Chinese gods and immortals
Many are worshiped as deities because traditional Chinese religion is polytheistic, stemming from a pantheistic view that divinity is inherent in the world.
[1] The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating, and propagating the way of heaven (天, Tian),[2] which is the supreme godhead manifesting in the northern culmen of the starry vault of the skies and its order.
[8] Tian bridges the gap between supernatural phenomena and many kinds of beings, giving them a single source from spiritual energy in some Chinese belief systems.
[2] However, there is a significant belief in Taoism which differentiates tian from the forces of earth and water, which are held to be equally powerful.
[9] Since all gods are considered manifestations of qì (氣), the "power" or pneuma of Heaven, in some views of tian, some scholars have employed the term "polypneumatism" or "(poly)pneumatolatry", first coined by Walter Medhurst (1796–1857), to describe the practice of Chinese polytheism.
[11] Modern Confucian theology sometimes compares them to substantial forms or entelechies (inner purposes) as described by Leibniz as a force that generates all types of beings, so that "even mountains and rivers are worshipped as something capable of enjoying sacrificial offerings".
[clarification needed] Rather, it depends on the choices of common people; persons are deified when they have made extraordinary deeds and have left an efficacious legacy.
[13] Chinese traditional theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the classic texts, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations,[14] is fundamentally monistic, that is to say, it sees the world and the gods who produce it as an organic whole, or cosmos.
[20] Tian is usually translated as "Heaven", but by graphical etymology, it means "Great One" and a number of scholars relate it to the same Dì through phonetic etymology and trace their common root, through their archaic forms, respectively *Teeŋ and *Tees, to the symbols of the squared north celestial pole godhead (口, Dīng).
[25] Other names of the God of Heaven are attested in the vast Chinese religio-philosophical literary tradition: Tian is both transcendent and immanent, manifesting in the three forms of dominance, destiny, and nature of things.
Couplets or polarities, such as Fuxi and Nuwa, Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, and the highest couple of Heaven and Earth, all embody yin and yang and are at once the originators and maintainers of the ordering process of space and time.
[34] Chinese folk religion that incorporates elements of the three teachings in modern times and prior eras sometimes viewed Confucius and the Buddha as immortals or beings synonymous to them.
[69] Northeast China has clusters of deities which are peculiar to the area, deriving from the Manchu and broader Tungusic substratum of the local population.
