Xiwangmu
Xīwángmǔ ( Chinese 西 王母 , Pinyin Xīwángmǔ , W.-G. Hsi Wang Mu - "Queen Mother of the West") is one of the oldest Chinese deities , who in medieval Daoism as immortals , teacher, symbol of transcendence and mediator between the heavenly and the earthly Reichen played a prominent role, but also in today's Daoism, especially among the sky masters , she is still a high deity. In addition to the religious cults , there were also folk cults around this goddess in China .
idea
The iconography of Xiwangmus includes the leopard skin , the sheng hair ornament (a kind of spindle), the sun and moon, the kunlun or the cosmic column, as well as the peaches of immortality. Often she is accompanied by a servant or a maid, but above all by various animals, such as a deer - also standing for longevity - a white tiger, the three-legged blue bird, the nine-tailed fox or the hare, which is the elixir of the Prepares immortality. On her throne lie tigers and dragons, which also stand for yin and yang . Her companion is Dongwangfu, the king father of the East, who never played the same prominent role in faith and cult as Xiwangmu.
Their place of residence was the Kunlun, a holy mountain in the west, on which, according to legend, a perfect and harmonious paradise can be found, which as a microcosm represents an ideal image of the macrocosm and the seat of the gods in the earthly world. According to some stories, the goddess on the Kunlun is also accompanied by Xian (immortals) and has heavenly fairies as servants. Her palace and gardens have often been portrayed in art and literature as unimaginably beautiful. In addition to magic springs, there are exactly 3,600 peach trees in three groves in her garden. The 1200 trees in the front grove have inconspicuous flowers and small fruits. They only ripen every 3000 years and whoever eats them becomes an all-wise fae. His body becomes strong and light. The 1200 trees in the middle grove have double flowers and sweet fruits. They ripen every 6,000 years and whoever eats of them can levitate at will and will never grow old. The 1200 trees in the furthest grove bear fruit with a purple pattern and their stones are pale yellow. They only ripen every 9,000 years and whoever eats of them will outlast heaven and earth and become equal to the sun and moon. When these peaches are ready again, Xiwangmu invites the immortals to a big feast so that they can refresh their life energy. In the classic novel The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en from the Ming Dynasty , it is said that the Monkey King Sun Wukong first ate almost all of the peaches from the trees and later emptied the barrels of nectar wine from the peaches almost completely , and the feast could not take place.
The birthday of the goddess is celebrated on the third day of the third month, when many gods arrive with gifts for a feast, e.g. B. the dragon king Long Wang, the god of fortune and Cai Shen , the god of wealth.
Despite being portrayed positively as a teacher and keeper of the cosmic balance, Xiwangmu also has a destructive side. As the highest yin, she is also a goddess of death and destroyer.
Development of the Xiwangmu cult
The traces of Xiwangmus can already be traced back to the Shang period (around 1600-1028 BC), before the emergence of Daoism, but only later did their shape take on concrete features.
During the Warring States Period (403–221 BC) she appears as a teacher, goddess of the west, goddess of holy mountains, divine weaver, shaman and star goddess. In Shanhaijing she is described as a being with a leopard tail, tiger teeth and whistling like the wind. In the works of the Zhuangzi , Xiwangmu is finally mentioned as the goddess of the west and the sky, who realized the Dao and thus possesses immortality and divine power.
From the Eastern Han period onwards, Xiwangmu played a very important role in religious ideas and soteriological folk cults around the goddess also emerged.
The Shangqing Daoism, which emerged at the end of the 4th century AD, attributed its authority to her, she appeared here as a teacher who revealed the essential works of transcendence and as the guardian of the secrets of immortality, the Daoist adepts on the way to it taught. Her residence, the Kunlun, was viewed as a library from which the sacred works of Daoism came. In Daoist practice she was the addressee of prayers, rituals , invocations , visualizations and imaginations in which the adept z. B. visits the Kunlun to develop his magical powers.
In Taoism of the Tang period (618–907), the Queen Mother of the West was regarded as the supreme female deity who symbolized the highest yin , who had participated in the creation of the cosmos and who maintained cosmic harmony. Many hundreds of poems were about her.
In the Chinese Middle Ages, many stories were told and written about Xiwangmus meeting people, especially rulers. The most famous legend, told in different versions, is that of King Mus of Zhou's journey to the Queen Mother of the West. She is z. B. told in Liezi . In Chinese art , it was also shown frequently. In many graves one can also find representations of the goddess, as one hoped that after death she would lead the soul to the paradise of the immortals.
See also
- Chinese mythology
- Tianhou (The Queen of Heaven, the second great Daoist goddess)
literature
- Suzanne E. Cahill: Transcendence & divine passion. The Queen Mother of the West in medieval China . Stanford University Press, Stanford CA 1993, ISBN 0-8047-2112-2 .
- Martin Palmer: Secret Holy China. Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1996, ISBN 3-404-70140-2 , p. 159f.
- Josef Guter: Lexicon of the gods and symbols of the ancient Chinese. Marix, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-937715-04-5 , pp. 358-359