How much do you know about the Kitchen God who is sent to heaven during the Little New Year?

The 23rd or 24th day of the twelfth lunar month is the traditional Chinese "Little New Year". The custom on this day is to worship the Kitchen God.

I wonder if you have ever thought about this question: There are so many furniture in your home, such as bowls, chopsticks, pots, basins, beds, tables, chairs, air conditioners, refrigerators, water heaters, toilets, brooms, washing machines... Why don't you worship the God of Lamps, the God of mobile phones, the most lovely gods of heating, air conditioning, and electric blankets in the cold winter, but you have to curry favor with the Kitchen God year after year?

Let’s talk about this Kitchen God today.

A painting of the Kitchen God from Weixian County, Shandong Province, during the Qing Dynasty. In the middle of the painting are the Kitchen God and his two wives and concubines, on either side are the "Eight Immortals", and below is the owner's family welcoming the God of Wealth holding a gold ingot. The picture is from "The Complete Works of Chinese Folk Art·Painting Volume", Jilin Fine Arts Publishing House, 2002, page 113.

From Emperor Yan to a scumbag

Thousands of Gods, Thousands of Faces, Not Simple

Don't be fooled by the fact that the Kitchen God in the painting is just a fat white man with innocent eyes. He can actually be regarded as one of the gods with the most complicated origins in the ancient Chinese mythology system. The ancient people's worship of the "Kitchen God" originated from the "Five Sacrifices" and "Seven Sacrifices" in the pre-Qin classics. This custom has been passed down for two or three thousand years, and there are too many stories about the origin of the Kitchen God in ancient books. Due to space constraints, let's look at these examples today.

The Western Han Dynasty classic Huainanzi Fanlunxun has a very humane description of sacrifice, saying that people at that time would sacrifice things like stoves, door panels, brooms, etc. This should not be considered superstition, but rather the ancients expressing gratitude to these furniture that worked all day long. Of course, people would also be grateful to those ancestors who benefited us. For example, some people say that Emperor Yan invented fire, so people would sacrifice to him next to the stove where they made fire and cooked.

The "First Edition of Sibu Congkan" is a photocopy of the Song Dynasty edition of "Huainanzi" copied by Liu Maosheng.

Speaking of the god of fire, the one that people today are more familiar with is probably Zhurong. The ancients also made arrangements. For example, in Volume 8 of Customs and Meanings, written by the Eastern Han scholar Ying Shao, "Sacrificial Rites: Kitchen God", he quoted the "Zhou Li" saying: "Zhuanxu had a son named Li, who was Zhurong. He was worshipped as the Kitchen God."

In addition to making fire, the stove is also used for cooking. Since ancient times, people who worked hard at the stove were often women, so the kitchen god imagined by the ancients was often a woman. For example, in "Tong Dian" written by Du You, the grandfather of the great poet Du Mu, it is said that some people believe that "the kitchen god is to offer sacrifices to old women to repay the meaning of cooking first."

"Xianchu" refers to the person who invented cooking, and here she is said to be an old lady. "Zhuangzi·Outer Chapter·Da Sheng" records that "the stove has a bun". Lu Deming's "Classic Interpretation" quoted Sima Biao of the Jin Dynasty as saying: "The bun is the stove god, wearing red clothes, like a beautiful woman." It says that she is a beautiful goddess wearing fiery red clothes.

Some people regard the Kitchen God as the God of Cooking, while others regard him as the God who controls the fortune and misfortune of a family. In ancient society, the latter powerful role was generally played by men.

As a result, the image of the Kitchen God became more and more masculine. Some people said his name was Su Jili, some said his name was Zhang Dan, and some said the Kitchen God was originally "the old mother of the Chen family", who "practiced for thousands of years with great supernatural powers and left behind the precious fire to save mortals". Finally, "the Jade Emperor personally re-conferred the title on a woman", "was given the appearance of a man", and "was upgraded" to a man.

Among these Kitchen God stories, the most popular one is the "Zhang Lang Divorces His Wife" type of legend. This legend has different variations in different places, but generally speaking, the Kitchen God in the story was originally a young man (in most versions, his surname is Zhang, and some studies have speculated that the Kitchen God's surname Zhang may be related to Zhang Jiao), who left his wife to take the imperial examination or do business, gained fame and fortune, and then turned his back on her and divorced her to avoid marrying up with a richer man.

As a result, things changed. A few years later, the man became a beggar. He knocked on a door occasionally to beg, but found that the hostess who opened the door was his wife. The woman did not bear grudges and invited him to eat and drink. The man rushed into the stove out of shame and killed himself, so he was named the Kitchen God.

Tao is ruthless but affectionate

Arbitrary rewards and punishments are the most shrewd

There are many different accounts of the Kitchen God's origin in various documents, and there are also many different opinions about his abilities.

1. Alchemy, visiting immortals, and immortality

According to the "Historical Records: Fengshan", during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, there was a man named Li Shaojun who was said to have lived for hundreds of years. He had several specialties, the first of which was offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God. Li Shaojun told Emperor Wu of Han that if the Kitchen God was offered sacrifices, gold could be refined; this kind of gold was particularly auspicious, and if it was made into tableware, the more you ate it, the healthier you would be, and you would live longer. In the future, you could visit the immortals and seek immortality.

Emperor Wu of Han loved to hear this, and immediately asked Li Shaojun to help him make gold for the gods. However, after a while, no gold was made, and Li Shaojun died of old age. However, Emperor Wu of Han was still obsessed and refused to admit that Li Shaojun was a big liar.

