ce without any fixed
support. 'I must,' it said, 'get reborn in visible form; until I can
go through a new birth I shall remain empty and unsettled,' His soul,
carried on the wings of the wind, reached Fu-yue T'ai. There it saw
a saintly lady named T'ai Yuean, forty years of age, still a virgin,
and living alone on Mount Ts'u-o. Air and variegated clouds were
the sole nourishment of her vital spirits. An hermaphrodite, at
once both the active and the passive principle, she daily scaled the
highest peak of the mountain to gather there the flowery quintessence
of the sun and the moon. P'an Ku, captivated by her virgin purity,
took advantage of a moment when she was breathing to enter her mouth
in the form of a ray of light. She was _enceinte_ for twelve years,
at the end of which period the fruit of her womb came out through her
spinal column. From its first moment the child could walk and speak,
and its body was surrounded by a five-coloured cloud. The newly-born
took the name of Yuean-shih T'ien-wang, and his mother was generally
known as T'ai-yuean Sheng-mu, 'the Holy Mother of the First Cause.'"

Yue Huang

Yue Huang means 'the Jade Emperor,' or 'the Pure August One,' jade
symbolizing purity. He is also known by the name Yue-huang Shang-ti,
'the Pure August Emperor on High.'

The history of this deity, who later received many honorific titles
and became the most popular god, a very Chinese Jupiter, seems to be
somewhat as follows: The Emperor Ch'eng Tsung of the Sung dynasty
having been obliged in A.D. 1005 to sign a disgraceful peace with
the Tunguses or Kitans, the dynasty was in danger of losing the
support of the nation. In order to hoodwink the people the Emperor
constituted himself a seer, and announced with great pomp that he
was in direct communication with the gods of Heaven. In doing this
he was following the advice of his crafty and unreliable minister
Wang Ch'in-jo, who had often tried to persuade him that the pretended
revelations attributed to Fu Hsi, Yue Wang, and others were only pure
inventions to induce obedience. The Emperor, having studied his part
well, assembled his ministers in the tenth moon of the year 1012,
and made to them the following declaration: "In a dream I had a visit
from an Immortal, who brought me a letter from Yue Huang, the purport
of which was as follows: 'I have already sent you by your ancestor
Chao [T'ai Tsu] two celestial missives. Now I am going to send him in
person