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The Khitan captured Chinese people who were already eunuchs at the Jin court when they invaded the Later Jin. Another source was during their war with the Chinese Song dynasty: the Khitan would raid China, capture Han Chinese boys as prisoners of war and emasculate them to become eunuchs. The emasculation of captured Chinese boys guaranteed a ...
Feng (mythology), an edible monster that resembles a two-eyed lump of meat and magically grows back as fast as it is eaten. Fenghuang, Chinese phoenix; Fenghuang. Feilian, god of the wind who is a winged dragon with the head of a deer and tail of a snake. Feilong, winged legendary creature that flies among clouds. Fish in Chinese mythology ...
Along with Chinese folklore, Chinese mythology forms an important part of Chinese folk religion (Yang et al 2005, 4). Many stories regarding characters and events of the distant past have a double tradition: ones which present a more historicized or euhemerized version and ones which presents a more mythological version (Yang et al 2005, 12–13).
The tension between eunuchs in the service of the emperor and virtuous Confucian officials is a familiar theme in Chinese history. In his History of Government, Samuel Finer points out that reality was not always that clear-cut. There were instances of very capable eunuchs who were valuable advisers to their emperor, and the resistance of the ...
Generally, Chinese mythology regarded people as living in the middle regions of the world and conceived the exotic earthly places to exist in the directional extremes to the north, east, south, or west. Eventually, the idea of an eastern and western paradise seems to have arisen. In the west, according to certain myths, there was Kunlun. [5]
Yaoguai (Chinese: 妖怪; pinyin: yāoguài) represent a broad and diverse class of ambiguous creatures in Chinese folklore and mythology defined by the possession of supernatural powers [1] [2] and by having attributes that partake of the quality of the weird, the strange or the unnatural.
Han dynasty Chinese talisman, part of the Wucheng Bamboo-slips []. Scholarly research into the history of Taoist symbolism has always been a particular challenge, because historically, Taoist priests have often used abstruse, obscure imagery writing to express their thoughts, meaning that a path to their successful decipherment and interpretation isn't always readily found in primary sources. [9]
The 121 CE Shuowen Jiezi, the first important dictionary of Chinese characters, does not enter 仙 except in the definition for 偓佺 (Wòquán "name of an ancient immortal"). It defines 僊 as "live long and move away" and 仚 as "appearance of a person on a mountaintop".