There's at least one in every religion, but really old mythologies like Chinese and Egyptian have the head honcho change a few times over the millenia depending on whose popular.
The ones I've found for Chinese mythology are Shangdi, the Jade Emperor, the Yellow Emperor, and Di Jun. You could also count Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong since they ruled the west and east respectively, but some people might not count them since they technically shared power. What I want to do today is put these gods in a rough chronological order as to when they could have been in charge to give a line of succession to the throne of Heaven.
Let's start with Shangdi, the oldest deity here who gained his popularity in the Shang dynasty from 1600-1000 BC. He's called the supreme diety, but came up before the Daoists established the Heavenly Beauracracy so he was never officially king of the gods.
Next is the Queen Mother of the West and her lesser known husband the King Father of the East. As I've stated in previous posts, more modern sources will portray Xiwangmu as the consort to the Jade Emperor, so Dongwanggong gets shoved to the side a lot. A modern writer could interpret this as the two of them getting a divorce, freeing Xiwangmu up for a second marriage. Perhaps their split is what lead to the end of their reign as rulers of the universe?
Third is the Yellow Emperor, largely because he's credited as the first sole emperor of all China, so it makes sense to slot him in here after Shangdi, who had a less official role, and the couple who shared power equally.
After him I'm gonna put Di Jun, who some might remember as the father of the 10 suns from yesterday's post. The fact that he was the head god is probably why later myths gave his role as their dad to the Jade Emperor in later myths when the latter god was more popular. However, he isn't the first emperor but should definitely come before our jaded boy, so we're putting him here.
Finally we have jolly green himself, the Jade Emperor who, and I cannot stress this enough, was literally made up in 1005 AD to cover up an unpopular military decision. He presumably then married Xiwangmu and continued ruling the cosmos indefinitely.
Let's reiterate that this is not meant to be taken as fact, it's just me taking different pieces of mythology and making my own timeline with it in a way I think is cool and makes sense. If anyone disagrees, feel free to tell me how you'd structure your list and why.
Now, for my LMK people, as of the end of season 4 the Jade Emperor's throne is empty and waiting for someone to fill it. Who will it be? Who could possibly replace him? Well, my hope is that we get who I'm going to call the Lotus Emperor, Nezha. Strict and dutiful, but willing to bend when necessary and always trying to do the best he can. Not to mention he's also the Jade Emperor's grandson. It remains to be seen if it'll happen in the show, but that doesn't stop us from making fan content about it!
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When most people think of monotheistic gods, they think of bearded and potentially hostile men on high, the mainstay of Abrahamic religions like Judaism, C
Shangdi
The Shang dynasty of China recognized the existence of a supreme god, known as Di (“Lord on High”) or Shangdi (“Celestial Supreme Ruler”), who was supreme over all other divine entities and spirits, including those of ancestors.
He dominated the spiritual hierarchy of the divine in the same way as a king ruled over the temporal hierarchy. Shangdi also had power over natural disasters and the weather. He was believed to dwell in the heavenly city of Shang with the ancestors of the royal family, and he communicated to human beings through oracle bone divination.
When the Zhou dynasty came to power, the worship of Shangdi was slowly replaced or conflated with the worship of Tian (“Heaven”). Zhou writers claimed that the deities of the Shang pantheon had died and returned to Earth as humans to serve in the wars on both sides.
In the early Zhou period, Tian and Shangdi may have been interchangeable concepts, with each seen as a personal and political deity serving as a nonhuman source of moral behavior. As time went by, Heaven became a more distant and impersonal concept, more like a natural force of fate. Temples to Shangdi survived for a time, but Tian remained the political supreme leader of the universe.
When the Jesuits came to China, they associated the Christian God with Shangdi because he was invisible and not represented in iconography. They claimed that God had communicated with the ancient Chinese in the form of Shangdi, but His will was obscured by Confucian and Taoist misinformation and superstition.
Altar to Shangdi (上帝 "Highest Deity") and Doumu (斗母 "Mother of the Great Chariot"), together representing the principle of the universe in masculine and feminine form in some Taoist cosmologies, in the Chengxu Temple of Zhouzhuang, Jiangxi.
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So, yesterday when I talked about Monkey stripping a guy and Buddha showing off his middle finger (no I won't give that more context) I didn't mention a couple other cool things I read in my source about Wukong and his rampage through Heaven. Namely, the fact that my source never once calls the ruler of the cosmos the Jade Emperor, as well as Kuan Yin referring to Erlang Shen as said ruler's grandson.
