玉皇大帝
Chinese mythology holds that the Jade Emperor was charged with running of the three realms: heaven, hell, and the realm of the living. The Jade Emperor adjudicated and meted out rewards and remedies to saints, the living, and the deceased according to a merit system loosely called the Jade Principles Golden Script (, "Yù lǜ jīn piān"). When proposed judgments were objected to, usually by other saints, the administration would occasionally resort to the counsels of advisory elders. The Jade Emperor appeared in literature after the establishment of Taoism in China; his appearance as "Yu Huang" dates back to beyond the times of Yellow Emperor, Nüwa, or Fuxi.