Pleased to meet you. Wên Chung (Wen Zhong), The Minister of Thunder...At your service...
The Ministry of Thunder and Storms from Chinese mythology is a great illustration of how on one hand, the Chinese world view was different from everyone else's, and at the same time the same as everyone else's...
Different: Where other cultures saw all powerful thunder and rain hero gods who wielded absolute power over the clouds, thunder and lightning, the Chinese saw a well coordinated team of officials who worked together in harmony to provide a good service to gods and people...
The same: All legends featuring the members of the Ministry of Thunder and Storms are full of animal and plant calendar markers...Just like mythologies in all the other cultures...They are all basically deified calendars of the rain and thunderstorm season in China...
Apart from Wên Chung, The Minister of Thunder AKA Lei Tsu, the Ancestor of Thunder, other officials employed at the Ministry of Thunder and Storms were:
Lei Kung, the Duke of Thunder
Tien Mu, the Mother of Lightning
Feng Po, the Count of Wind
Yu Shih, the Master of Rain
In this post I will talk about the Minister of Thunder himself...
Here we go:
This divinity rides on a "black unicorn"...
Not this 🙂
This. What The Minister of Thunder is actually riding on is a qilin (qirin), a "legendary hooved chimerical creature that appears in Chinese mythology"...
Apparently: "There are variations in the appearance of the qilin in historical China, owing to cultural differences between dynasties and regions"...But, as you will see, all the variations are just different complex animal calendar markers for rain and thunderstorm season...
During the Jin dynasty (266–420 AD), the qilin was depicted as wreathed in flame and smoke, with a dragon-like head, scales, and the body of a powerful hooved beast such as a horse...
This was basically longma, the dragon horse that I talked about in my post "Longma".
In short, a being which is an animal calendar marker for the rain season in the Yellow and Yangtze rivers area.
Which starts when horses start to mate (Apr/May)
And peaks at the hottest time of the year, the time of fire breathing dragons, Jul/Aug...
In the Eastern Han dynasty (1st-3rd AD) we find depictions of Qilin which very much resemble a winged bull. Like this one currently in the Portland Art Museum...
This is interesting...The rain and thunderstorm season in China starts in Apr/May, the time when wild Eurasian cattle calving season starts...
So bull dragon = horse dragon as a calendar marker for rain and thunderstorm season in China...
The last qilin incarnation was a particular fanciful animal with the head of a dragon, the antlers of a deer, the skin and scales of a fish, the hooves of an ox and tail of a lion...This thing...
Ok, we have already seen what ox and dragon mean as animal calendar markers...What about deer? Remember my post about this amazing "Mythical beast from Xian"?
In it I explained that deer that live in North Eastern China, where these "mythological creatures" originate, shed their antlers at the beginning of the rain season...
The antlers "grow" as the rain season progresses and reach their maximum size at the end of the rain season...And interestingly, the Qilin antlers are young, growing antlers...
And so these growing deer antlers are the symbol of the growth that rain season brings and also the marker for the period between the beginning and the end of the rain season...
What about the fish...Well, did you read my post about the "Dragon Gate"? If a carp jumps over this gate, it turns into a Dragon...This magical transformation of jumping fish into dragons takes place during the rain season too...
Finally, what about a lion? Well, Eurasian lions main mating season starts in Jul/Aug, in Leo...Hence lions being associated with dragons...Oh, by the way, the peak of the rain and thunderstorm season is in Leo...
All and all, whichever incarnation of the Qilin "mythical beast" we look at, it is always a complex animal calendar marker for rain and thunderstorm season in China...
Thunderstorm distribution in China...The really bad part starts Apr/May, peaks Jul/Aug, ens Sep/Oct...
Oh, BTW, Qilin can shoot fire from its mouth (dragon, the hottest time of the year), and its voice is like a thunder (peak thunderstorm season)...
Really appropriate for the mount of The Minister of Thunder...
Anyway, the legend about how Wên Chung became The Minister of Thunder is very interesting too...Basically this story is just another complex calendar marker...This time for the peak of the thunderstorm season...Where you would expect to find The Minister of Thunder...
So: Wên Chung was not always The Minister of Thunder...Originally he was one of the highest ranked officials in the Shang Dynasty (1600 - 1046 BC). He served under King Da Yi for many years, and after Da Yi's death crowned Da Yi's son Zi Shou (King Zhou) as the new king...
But "upon seeing the idiocy and corruption within the king and his ministers", he opposed king Zhou and fought against King Zhou's army. He eventually lost the fight, and went on the run, riding on his "unicorn" (Qilin)...
Rain and thunderstorm season begins...
While on the run, he got into a fight with Ch’ih Ching-tzu, The Fire God, who managed to stop Wên Chung's "unicorn" (Qilin)...Lei Chên-tzŭ, "The Son of Thunder god Lei Kung or Lei Kung's alter ego, and Wên Chung's adopted son" then struck Wên Chung's Qilin and cut it in two...
The hottest time of the year (fire god)...The most thundery time of the year (thunder god)...Is in the middle of the rain and thunderstorm season (Qilin cut in half)...
BTW, check my Post about Lei Chên-tzŭ, "The son of thunder". You'll love it...
Wên Chung tried to escape, but Yün Chung-tzŭ, The Master of the Clouds and Lightning surrounded Wên Chung with fire and fire dragons. The sky was like a furnace, and the earth shook from thunders...
Again, the hottest time of the year, the peak of the thunderstorm season...
And there Wên Chung died...Only to be made immortal and made The Minister of Thunder, "plenipotentiary defender of the laws governing the distribution of clouds and rain" 🙂
The hottest time of the year, the peak of the thunderstorm season, is also the peak of the rain season...
So that's it from me and The Minister of Thunder...
To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...
PS: in case anyone wonders why the hell is "oldeuropeanculture" wasting his time writing about Chinese mythology, I do this to show that people all over Eurasia and North Africa, since at least Neolithic, have used animals and plants as calendar markers in the same way...
The "symbolic dictionary" I used to decipher Chinese mythological symbolism can also be used to decipher European, Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Levantine, Central Asian, Siberian...ones...And I have used it in many twitter threads and blog posts to explain all the weirdness found in these mythologies...
References:
"Myths of Thunder, Lightning, Wind, and Rain"
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