Sanshengmu- Chinese GodDeity"Holy Mother of Mount Hua"
Also known as: Huaxian Sanniang, Sānshèngmǔ, 三圣母, and 三聖母
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Description
Daughter of Yaoji and sister of Erlang Shen. Sanshengmu repeated her mother's defiance by falling in love with the mortal scholar Liu Yanchang on Mount Hua. Her brother imprisoned her beneath the mountain, just as their mother had been imprisoned. Her son Chenxiang, like Erlang Shen before him, split the mountain to set her free.
Mythology & Lore
The Pattern Repeats
Sanshengmu knew what happened to celestial women who loved mortal men. Her own mother Yaoji had married the scholar Yang Tianyou and been imprisoned beneath Mount Tao. Her brother Erlang Shen had cleaved that mountain with an axe to free Yaoji. Sanshengmu knew all of this, and she chose to love a mortal anyway.
The scholar Liu Yanchang visited her shrine on Mount Hua, one of China's five sacred mountains, and the goddess who guarded it fell in love with him. They married in secret. She bore him a son, Chenxiang. For a time the family lived in hidden happiness, Sanshengmu wielding the Precious Lotus Lantern, a divine artifact that could shield its bearer, to protect the life she had built. But marriages between heaven and earth were watched for, and this one was discovered.
Beneath Mount Hua
Erlang Shen, Sanshengmu's own brother, was charged with enforcing celestial law. He had once split a mountain to save his mother from exactly this punishment; now he was the one delivering it. He imprisoned Sanshengmu beneath Mount Hua and seized the Lotus Lantern.
Chenxiang, raised apart from his mother, eventually learned her fate. He trained under a Daoist master, grew powerful enough to challenge his uncle, and obtained a divine axe. He cleaved Mount Hua in two. Sanshengmu emerged from beneath the split mountain, freed by her son as her mother had been freed by her brother.
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