The lives of a great number of Chinese historical figures, heroes, worthies, bandits and revolutionaries, sovereigns and commoners over the centuries have become mythologized and the subjects of teashop story tellers. Their deeds and words have been fictionalised, themes known to the majority of Chinese. Some have found their way into religious life and become deified worthies. Many of these tales, ostensibly biographies of deities , are predominantly fantasy wedded with historico-fictional legends, a number of which comprise two or more volumes, others involve an enormous cast of heroes and worthies as well as scores of supernatural characters. Three major historico-legendary tales in particular have coloured popular religion beliefs. These are The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Journey to the West and The Deification of the Gods. Other works have also been sources of peasant knowledge about individual deities such as The Romance of the Sui-T’ang [ Sui-T’ang Yen-i].

We are particularly interested here with The Deification of the Gods. [Feng-shen Yen-i : 封神演义 a novel also known to foreigners as The Investiture of the Gods ] . The Feng-shen Yen-i addressed the moral and philosophical question of the origins of the gods and is an unsophisticated version of history describing the overthrow of the dynastic house of Shang by the vassal Chou which took place some 3,000 years ago, at a mythological time when the "human" gods were created. It has an overlay of Buddhism despite this religion in practice not reaching China until some thousand years after the overthrow of the Shang and the establishment of the Chou and not incorporated into Chinese religious beliefs until the time of Christ. It is the story of the decline of a dynasty, the Shang, with its depraved, dissolute and brutal ruler, under the spell of a beauty, his concubine, leading at first to his ineffective attempts to subdue his vassal Chou state, and later to the Chou mustering its forces and allies to attack the Shang and lay siege to its capital.

The conflict is described in gory detail with both humans and deities waging unrestricted warfare using thunderbolts, poisonous gasses and magic fans. Armies are annihilated by wizardry, bizarre and fantastic magic weapons are deployed by both sides leading to the eventual defeat of the Shang, and the suicide of the ruler and death of his concubine. The story ends with the heroes of both sides being canonised. This historical fantasy describes the struggle in the 11th century BC between the forces of the evil King Chou [Chou Wang, known also as Chou Hsin] of the Shang [Yin] dynasty and the armies of Duke Fa, with large bodies of men clashing as well as individual duels between heroes leading to the eventual victory by Duke Fa and the end of King Chou and his concubine. It describes individual or groups of deities, their origins, careers and their miracles and supernatural powers during the campaign of Duke Fa against King Chou. During the struggle both sides called upon Heaven who in response sent mythological deities [i.e. not deified humans] to take part in the clashes and battles. The major hero of the forces of Duke Fa was his prime minister, Chiang Tzu-ya, who was eventually responsible for handing out honours deifying the human heroes of both sides, with both the victors and the conquered being awarded posts in the Celestial hierarchy. Images of many of these heroes can still be seen on altars, deities in their own right, with responsibility for specific roles as gods of wealth or health or as patron deities. These deified heroes are possibly best thought of as 'human' deities in comparison with the mythological orthodox Taoist and Buddhist deities of the Creation and pre-history, a number of whom also took part in the fictional conflict. It has provided a standardisation of myths and legends woven into a continuous story which has, since its compilation, been the main spring of Chinese popular knowledge about the celestial and Underworld deities. A great many deities were familiar before this work was written and the problem therefore has been well nigh impossible, of determining how much of the work was original and how much was grafted in from earlier legends.

Chinese histories describing the fall of the Shang are far from clear. It was the era when the Chinese in the Yellow River basin were emerging from the mists of pre-history. Dates vary from 1050 BC to 1120 and 1127 BC, but one scenario is well known to the Chinese man in the street, the final act. The Shang was ruled by a degenerate, Hsin , [ Chou Hsin ], whose army was defeated in battle on the Mu-yeh plain before the Shang capital. The victor was Duke Fa [ Chi Fa ], who founded the Chou dynasty and became the emperor of the new dynasty, the Chou, and is known by his reign title of Wu Wang. The Book of History suggests that his army consisted in part or in the main of a central Asian race, the Western I . Chou Hsin is vilified as a moral degenerate under the spell of a wicked concubine, Tan-chi.°The Shang were attacked and replaced as the dominant force in northern China by the Chou just before the first millenium BC, having invaded from the west. They established their capital near present day Si-an.

