Luxing- Chinese GodDeity"Star God of Prosperity"
Also known as: Lu Xing, Lùxīng, 禄星, and 祿星
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Description
Star God of Prosperity and center figure of the Sanxing triad, Luxing governs career advancement and official rank. In imperial China, his was the prayer of every student who sat for the civil examinations, the grueling tests that could elevate a peasant family to the gentry in a single generation.
Mythology & Lore
The God of the Examination Hall
The character lù (祿) means the salary of a government official. Not wealth in the abstract but the specific, envied income of a man who has passed the imperial examinations and entered the bureaucracy. In imperial China, where the civil service examinations could elevate a peasant family to the gentry or condemn a scholar's household to continued obscurity, this was the most consequential form of success imaginable. Luxing presides over it all.
His star is Mizar, the sixth star of the Wenchang constellation in Ursa Major, which Chinese astronomers associated with literary achievement. Students gazing at the night sky before their examinations looked to these stars and prayed for a clear mind and Luxing's favor in the essays that would determine their fate.
Faces of Prosperity
Chinese tradition identifies Luxing with several historical figures. One account names Zhang Xian, a Daoist priest from Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan during the Five Dynasties period, whose practice earned him posthumous deification. Another tradition points to Shi Fen, a Han dynasty official so upright that his descendants held high office for generations.
The deer (lù 鹿) that accompanies Luxing in paintings is a pun: lù for deer sounds identical to lù for official salary. His ruyi scepter's name means "as you wish." Every element of his image is a prayer made visible.
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