Sanxing- Chinese GroupCollective"Gods of Good Fortune"

Fortune and Prosperity

The people of Daozhou in Hunan were of unusually short stature, and the Tang imperial court regularly conscripted them as entertainers and living curiosities for the capital. Yang Cheng, the local governor, risked his career by submitting a memorial to the emperor protesting the practice. The emperor was moved and ended it. After Yang Cheng's death, the people of Daozhou venerated him as the earthly form of Fuxing, the star of fortune.

Students preparing for the imperial examinations made offerings to Luxing, the star of prosperity, whose light in the Wenchang constellation near the Big Dipper was said to determine their fates. His companion animal is the deer, because the words for deer and prosperity share the same sound in Chinese.

The Chess Game

The Taiping guangji preserves the origin of the third star god. A young man learned from a diviner that his lifespan was fated to end at nineteen. Following the diviner's instructions, the youth brought food and wine to two old men playing chess beneath a mulberry tree. The old men were the stellar gods of the North and South Poles, the cosmic arbiters of death and life. So absorbed in their game that they ate and drank without noticing the youth, they did not look up until the jug was empty. Moved by his humility, the god of the South Pole reversed the numerals of his age. Nineteen became ninety.

This South Pole deity became Shouxing, the god of longevity, recognizable by his enormous domed forehead and the peach of immortality he carries from Xi Wangmu's orchard. At birthday celebrations for the elderly, peach-shaped buns are served in his honor and his image presides over the table.