The victor, Wu Wang [King Wu], passed on the title of Chou Kung [Duke Chou] to his brother, Tan, and also conferred the imperial title on his father, grandfather and great-grandfather who had only been dukes when still alive. Chou Kung was the paragon of literary China for some three thousand years, and it was he rather than his imperial brother who was the author of the Constitution of Chou. When his brother, the emperor, died leaving a young son, court officials and the vassals assumed that Duke Chou would usurp the throne and kill his nephew. He did nothing of the sort and instead it was the young king who at the age of nineteen stripped his uncle of his powers and forced him to live in exile in Shantung where he died a few years later.

The deities described in traditional vernacular fiction, and in particular in the immensely popular novel the Feng-shen Yen-i , are known to most Chinese whereas the majority of those left out of the Feng-shen Yen-i, apart that is from the major cult deities, have to all intents and purposes gone into limbo and are only known within small pockets of China or have been lost in the mists of time. Versions of the legend passed on orally often in local dialect, which frequently does not extend further than the extent of the dialect group, have numerous minor and occasionally major variations, whereas the written version was read China-wide in its ‘established’ state.

So many heroes and worthies make their appearance at one stage or another that it is impossible to name them all. Some appear momentarily during one of the battles, others are recorded in several chapters, occasionally with different names or titles such as the Northern Emperor [Pei Ti] who is also known by his titles, Hsüan-t'ien Shang-ti, The Supreme Lord of the Dark Heavens, and Chen Wu, The True Warrior. And in temples today in all probability he will be known by only one of these titles, with local devotees vigorously denying that an identical image with one of the other titles is the same god.

The Feng-shen Yen-i records numerous departments of the Celestial World including, for example, the Department of Thunder. It has a chief, General Wen, and twenty-four subordinates, amongst whom are the spirits of wind, rain and lightning; these are often referred to as the Five Spirits of Thunder, Lei Shen雷神 . Another is the Department of Fire Spirits. Its departmental head, Lo Hsüan´≈ of Fire Dragon Island, called himself Yen Chung Hsien , the Immortal of the Flames, and was a fierce-looking iron-toothed, red individual. His immediate subordinate was Liu Huan, a yellow faced demonic being who, during the Shang-Chou struggle, brought along the materials with which they nearly destroyed the capital of Hsi Chi, before being themselves routed. Lo Hsüan was awarded the title The Chief Spirit Ruler of the Southern Region Three Atmospheres Fire Virtue Star : Nan Fang San Ch'i Huo-te Hsing-chün Cheng-sheng Among his subordinates are a pig, monkey, tiger and snake spirits, all representing the different kinds of fires. The tiger is the 'tail fire' which is very hot; the pig is a 'house fire' which bursts out unexpectedly; the monkey is the 'nose fire' which comes suddenly through openings; whilst the snake is the 'winged fire' which leaps from one place to another. Liu Huan causes fires to spread.

The story begins with the last ruler of the Shang making an offering at the temple of the goddess Nü Wa. Having written a poem on the wall of the temple, a graffiti which offends her, she sends three monsters to bewitch him.

The following résumé of the last two chapters of the book brings into focus the tenor and style of the story. Chiang Tzu-ya, about whom tales are told of his ineffectual efforts to become a trader and thus satisfy his wife's demands that he should do something useful, was eventually introduced to the Court and King Chou Hsin, who gave him a high position. Chiang antagonised Tan-chi, Chou Hsin's concubine, by getting rid of one of her vampire friends who had disguised herself as a human to share with the evil queen the flesh and blood of the victims she had slaughtered. Chiang was being taken away to be executed outside the palace but managed to slip through a hole in a bridge and disappeared. The guards sought him everywhere and finally assumed that he had been drowned. He had however been able to conceal himself and appeared back home, having lost his lucrative post, where he bore the full fury of his wife as she had been enjoying the perks of the wife of a high official. He explained that he had no intention of returning to the palace as the fortunes of the evil Chou Hsin had a further twenty years to run, and went off spending his days fishing.