For those of you who aren't as big a nerd as I am and don't memorize mythological family trees this may not seem all that strange, but in mythology Erlang is consistently depicted as the Jade Emperor's nephew, the son of one his sister. One of my mutuals, @quitealotofsodapop has a pretty good visual for the Jade Emperor's possible family tree over on his blog, which I recommend checking out.
But I digress, what I wanted to do here was bring this back around to my previous post about rulers of the cosmos and my proposed order for them: Shangdi, the first ruler who reigned before the Court of Heaven was founded, Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, the couple who ruled the Heavens together until they separated, the Yellow Emperor, the first singular ruler of all of China, Di Jun, the father of the 10 suns and 12 moons, and the Jade Emperor, the figure more modern texts point to as the ruler of the gods after some guy made him up to get out of trouble over a controversial military decision.
No I will not stop mentioning that, it is hilarious.
Anyway, I won't go into detail about my rationale for choosing those figures and giving them those placements here, but what this implies is that my source got this story from a time before the Jade Emperor was commonly seen as the head god of the Daoist pantheon. However, if we get out creative licenses out and overthink things a little, I could also imply that Monkey's rampage through Heaven, or at least his birth, could have happened BEFORE the Jade Emperor ascended to the Heavenly throne, and that the Jade Emperor is either the son of the previous ruler (who we are presuming to be Di Jun) or that one of his siblings was married to one of Di Jun's children.
Personally, I like the thought that Wukong was born before the Jade Emperor took the throne, but the fiasco with the 10 suns and Di Jun stepping down happened in his lifetime. And on the Jade Emperor's side of things, I'm leaning towards the second option where the Jade Emperor and Di Jun are in laws rather than outright related, but it could be cool either way.
I just want to restate that I'm not claiming any of this is canno to actual chinese mythology, it's just me taking a look at a cool culture and putting pieces where I think they'll fit. What do you think?
I've mentioned Shangdi a couple times, but I never really went into detail about what his deal is.... mostly because we don't really know a whole lot about him.
You see, not only is Shangdi super old, like "find his name on oracle bones" old, he wasn't really worshipped the same way other gods were. He was seen as too great and powerful to be worshipped by mere mortals, so the people worshipped him by proxy through the royal family or other gods. This all encompassing vibe, along with him being characterized as in charge of the whole cosmos and then some, caused Abrahamic religions that came to China to kind of syncretize him with God/Yahweh/Allah. Though, while that is cool and interesting and there is meaningful discussion to be had about the similarities between the gods of disparate cultures, why they're like that, and what that says about humanity, we won't be going down that particular road today because I want to keep my main focus on Chinese religion and beliefs specifically.
Anyway, Shangdi was big and important and powerful, but also super old and deliberately vague so we don't know much about him. His height of population seems to have been in the Shang dynasty about 4,000 years ago so written records as well as any traditions or religious practices surrounding him are simply lost to time, though his role as king of the cosmos would later be picked up by later dieties like the Yellow Emperor, Di Jun, and the Jade Emperor.
One that I wanted to give some light to was a deity brought to my attention by a mutual, @quitealotofsodapop , Yuanshi Tianzun. I hadn't really come across him in my books yet, so I did some looking around after he was brought up in response to one of my posts. Yuanshi Tianzun is one of the Three Pure Ones, a triumvirate of gods regarded as the highest powers within the Daoist pantheon. The other two are Lingbao Tianzun and Daode Tianzun. The reason I point these guys out specifically is because Yuanshi, similar to Shangdi, is seen as an eternal figure with no beginning or end as well as the creator of all things. This similarity caused me to speculate that perhaps the Three Pure Ones are aspects of Shangdi that were broken apart and made into their own gods for some reason, perhaps ease of worship.
This would change my headcannon order for rulers of the cosmos very slightly, with Yuanshi slotting himself in between Shangdi and the East and West couple. Maybe Shangdi, finding it difficult to govern the world while separated from it, split off the Three Pure Ones to promote order and set up the Heavenly beauracracy for maintaining the world. In this version, Yuanshi would be less of a king and more of an executive manager, as the Yellow Emperor is still considered the first ruler of all China and doesn't really fit in before him. Yuanshi would manage the world for a while before passing the torch to Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, who would cede to the Yellow Emperor after their divorce, who would in turn give the throne to Di Jun after he retired. Then, when D Jun steps down after the fiasco with the 10 Suns with no heir (except the 1 remaining sun who's probably not very popular at the moment), Yuanshi would step in to name his trusty assistant from back in the day as the next ruler, the Jade Emperor.
