Model humanity: Main philosophical traditions: Ritual traditions: Devotional traditions: Salvation churches and sects: Confucian churches and sects: The Wǔfāng Shàngdì (五方上帝 "Five Regions' Highest Deities" or "Highest Deities of the Five Regions"[note 1]), or simply Wǔdì (五帝 "Five Deities") or Wǔshén (五神 "Five Gods")[3] are, in Chinese canonical texts and common Chinese religion, the fivefold manifestation of the supreme God of Heaven (天 Tiān, or equivalently 上帝 Shàngdì).

They are associated with the five colors, the five phases of the continuous creation (Wuxing 五行), the five key planets of the Solar System and the five constellations rotating around the celestial pole, the five sacred mountains and five directions of space (their terrestrial form), and the five Dragon Gods (龙神 Lóngshén) who represent their mounts, that is to say the material forces they preside over (their chthonic form).

[16] He is the deity who shapes the material world (地 Dì), the creator of the Huaxia civility, of marriage and morality, language and lineage, and primal ancestor of all the Chinese.

[8] He corresponds to the Huángshén Běidǒu (黄神北斗 "Yellow God of the Northern Dipper"),[18][note 3] of whom in certain historical sources he is described as the human form making an ontological distinction between the two.

[13]: 42, note 25 As a human being, the Yellow Emperor is said to have been the fruit of a virginal birth, as his mother Fubao was impregnated by a radiance (yuanqi, "primordial pneuma"), a lightning, which she saw encircling the Northern Dipper (Great Chariot, or Ursa Major), or the celestial pole, while she was walking in the countryside.

Scholar John C. Didier has studied the parallels that the Yellow Emperor's mythology has in other cultures, deducing a plausible ancient origin of the myth in Siberia or in north Asia.

Huangdi represents the hub of creation, the axis mundi (Kunlun) that is the manifestation of the divine order in physical reality, opening the way to immortality.

[7] Already in the theology of the Shang dynasty, the supreme God of Heaven (Shangdi or Di) was conceived as manifesting in a fourfold form and will, the four 方 fāng ("directions" or "sides") and their 風 fēng ("winds").

In 677 BCE, Yong, an ancient sacred site where the Yellow Emperor himself was said to have sacrificed and the Zhou dynasty carried out jiào 醮 rituals, or "suburban sacrifices", became the capital of Qin.

Then, Duke Ling (?–384) instituted the sacred sites of Shàng (上 "Above") and Xià (下 "Below"), for the Yellow and Red Deities, in Wuyang, near Yong.

[33] In 253 BCE the great-grandfather of Qin Shihuang unified the imperial cult of the four forms of God in Yong, constructing there altars for the White, Green, Yellow and Red Deities.

On the other hand, there were the fangshi (方士 "masters of directions"), ritual masters who formulated what would have been called the "Huang–Lao" proto-Taoist religious movement, who presented themselves as the continuators of the traditions of the erstwhile kingdoms, and who emphasised the worship of local deities integrated into a theology in which the supreme God of Heaven was named Taiyi ("Great One"), and its human manifestation was the ancestral Yellow Emperor whom the emperors had to imitate.

[35] The imperial temple at Yong which was established by the great-grandfather of Qin Shihuang was rearranged placing the altars of the gods each in its respective direction, and that of the Yellow Deity at the centre.

Outside Yong, two other temples dedicated to the Five Deities were built during the reign of Emperor Wen (180–157), one in Weiyang, northeast of Chang'an, and one in Chengji near the modern county of Tongwei in Gansu.

[34] In 113 BCE, Emperor Wu of Han innovated the Confucian state religion integrating the Huang–Lao conception of Taiyi with the Five Deities and the cult of Houtu ("Queen of the Earth").

In 135 BCE, the fangshi Miu Ji, from Bo in modern Shandong, insisted that Taiyi was the same supreme God, master of the Five Deities, worshipped since remote antiquity by the emperors through the three-victims sacrifice.

In conformity with the instructions of Miu Ji, the emperor built a temple in the outskirts of Chang'an and appointed a great invocator (taizhu) to conduct the sacrifices.