Many years later the father of the future victorious King Wu heard a fisherman singing and learning that the song foretold the future fall of the Shang and the victory of the Chou he went in search of the man who had taught the fisherman the song. This turned out to be Chiang who was then encouraged to return to the court of Duke Fa, where after Duke Fa’s victory he was made the prime minister.

In the Feng-shen Yen-i he was then despatched to the mystic mountains of the West, the K'un-lun Shan, where he was to seek from the great deity, Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun, the Primordial Heavenly Lord, honours for the loyal ministers, brave warriors, and all the good and bad immortals, male and female, who had died during the struggle. Chiang arrived at the Palace on the K'un-lun mountains and was admitted by the White Crane Youth, Pai Hao who escorted him to meet Yüan-shih T'ien-tsun. After Chiang knelt and made his plea the Primordial Heavenly Lord promised to send a decree which would authorise the canonisation of all the warriors, and name each in turn. Chiang returned to report to King Wu, followed a few days later by the White Crane Youth who descended amidst soft music and fragrance to deliver the decree. Chiang then ordered the Terrace to be prepared and soldiers to guard it whilst he purified himself. He entered the Terrace and after unrolling the decree read aloud the order which promised that those to be deified should be free from transmigration, and would be promoted or demoted according to their merits. He ordered that they should be worshipped by the people as protectors of the nation and its people, and they were to regulate the wind, rain and natural forces for the benefit of the people. They were authorised to reward good deeds and punish the wicked. The list of names of those deified was then hung up and the ministers and warriors ordered to approach in a lengthy queue with no one being permitted to leave it. The first to be called was Pai Chien, who was created the God of Pure Blessedness. He was followed one by one until all 365 warriors and worthies had been rewarded. Not all were straight forward. Some had followed the evil King during the struggle and had perpetrated wicked acts but had eventually recanted and had tried to make amends. King Wu also held an audience at which he announced that certain Taoists and generals who had bravely fought and died should be regarded as heroes and revered as such. At that point a number of Taoist mythological heroes stepped forward and declared that as they were uncultured, having lived in the mountains and countryside, they now wished to return to report to their masters. They added that they were unable to accept honours or rewards as they had simply followed the orders of their masters. All seven left the Court, and the following day after a feast, they were reluctantly permitted to leave by King Wu.

My daughter, a friend and I during a visit to Sung Shan in Honan province, one of the Taoist holy mountains, came across a large modern temple which, as we approached its entrance, looked real enough until we came to enter it. There were several young women in a uniform of sorts knocking a badminton cock around to while away the hours and, of all things, a turnstile. We then saw the name of the temple was Feng-shen Kung,the Palace of the Investiture of the Gods , and entered wide-eyed wondering what could possibly be inside.

Once inside we were taken by our guide down a short corridor and out into what proved to be a massive wax-works, images of scenes from the Feng-shen Yen-i as well as images of the major local deity, the Lord of Chung Yüeh, the Lord of the Central Peak [Sung Shan]. The exhibition, we were informed, had been built by the Tourist Board of the local city, Teng Feng, for Chinese visitors. Well over 200 images, mostly static but with some dozen or so automatons, lined the winding path leading through the large exhibition hall. With a not too subtle gesture our guide switched each on and off until, apparently bored by her foreign guests who spent quite some time at each exhibit, she abandoned us and returned to her badminton. The place was deserted apart from four small boys who were delighted to be alone with us and took enormous pleasure in switching on and off the various exhibits for our benefit without any guide being there to chastise them.

