Magu

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Mágū, deity of longevity

Mágū ( Chinese  麻姑 , Pinyin Hé Mágū , W.-G. Ma-ku ) is a famous Daoist immortal in Chinese mythology .

She is associated with Xīwángmǔ , one of the oldest Chinese deities , and Amaterasu , the most important deity of Shinto .

etymology

Mágū's name combines the Chinese character má (Chinese 麻 ) with gū (Chinese 姑 ), the name for a woman or priestess. The ideogram má shows plants that are drying in a shed and thus stands for the hemp plant or its bark. It is believed that her name is related to the old Persian word "Magus" for magician or magician.

Legend

According to legend, she rules the balance of cosmic music and vibration. In Chinese literature, she is mostly described as a pretty young woman with long fingernails.

In Chinese art, Mágū is usually represented with a basket in which she carries cannabis or peaches , which goes back to the following legends:

Mágū was walking around one day when she saw an old woman collapse. She immediately offered her a peach to help her, and when the old woman had regained her strength she asked for a little porridge, so Mágū rushed home and began to cook.

However, Mágū's father became very angry when he found out about this, as he did not approve of Mágū making porridge for a stranger, so he locked her up. However, Mágū fled to help the woman, but found only a peach stone in the place where she had been lying.

However, after the old woman appeared to her in a dream, Mágū planted the peach stone, from which a large peach tree grew after a year. To everyone's amazement, it bloomed after a few months, and not long afterwards it was bearing large red peaches. Magu distributed this especially among the poor and the elderly, whom she healed and whom she has since venerated as the goddess of longevity.

According to legend, Mágū also guarded the mountain Tài Shān (Chinese 泰山) in the province of Shāndōng , where cannabis was traditionally collected on the seventh day of every seventh month.

Korea

In Korean , the Chinese points 麻姑 are pronounced as Mago ( 마고 ). She is one of the deities of the Korean origin myth. She is also called "Grandmother Mago" ( 마고 할미 Mago halmi ). Nevertheless, she is also portrayed as a young beauty in Korea. Grandmother can be seen as an honorary title that stands for "mother of the Koreans".

Mago is the goddess who, after Mireuk and Cheonjiwang created the sky and the earth as well as the sun and moon, created geographic landscape formations such as mountains and rivers. In Korean mythology , Mago is very tall.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Goddess Mago, Ma_Ku, Magu. Goddess of China, Korea and Japan. In: online article. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; accessed on December 11, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Cheon Hyesook: Grandmother Mago (玛 古 婆婆). In: Encyclopedia of Korean Folk Culture. Accessed July 31, 2020 (English).