Page 316 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A-Z 309
Among the Li-su (a minority in Yunnan) there is a legend that the dog brought rice
to mankind, but, as he had to run through water, he lost most of the grains on the way,
and only the tops of the stalks showed. In another South Chinese legend it is the rat
that is the bringer of rice.
In olden times, rice was the food of the upper classes. Rice was also laid in a dead
person’s mouth. Even nowadays, rice bowls should not be heaped with rice: that should
happen only in the case of the rice offerings made to ancestors. Wasting rice, whether by
throwing it away or leaving it in the bowl, was gravely frowned upon, and whoever did it
could expect to get smallpox or be struck by lightning.
The flippant way in which rich people treat even important things like rice is
illustrated in a parable: asked where rice came from, a rich man said, ‘From the mortar,’
and, when pressed for a better answer, ‘From the sack.’ He had no idea that peasants
worked hard to produce it. Today, rice is occasionally used as a means of warding off evil
spells, and in sacrifices.
When trying to cure those possessed of evil spirits, the Taoist Zhang Lu made a habit
of asking for five measures of rice, a custom which gave its name to the religious and
political sect of the ‘Five-Measure-Rice-Taoists’ (wu-dou-mi).

Riches, God of

cai-shen

The god of riches is represented sometimes as a single being, sometimes as a dual being,
sometimes as a group of deities. As a mixta persona, the being on the left is the military
god, the being on the right is the civil god (cf. the Emperor’s governors). The two beings
who figure in the dual god of riches are not always the same, however. Sometimes we
find Guan-di, the just and upright warrior, and Bi-gan, the loyal minister; then again,

it is Guan-di and Yao-wang, the ‘King of medicine’ (probably the god Bhaisajyaguru, of
Buddhist origin). The two He-he (the Heavenly Twins) are also venerated as gods of
riches, especially in the province of Anhui, though usually in a subordinate capacity to a
main deity.
Other texts again recognise five gods of riches ( Good luck, five gods of) who
were really five brothers: their names are not given. What mattered, apparently, was to
get rich: exactly who provided the riches was less important. If there was some doubt as
to who the god of riches was, the same went for the day set aside for his worship. In most
regions, sacrifice was done to him on the 2nd day of the new year, but some sources add
the 5th. An ancient Peking tradition has it that the god of riches visits the supreme lord of
all the gods on the 2nd and the 16th days of each month, in order to report to the ‘Jade
Emperor’ (Yu-huang) on what people on earth have been doing. Their prospects,
auspicious or otherwise, for the coming days can then be apportioned.