Xiwangmu- Chinese GodDeity"Queen Mother of the West"

Tiger's Teeth

The Shanhaijing describes her: "She is like a human but with a leopard's tail, tiger's teeth, and is good at whistling. Her disheveled hair is held by a jade hair clasp. She is in charge of the plagues of heaven and the five punishments."

This earliest Xiwangmu lived in a cave in the Jade Mountains of the western wilderness. She controlled disease and death. Three azure birds served as her messengers, flying between her cave and the world of humans. When later poets invoked the azure bird, every reader understood whose servant it was. The Huainanzi still describes her in fearsome terms, though by the second century BCE the emphasis had already shifted toward her control of the elixir of immortality.

The Queen Enthroned

By the Han dynasty, the leopard's tail was gone. Tomb art from this period shows a different figure: a beautiful woman in royal robes, enthroned on Mount Kunlun, flanked by the hare pounding the elixir and the nine-tailed fox. Han artists paired her with Dongwanggong, the King Father of the East, placing them on opposite walls of burial chambers. She governed the western paradise and all female immortals. He governed the east and the males.

The Shangqing revelations of the fourth century went further. Xiwangmu became a cosmic teacher who transmitted secret texts and techniques of immortality to worthy adepts. She maintained a court of divine women on Kunlun, and her authority over the gift of eternal life was absolute. Later folk tradition made her the Jade Emperor's consort.

King Mu's Journey

The Mu Tianzi Zhuan tells how King Mu of Zhou rode westward in a chariot pulled by eight horses, traveling beyond the boundaries of his kingdom until he reached Kunlun.

Xiwangmu received him with a banquet beside the Turquoise Pond. They composed poetry for each other. She sang a song of welcome. He was enchanted and reluctant to leave. She gave him parting gifts and they pledged to meet again. Whether King Mu ever returned, the text does not say.

The Elixir and Chang'e

Houyi shot down nine of the ten suns that were scorching the earth. For this he was banished from heaven. He traveled to Mount Kunlun and sought out Xiwangmu, hoping to restore immortality for himself and his wife Chang'e.

Xiwangmu gave him a single dose of the elixir, enough for two to share. When Chang'e drank it all, she rose from the ground and floated to the moon. She has lived there since, alone.

The Year She Almost Came

In 3 BCE, a mass movement swept through China's eastern provinces. People wore talismans dedicated to Xiwangmu, danced in the streets, and declared that the Queen Mother was coming to bring a new age. The Hanshu records the fervor: crowds passed talismans from hand to hand across multiple commanderies, believing that Xiwangmu would descend, transform the world, and grant immortality to her followers.

The movement subsided. She did not come. But across the tombs and shrines of the Han dynasty, her image multiplied: enthroned, serene, holding the peaches that promised what the talismans had not delivered.