Chinese gods and immortals

Chinese gods and immortals are beings in various Chinese religions seen in a variety of ways and mythological contexts.
Many are worshiped as deities because traditional Chinese religion is polytheistic, stemming from a pantheistic view that divinity is inherent in the world.
The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating, and propagating the way of heaven (天, Tian), 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. Ancestors are regarded as the equivalent of Heaven within human society, and therefore, as the means of connecting back to Heaven, which is the "utmost ancestral father" (曾祖父, zēngzǔfù).
There are a variety of immortals in Chinese thought, and one major type is the xian, which is thought in some religious Taoism movements to be a human given long or infinite life. Gods are innumerable, as every phenomenon has or is one or more gods, and they are organised in a complex celestial hierarchy. Besides the traditional worship of these entities, Chinese folk religion, Chinese Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and formal thinkers in general give theological interpretations affirming a monistic essence of divinity.
"Polytheism" and "monotheism" are categories derived from Western religion and do not fit Chinese religion, which has never conceived the two things as opposites. Tian bridges the gap between supernatural phenomena and many kinds of beings, giving them a single source from spiritual energy in some Chinese belief systems. However, there is a significant belief in Taoism which differentiates tian from the forces of earth and water, which are held to be equally powerful.
Since all gods are considered manifestations of qì (氣), the "power" or pneuma of Heaven, in some views of tian, some scholars have employed the term "polypneumatism" or "(poly)pneumatolatry", first coined by Walter Medhurst (1796–1857), to describe the practice of Chinese polytheism. Some Taoists consider deities the manifestation of the Tao.
In the theology of the classic texts and Confucianism, "Heaven is the lord of the hundreds of deities".
Modern Confucian theology sometimes compares them to substantial forms or entelechies (inner purposes) as described by Leibniz as a force that generates all types of beings, so that "even mountains and rivers are worshipped as something capable of enjoying sacrificial offerings".
Unlike in Hinduism, the deification of historical persons and ancestors is not traditionally the duty of Confucians or Taoists. Rather, it 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 honours 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.
Chinese traditional theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the classic texts, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations, is fundamentally monistic, that is to say, it sees the world and the gods who produce it as an organic whole, or cosmos. The universal principle that gives origin to the world is conceived as transcendent and immanent to creation, at the same time. The Chinese idea of the universal God is expressed in different ways. There are many names of God from the different sources of Chinese tradition.
The radical Chinese terms for the universal God are Tian (天) and Shangdi (上帝, "Highest Deity") or simply, Dì (帝, "Deity"). There is also the concept of Tàidì (太帝, "Great Deity"). Dì is a title expressing dominance over the all-under-Heaven, that is, all things generated by Heaven and ordered by its cycles and by the stars. Tian is usually translated as "Heaven", but by graphical etymology, it means "Great One" and a number of scholars relate it to the same Dì through phonetic etymology and trace their common root, through their archaic forms, respectively *Teeŋ and *Tees, to the symbols of the squared north celestial pole godhead (口, Dīng). These names are combined in different ways in Chinese theological literature, often interchanged in the same paragraph, if not in the same sentence.
Besides Shàngdì and Tàidì, other names include Yudi ("Jade Deity") and Taiyi ("Great Oneness") who, in mythical imagery, holds the ladle of the Big Dipper (Great Chariot), providing the movement of life to the world. As the hub of the skies, the north celestial pole constellations are known, among various names, as Tiānmén (天門, "Gate of Heaven") and Tiānshū (天樞, "Pivot of Heaven").
Other names of the God of Heaven are attested in the vast Chinese religio-philosophical literary tradition:
Tian is both transcendent and immanent, manifesting in the three forms of dominance, destiny, and nature of things. In the Wujing yiyi (五經異義, "Different Meanings in the Five Classics"), Xu Shen explains that the designation of Heaven is quintuple:
All these designations reflect a hierarchical, multiperspective experience of divinity.
Many classical books have lists and hierarchies of gods and immortals, among which are the "Completed Record of Deities and Immortals" (神仙通鑑, Shénxiān Tōngjiàn) of the Ming dynasty, and the Biographies of the Deities and Immortals (Shenxian Zhuan) by Ge Hong (284–343). The older Collected Biographies of the Immortals (Liexian Zhuan) also serves the same purpose.
Couplets or polarities, such as Fuxi and Nuwa, Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, and the highest couple of Heaven and Earth, all embody yin and yang and are at once the originators and maintainers of the ordering process of space and time.
