Yaochi Banquet with King Mu
The Mu Tianzi Zhuan tells how King Mu of Zhou drove his eight steeds to Kunlun; the Queen Mother entertained him at the jade pool, and they exchanged songs — the king promising to return, the goddess knowing he would not.
母
西王母
Queen Mother of the West
First Lady of the Immortals
Festival · 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month
First Lady of the Immortals
One of the oldest deities in China, already feared and worshipped on oracle bones over three thousand years ago. From her palace on mythical Mount Kunlun she tends the peaches of immortality, which ripen once every three thousand years.
- Peaches of immortality
- Phoenix headdress
- Nine-tailed fox and blue birds
Festival · 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month
History · 史记
Historical Record
Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West, has one of the longest continuous worships in China. The Shanhai Jing first depicts her as a fearsome goddess on Mount Kunlun — leopard tail, tiger teeth, presiding over the calamities of heaven, wearing a victory crown. By the Han she had transformed into a sovereign of beauty, keeper of the Western Paradise and the peaches of immortality, paired in the yin-yang system with Dongwanggong.
She is the gatekeeper of transcendence: emperors and seekers alike must win her favor to receive the secrets of immortality. Her feast of peaches, held once every few thousand years, gathers all the immortals — the Pan Tao Hui.
Stories of the Divine
Bestowing Peaches on Emperor Wu
The Han Wu Di Nei Zhuan describes her descent on the seventh of the seventh month in a chariot of purple clouds, offering the emperor peaches of immortality — five fruits — while the court jester Dongfang Shuo peeped through the lattice: he is a peach-thief from heaven in disguise.
Drawing the Silver River
In the legend of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl it is the Queen Mother who draws the silver river — the Milky Way — between the lovers, permitting them one meeting on the seventh of the seventh month: the origin of the Qixi festival.
Classical Sources
- 01
山海經
The earliest depiction — leopard tail, tiger teeth, presiding over calamities on Kunlun.
- 02
穆天子傳
The Warring-States romance of King Mu's journey to the Yaochi banquet.
- 03
漢武帝內傳
The Han romance of the Queen Mother's descent and the bestowal of the peaches.