Kui Xing- Chinese GodDeity"Star of Literature"

The Drowned Scholar

In the legend most widely told, Kui Xing was once a mortal scholar of extraordinary talent and extraordinary ugliness. He sat for the imperial examinations and achieved the highest score, earning the title of Zhuangyuan, First Scholar of the realm. When he was presented to the emperor for formal appointment, the sovereign took one look at his bulging eyes, wild hair, and demon-like features and refused him. The face was intolerable; the brilliance did not matter.

Devastated, the scholar walked to the sea and threw himself in. But the waters did not keep him. A giant ao turtle rose from the depths, caught him on its head, and carried him upward, not back to shore but to heaven. There the celestial powers deified him as the god of examinations, the deity who would judge all future scholars by their writing alone. The ugliest face in the examination hall became the face that presided over every examination hall in China.

Standing on the Turtle's Head

Kui Xing's iconic form captures the moment of his apotheosis: he balances on one foot atop the ao turtle's head, his other leg kicked backward, one hand raising a writing brush to the sky, the other holding the character for excellence. With that brush he marks the names of successful candidates on the celestial register. His name connects him to the first four stars of the Big Dipper, which in Chinese astronomy govern literary fortune; students gazed at these stars and prayed before their examinations.

Temples to Kui Xing stood in every examination compound in China, and no student entered the testing hall without first making an offering to the demon-faced god who understood rejection. The imperial examination system has ended, but students throughout the Chinese-speaking world still place pens and paper before his image when the stakes are high.