Immortals, or xian, are seen as a variety of different types of beings, including the souls of virtuous Taoists, gods, zhenren, and/or a type of supernatural spiritual being who understood heaven. Taoists historically worshiped them the most and Chinese folk religion practitioners during the Tang dynasty also worshiped them, although there was more skepticism about the goodness, and even the existence, of xian among them.
Chinese folk religion that incorporates elements of the three teachings in modern times and prior eras sometimes viewed Confucius and the Buddha as immortals or beings synonymous to them.
In Taoism and Chinese folk religion, gods and xian are often seen as embodiments of water. Water gods and xian were often thought to ensure good grain harvests, mild weather and seas, and rivers with abundant water. Some xian were thought to be humans who gained power by drinking "charmed water".
Some gods were based on previously existing Taoist immortals, bodhisattvas, or historical figures.
In mythology, Huangdi and Yandi fought a battle against each other, and Huang finally defeated Yan with the help of the Dragon (the controller of water, who is Huangdi himself). This myth symbolizes the equipoise of yin and yang, here the fire of knowledge (reason and craft) and earthly stability.
Yan (炎) is flame, scorching fire, or an excess of it (Graphically, it is a double 火 (huo, "fire"). As an excess of fire brings destruction to the earth, it has to be controlled by a ruling principle. Nothing is good in itself, without limits; good outcomes depend on the proportion in the composition of things and their interactions, never on extremes in absolute terms. Huangdi and Yandi are complementary opposites, necessary for the existence of one another, and they are powers that exist together within the human being.
Some Taoist gods were thought to affect human morality and the consequences of it in certain traditions. Some Taoists beseeched gods, multiple gods, and/or pantheons to aid them in life and/or abolish their sins.
The worship of mother goddesses for the cultivation of offspring is present all over China, but predominantly in northern provinces. There are nine main goddesses, and all of them tend to be considered as manifestations or attendant forces of a singular goddess identified variously as Bixia Yuanjun (碧霞元君, "Lady of the Blue Dawn"), also known as the Tiānxiān Niángniáng (天仙娘娘, "Heavenly Immortal Lady") or Tàishān Niángniáng (泰山娘娘, "Lady of Mount Tai"), or also Jiǔtiān Shèngmǔ (九天聖母, "Holy Mother of the Nine Skies") or Houtu, the goddess of the earth.
Bixia herself is identified by Taoists as the more ancient goddess Xiwangmu. The general Chinese term for "goddess" is nǚshén (女神), and goddesses may receive many qualifying titles, including mǔ (母, "mother"), lǎomǔ (老母, "old mother"), shèngmǔ (聖母, "holy mother"), niángniáng (娘娘, "lady"), nǎinai (奶奶, "granny").
The additional eight main goddesses of fertility, reproduction, and growth are:
Altars of goddess worship are usually arranged with Bixia at the center and two goddesses at her sides, most frequently the "Lady of Eyesight" and the "Lady of Offspring". A different figure, but with the same astral connections as Bixia is the "Goddess of the Seven Stars" (七星娘娘, Qīxīng Niángniáng).
There is also the cluster of the "Holy Mothers of the Three Skies" (三霄聖母, Sānxiāo Shèngmǔ; or 三霄娘娘, Sānxiāo Niángniáng, "Ladies of the Three Stars"), composed of Yunxiao Guniang, Qiongxiao Guniang, and Bixiao Guniang. The cult of Chenjinggu, present in southeast China, is identified by some scholars as an emanation of the northern cult of Bixia.
Other goddesses worshipped in China include Cánmǔ (蠶母, "Silkworm Mother") or Cángū (蠶姑, "Silkworm Maiden"), identified with Leizu (嫘祖, the wife of the Yellow Emperor), Magu (麻姑, "Hemp Maiden"), Sǎoqīng Niángniáng (掃清娘娘, "Goddess who Sweeps Clean"), Sānzhōu Niángniáng (三洲娘娘, "Goddess of the Three Isles"), and Wusheng Laomu. The mother goddess is central in the theology of many folk religious sects.
Northeast China has clusters of deities which are peculiar to the area, deriving from the Manchu and broader Tungusic substratum of the local population. Animal deities related to shamanic practices are characteristic of the area and reflect wider Chinese cosmology. Besides the aforementioned Fox Gods (狐仙, Húxiān), they include:
Gods who have been adopted into Chinese religion but who have their origins in the Indian subcontinent or Hinduism: