道法自然
媽祖 天后
Protector of All Who Sail
Festival · 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month
Protector of All Who Sail
Born Lin Moniang on the Fujian coast around 960 CE, she was famed for rescuing sailors in storms and was deified after her early death. Today more than three thousand temples honor her from China to Southeast Asia and beyond.
Festival · 23rd day of the 3rd lunar month
History · 史记
Mazu — Grandmother — is unique among the great deities in having an undisputed historical origin: Lin Mo-niang, born around 960 on Meizhou Island off the Fujian coast, renowned as a woman who could read the winds, drowned in 987 trying to save her shipwrecked family. Within generations her island shrine became the patronage cult of the Chinese seas.
The imperial court enfeoffed her again and again — the Song Hui Yao records the first title, Lady Shunji, in 1123; under the Yuan, when the empire lived on coastal grain transport, she was raised to Tianfei, Heavenly Consort; the Qing made her Tianhou, Empress of Heaven. The Tianfei Lingying records collect her manifestations — always the same: red robes above the waves, a lamp in the storm.
Her father and brother were shipwrecked while she sat at her loom at home. Eyes closed, she gripped shuttle and loom — holding both boats at once. Her mother called her name; startled, she dropped the shuttle, and the brother was lost. She cast herself into the sea and brought his body home.
The Lingying records tell it over and over: in typhoon-darkness a red lamp appears on the mast or above the waves, and where it leads, the ships follow safely. Yuan-era grain fleets sacrificed to her before every voyage.
宋會要輯稿
Records the first imperial enfeoffment of 1123 — the beginning of her court career.
元史·食貨志
Records her protection of the coastal grain fleets that fed the Yuan capital.
天妃顯應錄
The Ming collection of her manifestations at sea.