The God of Happiness

The God of Happiness, Fu Shen, owes his origin to the predilection of the Emperor Wu Ti (A.D. 502-50) of the Liang dynasty for dwarfs as servants and comedians in his palace.  The number levied from the Tao Chou district in Hunan became greater and greater, until it seriously prejudiced the ties of family relations.  When Yang Ch’eng, alias Yang Hsi-chi, was Criminal Judge of Tao Chou he represented to the Emperor that, according to law, the dwarfs were his subjects but not his slaves.  Being touched by this remark, the Emperor ordered the levy to be stopped.

Overjoyed at their liberation from this hardship, the people of that district set up images of Yang and offered sacrifices to him.  Everywhere he was venerated as the Spirit of Happiness.  It was in this simple way that there came into being a god whose portraits and images abound everywhere throughout the country, and who is worshipped almost as universally as the God of Riches himself.

Another person who attained to the dignity of God of Happiness (known as Tseng-fu Hsiang-kung, ‘the Young Gentleman who Increases Happiness’) was Li Kuei-tsu, the minister of Emperor Wen Ti of the Wei dynasty, the son of the famous Ts’ao Ts’ao, but in modern times the honour seems to have passed to Kuo Tzu-i.  He was the saviour of the T’ang dynasty from the depredations of the Turfans in the reign of the Emperor Hsuean Tsung.  He lived A.D. 697-781, was a native of Hua Chou, in Shensi, and one of the most illustrious of Chinese generals.  He is very often represented in pictures clothed in blue official robes, leading his small son Kuo Ai to Court.

The God of Wealth

As with many other Chinese gods, the proto-being of the God of Wealth, Ts’ai Shen, has been ascribed to several persons.  The original and best known until later times was Chao Kung-ming.  The accounts of him differ also, but the following is the most popular.

When Chiang Tzu-ya was fighting for Wu Wang of the Chou dynasty against the last of the Shang emperors, Chao Kung-ming, then a hermit on Mount O-mei, took the part of the latter.  He performed many wonderful feats.  He could ride a black tiger and hurl pearls which burst like bombshells.  But he was eventually overcome by the form of witchcraft known in Wales as Ciurp Creadh.  Chiang Tzu-ya made a straw image of him, wrote his name on it, burned incense and worshipped before it for twenty days, and on the twenty-first shot arrows made of peach-wood into its eyes and heart.  At that same moment Kung-ming, then in the enemy’s camp, felt ill and fainted, and uttering a cry gave up the ghost.

Later on Chiang Tzu-ya persuaded Yuean-shih T’ien-tsun to release from the Otherworld the spirits of the heroes who had died in battle, and when Chao Kung-ming was led into his presence he praised his bravery, deplored the circumstances of his death, and canonized him as President of the Ministry of Riches and Prosperity.