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Sacred Correspondences
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Interpretatio Of

This page groups deities by the foreign god that ancient writers equated them with, the old habit of mapping one culture's gods onto another's. Wikipedia describes this practice, known as interpretatio graeca when the Greeks did it, as "a discourse used to interpret or attempt to understand the mythology and religion of other cultures using familiar terms." Browsing this way lets a visitor see how, for example, a Roman writer might treat a Gaulish or Egyptian god as another name for one of their own.

Facts
Attestation
Era of Attestation
Divine names appear in the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions of about 1250 to 1050 BCE, the earliest Chinese writing. The pantheon is documented continuously thereafter and is in worship today. 3
Veneration Today
Worshipped today in temples, at domestic altars and at festivals across the Chinese-speaking world. 2
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
The gods of Chinese religion taken across its parts rather than within one of them: the Taoist canonical pantheon, the deities of the imperial state cult, buddhas and bodhisattvas naturalised into popular worship, and the local and household gods of folk religion. The pantheon is ordered like a bureaucracy, with rank, office and promotion, and many of its members are deified humans. 2
Directory
Category
Deities 1
Learn More
The gods of Chinese religion

This group gathers the deities of Chinese folk religion, Taoism and the state cult, a pantheon organised much like an imperial bureaucracy, with a supreme heaven, ranked officials and local gods answerable upward. Figures move between Taoist, Buddhist and popular contexts, and many are deified humans elevated for merit.

The browser will find the Jade Emperor at the head of the celestial administration, the Three Pure Ones of Taoist cosmology, the Queen Mother of the West, city gods and kitchen gods, and popular protectors such as Mazu and Guan Yu. The tradition is syncretic and living, and the entries note where a figure belongs to Taoist, Buddhist or folk contexts.

Interpretatio Of
Filter Results7 entries

Apollo

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Jupiter

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Mars

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Mercury

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Saturn

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Sukunabikona

Interpretatio Of
1 entry

Venus

Interpretatio Of
1 entry
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. Encyclopedia of Religion
Mircea Eliade (ed.); Lindsay Jones (ed., 2nd ed.), Macmillan Reference, 2005s.v. Chinese ReligionView the Source
3. Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China
David N. Keightley, University of California Press, 1978chs. 1-2View the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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