Scenes included the wicked Chou Wang ascending his throne; Na Cha, the Third Prince, Causing Trouble with the Dragon King; Duke Fa [King Wu] subjugating Chou Wang; the Terrace of the Investiture on which Chiang Tzu-ya is reading out the decree canonising the heroes, and the Five Sacred Ones returning to Heaven. Several of the automated exhibits had the small boys in fits of giggles; one in particular was the decapitation of a Fox Fairy, possibly the wicked King’s concubine, Tan-chi. In legend the spirit of a fox inhabits the body of a beautiful young woman who then bewitches and captivates men. When killed such woman immediately revert to their fox body origins. In the exhibit the young woman is standing and as the sword descends her head rolls off and rolls about on the floor before immediately reverting to its original position on her body. The boys were only too delighted to press the button to cause the head to roll again and again. Another was the birth of the Third Prince out of his caul. In legend he is born an apparent monster but after a swift slash with a sword the caul opens and the child emerges. Once more the boys played this for us several times.

This was possibly not the most ideal way to be introduced to the Feng-shen Yen-i. A year or so earlier my daughter and I heard of the small temple dedicated to Chou Kung, located at the foot of Phoenix Mountain in a rural area north of Ch'i Shan in Shensi province. We drove there to find in the main hall of a memorial temple, which had just been renovated, an image of Chiang Tzu-ya flanked by two mythological deities, Na-cha and Yang Chien [see Note 8]. The first of the two, is a seven year old youth who caused havoc in Heaven and, better known as the Third Prince. He is nowadays the primary guardian of temple altars in Taiwan where his image stands on the altar table before the main altar. His is a traditional story tracing the age-old conflict between generations, and conflict of power and responsibility. Yang Chien has certain magic powers which he used during the conflict but is also regarded as a potent deity who protects against demonic attack. He is often referred to as Erh Lang, and he and his small dog are to be seen in a number of temples and in many he is regarded as the patron deity of dogs. The murals across the whole of the main hall's side walls depict episodes from the Feng-shen Yen-i complete with Chiang Tzu-ya first mobilising the deities of heaven to help the Duke Fa, and finally, the scene of the Investiture itself on the Terrace of the Investiture.

A number of temples in the central-west of China used to contain large gilded 'mountains', carved structures representing a mountain with crags and caves on which were superimposed a number of carved wooden gilded images of Taoist deities. The vast majority of these were also characters from the Feng-shen Yen-i..

One of the many deities canonised by Chiang at the Investiture was T'ai Sui , the Ruler of the Year. In the Feng-shen Yen-i he is also known as Yin Chiao and under that title is usually represented on altars by one image. In southern Chinese communities, however, as T'ai Sui he is more often portrayed by sixty separate images each representing a year of the sixty-year cycle of the Chinese calendar, and devotees wishing to seek his aid will place spirit money offerings under the image in the group representing the year of the devotee's birth. In a number of the smaller popular religion temples in Hong Kong and Macau several rows of T'ai Sui images, depicting all sixty, line one of the side walls of the main hall. Although in a few temples each of the sixty images is carved with unique characteristics in the majority they are merely sixty identical heads, each mounted on a frame concealed under a red cloth robe. Even when the deity is portrayed as a single image normally he can easily be identified by the pile of spirit money placed under his image.

Some months later, this time in central Shansi province, we came across a former temple which had been converted into what can only be described as a “waxworks” museum of celestial and historical deities. The contents of the former temple had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution whilst the structure had recently, in 1995, been turned into a museum. It stands on the major highway between Taiyuan, the provincial capital, and Pingyao, to the south, but rather surprisingly no attempt seemed to have been made to advertise its presence to passing motorists. The halls had been labelled guiding visitors to Historical Heroes, The Eight Immortals, Mythological Worthies and the Underworld.

These two examples, and there are probably more, are local provincial or county initiatives to remind Chinese of their cultural, feudal heritage but without offering any opportunity for worship or reverence. Similar refurbishing has taken place of many of the old, larger Buddhist and Taoist monasteries in northern China but with a difference. These too are places where visitors can nowadays pass several hours of pleasurable ‘tourism’ but a number of them have also reverted to being working temples and monasteries with priests and rituals. The weekend visitors from the cities enjoy the scenery and ambience and in some temples offer up incense without let or hindrance to one or more of the major deities. Although to foreign visitors what we saw may be unremarkable, in Mao’s China not all that long ago folk religion was taboo, and even in today’s China that they offer such displays of the old deities without blatant propaganda is surprising.