Cult of Bixia Yuanjun碧霞元君信仰

Also known as

Cult of the Lady of Mount Tai, Jade Maiden of Mount Tai, Bixia Yuanjun, Celestial Immortal and Holy Mother, Old Granny of Mount Tai

Type

Folk Daoist Ritual Traditions

Period

Song dynasty to the present

Founded

The building of the Jade Maiden Shrine on Mount Tai during the Dazhong Xiangfu era of the Northern Song (around 1008) marked the starting point of its institutionalization; the title "Bixia Yuanjun" became widespread during the Ming

Region

Centered on Mount Tai; widespread throughout North China and Northeast China, extending to Jiangnan and overseas Chinese communities

Ancestral seat

Bixia Temple (Temple of the Azure Clouds), Mount Tai (Taishan)

Status

Extant — Bixia Temple on Mount Tai is a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level and is managed by the Daoist community, with a very vigorous incense-offering tradition; the Miaofeng Mountain temple fair in Beijing and the Eastern Peak temple fair at Mount Tai, among others, are included in the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage; Lady-goddess temples across North China and the Northeast have been widely revived.

Overview

Bixia Yuanjun, popularly known as the Lady of Mount Tai or the Old Grandmother of Mount Tai, is the female deity with the greatest popular influence within the Daoist pantheon of the Eastern Peak. The institutional starting point of her cult is usually traced to the first year of the Dazhong Xiangfu reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song (1008), when, on the occasion of his feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai, a stone statue of a Jade Maiden was found at the summit and a shrine was ordered built by imperial decree to worship her — this was the Zhaozhen Shrine (later called Zhaozhen Temple). During the Jin and Yuan she was called the 'Jade Maiden of Mount Tai,' and from the Ming onward the title 'Bixia Yuanjun' became current, with honorific titles accumulating to forms such as 'Bixia Yuanjun, the Celestial Immortal Jade Maiden' and 'Celestial Immortal Holy Mother,' and the shrine at the summit was also formally named Bixia Temple. Her cult expanded from that of an attendant maiden of the mountain god in the Song and Yuan into that of an all-powerful goddess who grants children, protects infants, cures illness, and blesses farmers and merchants; by the Ming and Qing she had become one of the most important goddesses among the common people of North China, her standing at times even surpassing that of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak himself. Accompanying this was a vast organization of pilgrimage associations: in the Ming and Qing, spontaneously formed 'incense societies' (xianghui) among the common people of Beijing and its environs made periodic pilgrimages to Mount Tai, and also established traveling palaces (xinggong) for Bixia Yuanjun at sites such as Miaofeng Mountain and Yaji Mountain west of the capital, forming the two great pilgrimage systems of 'Mount Tai and Miaofeng Mountain'; the pilgrimage rites of the incense societies, their roadside tea-stall almsgiving, and their processions of banners and drums have become a classic case study for research on popular social organization in North China. The eighteenth day of the fourth lunar month is Bixia Yuanjun's birthday. Since modern times, scholars — notably Gu Jiegang and others in their 1925 survey of Miaofeng Mountain — have treated her cult as a foundational subject of Chinese folklore studies.

Core Doctrine

Bixia Yuanjun is held to be the daughter of the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak (according to one account a Jade Maiden sent by Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, and according to another a mortal woman who attained perfection through cultivation), presiding chiefly over childbirth, protecting women and children, and dispelling calamity and bestowing blessings. Doctrinally she is incorporated into the Daoist pantheon of female immortals, with an ethic of efficacy emphasizing that 'every request is answered,' bound up in a reciprocal relationship of vow-making and vow-fulfillment. Her cult complements the functions of overseeing fate and governing the dead associated with the worship of the Eastern Peak, together forming a belief structure spanning both life and death.

Practice & Ritual

Pilgrimage to the summit on her birthday, the eighteenth day of the fourth month, and during the spring and autumn pilgrimage seasons; the formation of incense societies (such as 'old societies' and 'sacred societies'), processions of banners and drums, and roadside tea-stall almsgiving; the making and fulfilling of vows, the tying of dolls to pray for children, and the wearing of locks for safety; recitation of the Wondrous Scripture of Bixia Yuanjun for Protecting the State, Sheltering the People, and Universally Preserving Life; and the temple-fair economy surrounding local traveling palaces and Lady-goddess temples.

Transmission

A shrine to the Jade Maiden built during the Dazhong Xiangfu reign of the Northern Song → called the Jade Maiden of Mount Tai during the Jin and Yuan → formally named Bixia Yuanjun in the Ming, with accumulating honorific titles and the Bixia Temple at the summit taking on its full scale → the formation, during the Ming and Qing, of incense societies in North China and a system of traveling palaces at Miaofeng Mountain, Yaji Mountain, and other sites → the 1925 survey of Miaofeng Mountain by Gu Jiegang and others, marking the beginning of Chinese folklore studies → revival in the contemporary era. The cult has no religious organization or generation-name lineage, being transmitted instead through Daoist temples, traveling palaces, and popular incense societies.

Principal Temples