Gods from Chinese Mythology: The Gate Gods 门神

The Gate Gods   门神 ménshén
 

In China, there used to be a custom to put drawings of the gate gods on gates during the Chinese New Year. As you may know, there are many gods worshiped in China, especially during traditional festivals. Though Chinese have the traditions of worshipping many gods and most people usually follow the traditions, religions have never been as deeply rooted in Chinese as those in many other countries. The Chinese people are more practical in philosophy or gods. So different gods are invited for different occasions. For an example, when they were lack of money, the god of fortune would be the guest at the table of sacrifice. So we say, ‘A god in need is a god indeed.’ No matter how things happened, however, you can always find a story proving its inevitability of being there. And the presentation of the gate gods had no exceptions as well.

It is said that long ago there grew a peach forest. The king of the peach trees shaded two stone huts in which lived two brothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei. Both of them were so strong that in front of them lions would bend down their heads, leopards shivered at them and tigers gave in entirely to promise to serve as guards in the forest. And the two brothers lived there on the peaches.

In the Northeast of Mount Duso, there lived a monster which was said the son of a spirit of a bull. By right of the uncommon strength, it made itself the king of that area. When it heard that the delicious peaches on the mountain of Duso were magic in turning an evil into a god, he couldn’t wait to go there. Of course, the monster was refused absolutely by the brothers. The monster was so angry that he led more than 300 ghosts to fight against the brothers. After a fierce fight, the monster was defeated completely and ran away. But the monster wouldn’t bury its axe. In the dark, he sent a few of the strongest ghosts to attack the brothers’ huts. Though the ghosts appeared with blue faces, long buckteeth and dark red eyes, the brothers were very calm and they determined to give them a hard blow. The elder brother fought ahead with a hard stem of a tree and the younger followed with a strong reed rope. When the brother beat down one of the ghosts, the younger would tie it hard and put it into the mouth of a tiger. The bothers, Shen Tu and Yu Lei, won the battle at that night and the ghosts never dared to annoy them again.

Thus, the reputation of the brothers was spread quickly around the area, and they also helped a lot of people in the area. Many years later, when the bothers died, people thought they had got into the Heaven and became gods there and served as guards by the gate of the Heaven. Because the gate gods were once lived in the peach forest, people thought the branches of peach trees were full of magic. So it began to get popular for people to hang a peach board with the bothers’ names on it on each side of their door pinning their hope for peace on the two giants. When paper was used, a picture of them was put up instead of those peach boards.