The God of Thunder and The Goddess of Lightning 雷公电母 The most curious
perhaps of all these popular superstitions are those which refer to
thunder, lightning, and hail, regarded in China as the visitation of
an angry and offended god. In the first place it is supposed that
people are struck by thunder and not by lightning--a belief which was
probably once prevalent in England, as evidenced by the English word
_thunderstruck_. Sir Philip Sydney writes:--"I remained as a man
thunder-stricken." Secondly, death by thunder is regarded as a
punishment for some secret crime committed against human or divine
law, and consequently a man who is not conscious of anything of the
kind faces the elements without fear. Away behind the clouds during a
storm or typhoon sit the God of Thunder armed with his terrible bolts,
and the Goddess of Lightning, holding in her hand a dazzling mirror.
With this last she throws a flash of lightning over the guilty man
that the God of Thunder may see to strike his victim; the pealing
crash which follows is caused by the passage through the air of the
invisible shaft--and the wrongs of Heaven are avenged. Similarly, hail
is looked upon as an instrument of punishment in the hands of the Hail
God, directed only against the crops and possessions of such mortals
as have by their wicked actions exposed themselves to the slow but
certain visitation of divine vengeance. (H. A. Giles, Chinese Sketches) |
Chinese Gods >