The Wǔfāng Shàngdì ( "Five Regions' Highest Deities" or "Highest Deities of the Five Regions"), or simply Wǔdì ( "Five Deities") or Wǔshén ( "Five Gods") are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven ( Tiān). This theology dates back at least to the Shang dynasty. Described as the "five changeable faces of Heaven", they represent Heaven's cosmic activity which shapes worlds as tán , "altars", imitating its order which is visible in the starry vault, the north celestial pole and its spinning constellations. The Five Deities themselves represent these constellations. In accordance with the Three Powers ( Sāncái) they have a celestial, a terrestrial and a chthonic form. The Han Chinese identify themselves as the descendants of the Red and Yellow Deities.
They are associated with the five colors, the five phases of the continuous creation (Wuxing 五行), the five key planets of the Solar System and the five constellations rotating around the celestial pole, the five sacred mountains and five directions of space (their terrestrial form), and the five Dragon Gods ( Lóngshén) who represent their mounts, that is to say the material forces they preside over (their chthonic form). They have also been defined simply as five special forms of the worship of the God of Heaven, different "accesses" or perspectives, suitable for different situations, to serve Heaven.
According to Zheng Xuan, the influence of their activity begets different categories of beings on earth. Explaining the ancient theology about the origins of kings from Heaven's impregnation of earthly women, he commented:
Names and meanings
Other names by which the Five Deities are collectively known are: Wǔfāng Tiānshén ( "Five Regions' Heavenly Deities"); Wǔfāngdì ( "Five Regions' Deities"); Wǔtiāndì ( "Five Heavenly Deities"); Wǔlǎojūn ( "Five Olden Lords"); Wǔdàoshén ( "Five Ways God(s)"); Xiāntiān Wǔdì ( "Five Deities of the Former Heaven"); Wǔsèdì ( "Five Colors' Deities").
In some works they are conceptualized as a single deity, the "Great Deity the Heavenly King" ( Tiānhuáng Dàdì) or "Highest Deity of the Vast Heaven" ( Hàotiān Shàngdì), which are therefore other epithets for the supreme God of Heaven. This concept relates in the microcosm to the Heart , and the four souls being a reflection of qualities of the Shen in Chinese medical theory.
Huangdi—Yellow Deity
Huángdì ( "Yellow Emperor" or "Yellow Deity"), also called Huángshén ( "Yellow God"), is another name of the supreme God in Chinese traditions, associated to the northern culmen of the sky and the Big Dipper (or Great Chariot, or Ursa Major) in particular, and with the power of the wu ( shamans). He is also known, as a human culture hero and progenitor, as Xuānyuán ( "Chariot Shaft"), Xuānyuánshì ( "Master of the Chariot Shaft"), or Xuānyuán Huángdì ( "Yellow Deity of the Chariot Shaft"), and as a cosmological symbol as Zhōngyuèdàdì ( "Great Deity of the Central Peak"). He represents the essence of earth and the Yellow Dragon ( Huánglóng). The character huáng, for "yellow", also means, by homophony and shared etymology with huáng, "august", "creator" and "radiant", attributes of the supreme God.
He is the deity who shapes the material world ( Dì), the creator of the Huaxia civility, of marriage and morality, language and lineage, and primal ancestor of all the Chinese. In the cosmology of the Wufang Shangdi his astral body is Saturn, but he is also identified as the Sun God, and with the star Regulus (α Leonis) and constellations Leo and Lynx, of which the latter is said to represent the body of the Yellow Dragon.
He corresponds to the Huángshén Běidǒu ( "Yellow God of the Northern Dipper"), of whom in certain historical sources he is described as the human form making an ontological distinction between the two. For instance, according to a definition given by apocryphal texts related to the Hétú , the Yellow Emperor "proceeds from the essence of the Yellow God of the Northern Dipper", is born to "a daughter of a chthonic deity", and as such he is "a cosmic product of the conflation of Heaven and Earth". The Yellow God is in turn described as the "spirit father and astral double" of the Yellow Emperor.