobles, men and women - who all became immortal and are known for celebrating raucously. They are an exception to the 'Celestial Bureaucracy' part of being deities: they hold no official positions.
* '''Sun Wukong''': Also known as the Monkey King; the star of ''JourneyToTheWest'', a tale (loosely) based on the journey of Xuanzang, a Tang dynasty Buddhist monk who went to India to get sacred scrolls.
** [[Characters/JourneyToTheWest Tropes could be found here]].
* '''Buddha''': Chinese Buddhism is Mahayana Buddhism, and so is more related to gods and spirits than Therevada Buddhism.
* '''Guan Shi Yin''': The bodhisattva of mercy and compassion, originally based on the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. She is sometimes not conflated with Avalokitesvara, and Daoists also worship her as an Immortal. Her worship may be usefully compared to the veneration of the Virgin Mary in Roman Catholicism.
* '''Nezha''': A Daoist deity that was born as a lump of flesh, which split open to reveal Nezha as a boy instead of an infant. He killed the third son of the Dragon King of the East Sea, who confronted Nezha and threatened to flood Chentang Pass and report Nezha to the Jade Emperor. To save his family, Nezha flayed and disemboweled himself to return his body to his parents. The Dragon King was moved by his filial piety and spared his family. Nezha was later brought back to life by his teacher, Taiyi Zhenren, who used lotus roots to construct a human body for his soul.
** ArtificialHuman: Of the OrganicTechnology variety
** BadassAdorable: The cutest seven year old un-aging BloodKnight you'll ever meet in Chinese mythology
** BloodKnight: Just loved to fight and kill anybody who glanced at him the wrong way.
** EnfantTerrible: Killing Dragon Princes for perceived slights at seven years old.
** LongestPregnancyEver: His mother was pregnant with him for three years.
** RealMenWearPink: Usually wears a dress of lotus leaves, a red Chinese bra, and a collar of flower petals. He also fights with a ribbon called the Sky Muddling Damask.
* '''Chang-E''': A goddess who lives on the moon, thanks to her eating a pill of immortality meant for her husband Houyi.
** WhoWantsToLiveForever
** MoonRabbit: Her only companion.
* '''Houyi''': Husband of Chang'e, the lord of the sun. He was responsible for slaying the sun-birds that were scorching the Earth. He also accomplished many heroic tasks while in the World slaying monsters and demons that threaten humanity.
** ArcherArchetype
** ImprobableAimingSkills
** TheExile: After he had hunted down nine of the sun-birds, Emperor Dijun stripped him of his immortality and banished him from Tian.
* '''Huang Di''': The Yellow Emperor, and supposed ancestor of all modern ethnic Chinese. He was something of a ScienceHero, teaching the people how to build shelters, tame wild animals and grow the five Chinese cereals. He also invented carts, boats, clothing, the guqin, the diadem, palace rooms, the bow sling, astronomy, the calendar, calculations, sound laws, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking football]], and wrote the Inner Canon on internal medicine that all traditional Chinese medicine was based on. He commissioned Cang Jie to create the first Chinese characters, and his main wife Leizu taught people how to weave silk from silkworms and dye clothes.
* '''Yan Emperor''': The Flame (or "red") Emperor, also known as Shennong, literally "God farmer".
* '''Guan Yu''': The god of war and business, originally a general from the [[RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms Three Kingdoms]] period. It is an interesting thing that both policemen and criminals pray to Guan Yu. Mainly because, among other things, Guan Yu is essentially the god of TrueCompanions.
** MemeticBadass
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!!Tropes featured include:
* CelestialBureaucracy: The TropeMaker.
* DeityOfHumanOrigin: Humans were frequently promoted to godhood in the CelestialBureaucracy.
* DragonHoard: The fucanglong or "hidden treasure dragon" lives underground, guarding both man-made treasure as well as natural deposits of precious stone or metal. They are also held responsible for volcanism.
* EldritchAbomination: Hundun, the legendary faceless being. It or he was said to have been the chaos before the universe was formed.
* KidsPreferBoxes: There's a Chinese Buddhist parable about a shopkeeper that tried to sell a valuable pearl by putting it inside a pretty box. Unfortunately the person that bought it was only interested in buying the box and left the pearl. The {{Aesop}} to the story is not to ignore the deeper meanings of Buddhism in favor of the superficial.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Chinese mythology consists of three major religions, Shenism, Chinese Buddhism and Taoism. Shenism elevates many mortals to godhood. The pantheon is even called the Celestial Bureaucracy.
* NarniaTime: Used in a number of stories; see the trope page for details.
* SacredBowAndArrows: The Yellow Emperor is credited as inventing the bow.
* SeaMonster: Gong Gong, the Chinese dragon god of water who damaged the pillars of heaven and ''tilted the Earth's axis'' by headbutting against a sacred mountain
* TopGod: The Jade Emperor is a KingOfGods; occasionally (such as at the beginning of ''JourneyToTheWest'') the Buddha shows up as a GodOfGods. Shang Di is either this or {{God}} himself, or possibly both.
* WholesomeCrossdresser: Lan Caihe of the Eight Immortals may or may not be one. [[DependingOnTheWriter It depends on who you ask.]]
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