On the Differences between Han Rhapsodies and Han Paintings in Their Portrayal of the Queen Mother of the West and Their Religious Significance
- Resource Type
- article
- Authors
- Xiaoyang Wang; Shixiao Wang
- Source
- Religions, Vol 13, Iss 327, p 327 (2022)
- Subject
- the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwangmu)
Han rhapsody (fu)
Han paintings
Hantomb stone reliefs
the Wuliang Shrine
Religions. Mythology. Rationalism
BL1-2790
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2077-1444
This paper argues that there exist two Queen Mothers of the West (Xiwangmu) in the Han era (206 BC–AD 220): one worshipped as a goddess of longevity and immortality by people from the upper class; the other worshipped by the ordinary people as a seemingly omnipotent deity with divine power over both the immortal world and the mortal world. This argument is based on a thorough comparative investigation of the surviving corpus of Han rhapsodies (fu) and Han paintings, the two major genres of art that give form to her cult in the Han period.