Chinese Gods Are Very Different

¶ … Chinese Gods are very different from other Western and Indigenous Gods. Most Chinese Gods and Goddesses are deified humans rather than traditional concepts of immortals. Buddhist tradition believes in the transcendence of human beings into Godhood through their actions in their human life. Therefore Gods are oftentimes as prone to human behavior as the human beings. The Chinese Gods are numerous and represent a plethora of different Chinese myths. Unlike other polytheistic cultures, China does not have a set universal doctrine of Gods and Goddesses; instead the use of mythology creates many different Gods that become popular within segments of the population. Some of the most famous deities include the Monkey King, or Sun-Wu-K'ung, the Eight-Immortals, the Jade-Emperor, etc. Chinese deities oversee different aspects of human life and therefore have different functions within the conception of Chinese religious belief.

The Chinese Gods segment their control through their different deity status and functions. At the supreme level, the Jade Emperor rules over the entire "court" of Gods and Goddesses from his throne. He is the stern-faced Ruler of Heaven and proctors over all of the Gods. However, even he is beneath the ultimate power of the Buddha who controls and governs the sanctity of the entire universe. Below the Jade Emperor is composed of a litany of Gods and Goddesses with different functions. Guan-Yu for instance is the Daoist God of War and Martial Arts; he proctors the arena of warfare and martial art that is popular within Chinese culture. However, Chinese culture does not identify a universal system of deity recognition; therefore deities will serve different purposes or control different elements depending on the specific region of China.

Becoming a God in China is to become immortalized through lore and mythology. In order to become a deity, an individual must attain the status of immortality. The only way for these individuals to attain such status is to master the Five Precepts of Buddhism and reach Enlightenment. Once this is accomplished then the individual can become a deity. However, each God and Goddess only emerges as a real worshipped entity once they have become enshrined through lore and mythology. The Monkey King is perhaps the best known deity in China because the mythology that surrounds him is one of China's oldest and most popular narrative traditions. This story entitled "The Journey to the West" is the real foundation for Monkey King's status as a God within Chinese culture.