Wen Ch’ang and Tzu T’ung

This worship had nothing whatever to do with the Spirit of Tzu T’ung, but the Taoists have connected Chang Ya with the constellation in another way by saying that Shang Ti, the Supreme Ruler, entrusted Chang Ya’s son with the management of the palace of Wen Ch’ang.  And scholars gradually acquired the habit of saying that they owed their success to the Spirit of Tzu T’ung, which they falsely represented as being an incarnation of the star Wen Ch’ang.  This is how Chang Ya came to have the honorific title of Wen Ch’ang, but, as a Chinese author points out, Chang belonged properly to Ssuch’uan, and his worship should be confined to that province.  The literati there venerated him as their master, and as a mark of affection and gratitude built a temple to him; but in doing so they had no intention of making him the God of Literature.  “There being no real connexion between Chang Ya and K’uei, the worship should be stopped.”  The device of combining the personality of the patron of literature enthroned among the stars with that of the deified mortal canonized as the Spirit of Tzu T’ung was essentially a Taoist trick.  “The thaumaturgic reputation assigned to the Spirit of Chang Ya Tzu was confined for centuries to the valleys of Ssuch’uan, until at some period antecedent to the reign Yen Yu, in A.D. 1314, a combination was arranged between the functions of the local god and those of the stellar patron of literature.  Imperial sanction was obtained for this stroke of priestly cunning; and notwithstanding protests continually repeated by orthodox sticklers for accuracy in the religious canon, the composite deity has maintained his claims intact, and an inseparable connexion between the God of Literature created by imperial patent and the spirit lodged among the stars of Ursa Major is fully recognized in the State ceremonial of the present day.”  A temple dedicated to this divinity by the State exists in every city of China, besides others erected as private benefactions or speculations.

Wherever Wen Ch’ang is worshipped there will also be found a separate representation of K’uei Hsing, showing that while the official deity has been allowed to ‘borrow glory’ from the popular god, and even to assume his personality, the independent existence of the stellar spirit is nevertheless sedulously maintained.  The place of the latter in the heavens above is invariably symbolized by the lodgment of his idol in an upper storey or tower, known as the K’uei Hsing Ko or K’uei Hsing Lou.  Here students worship the patron of their profession with incense and prayers.  Thus the ancient stellar divinity still largely monopolizes the popular idea of a guardian of literature and study, notwithstanding that the deified recluse of Tzu T’ung has been added in this capacity to the State pantheon for more than five hundred years.

Heaven-deaf and Earth-dumb