An image of the Baina edition of "Records of the Grand Historian".

2. Wealth and splendor

Emperor Wu of Han believed in Li Shaojun's words without a doubt, but others often felt that the goal of immortality was too ambitious and it would be better to set a small goal first, such as asking for promotion and wealth.

In Volume 8 of Customs and Meanings by Ying Shao of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in the chapter "Sacrificial Rites: Kitchen God", it is said that Yin Zifang, the ancestor of the powerful Yin family of the Eastern Han Dynasty, was making breakfast on the La Day of a certain year (the La Day was an important festival at that time and could be regarded as the common ancestor of Laba Festival and Little New Year). Halfway through his breakfast, he suddenly saw the Kitchen God appear.

Yin Zifang's family had a yellow sheep, so he immediately killed the yellow sheep to sacrifice to the Kitchen God, and later he really made a fortune. After several generations, the Yin family became more prosperous and once became one of the most prominent families in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

3. Population safety

After the story of the Yin family spread, offering yellow sheep to the Kitchen God on the twelfth lunar month became a popular custom. But everyone was offering sacrifices to the Kitchen God, and everyone was still as poor as before. Gradually, everyone felt that the goal of "getting promoted and getting rich" was too far away, so why not change it to praying for peace.

In the Song Dynasty, Hong Mai compiled the Yijian Ding Zhi, Volume 20, and the article "Yang's Kitchen God" says that there was a family named Yang, who was very rich. One winter, the father of the Yang family quarreled with his son, and the son Xiao Yang was driven out of the house, so he had to spend the night in the hay warehouse. The warehouse had no heating, and the son was too cold to sleep. He was lying there shivering when a big tiger suddenly came into the warehouse, followed by several ghosts.

Little Yang's last name is Yang, not Wu. It was difficult for him to fight the tiger with his bare hands, and he felt miserable. Suddenly, a god appeared and saved him. Who was it? It was the kitchen god of the Yang family. The kitchen god drove away the tiger, and also knocked out the land god who was idling around and scolded him before leaving.

A photocopy of the "Yijianzhi" edited by Huang Pilie reprinted in the "Continued Compilation of the Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature".

4Rewards and demerits

The previous part tells the legend of the Kitchen God blessing mankind. However, the most important character setting of the Kitchen God (or should it be called "God Setting"?) is to record merits and demerits, especially to record faults.

Zheng Xuan, a great scholar in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, said that the Kitchen God is "a minor god living among humans, supervising minor mistakes and giving warnings." Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin Dynasty said in "Baopuzi·Inner Chapter·Micro-points" that "On the night of the last day of the month, the Kitchen God also reports people's sins to the heavens. The major sins are deducted from the life span. A life span is 300 days. The minor sins are deducted from the life span. A life span is 3 days." The last day of the month is the last day of the month. The Kitchen God goes to heaven once a month to summarize your mistakes: if you make a major mistake, 300 days will be deducted from your life span; if you make a minor mistake, three days will be deducted from your life span.

Duan Chengshi of the Tang Dynasty wrote in Volume 14 of Youyang Zazu that it is even more frightening: "People often report their crimes to the heaven on the last day of the month. The serious ones will be deprived of their rank. A rank is three hundred days. The minor ones will be deprived of their rank. A rank is one hundred days. Therefore, they are the supervisors of the Emperor of Heaven and the spirits of the earth."

What exactly are these big and small mistakes? The "Tai Shang Ganying Pian" lists a very long list of mistakes, including "killing people for money" and "abandoning the law to accept bribes" and other bad things that are unacceptable, but there are also many small things like "singing and dancing at the end of the month or the end of the year" or "running naked when getting up at night" that people today usually think are not worth mentioning.

No one is perfect, let alone these "minor mistakes". The Kitchen God calculates KPIs once a month, and it is no wonder that the average life expectancy of ancient people was so short.

There are many ways to fool the Kitchen God

Mix sugar with wine and sing

According to legend, the Kitchen God has too many rules. Not only do modern people find them incomprehensible, but most ancient people could not stand them. Moreover, these ancient books often only talk about punishments, not rewards. Lifespans are deducted quickly, but are difficult to earn. Therefore, everyone wants to fool around.

As mentioned earlier, people have been offering yellow sheep to the kitchen since the Han Dynasty. Later, important ancient books such as "Monthly Orders for Four People" and "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji" also mentioned the use of rice, wild geese and pigs to offer sacrifices to the kitchen.

In the Tang Dynasty, people began to use wine dregs to smear the stove door, which was called "drunk Siming". "Si" means to be in charge, and "Siming" is the god in charge of fate (especially life span), which refers to the Kitchen God here. If the Kitchen God is drunk, the words on the little black notebook will be unclear!

Wu Zimu of the Song Dynasty said in Volume 6 of Menglianglu: "On the 24th, regardless of whether one is rich or poor, everyone prepares (vegetarian) glutinous rice and beans to worship the Kitchen God." "Glutinous rice" is pronounced xínɡ and refers to malt or malt sugar, which is very sticky. The careful intention of sticking the Kitchen God's mouth is obvious at a glance.

Copyright images in the gallery. Reprinting and using them may lead to copyright disputes.

As for the time of worshiping the Kitchen God, it has been mentioned in the aforementioned documents such as "Baopuzi" and "Youyang Zazu" that the Kitchen God at that time would return to heaven once at the end of every month, so worshiping the Kitchen God would be done every month.

After the Song Dynasty, the Buddhist Laba Festival and the more ancient Xiaonian (also called Xiaosui and Xiaojieye in ancient times) divided the ancient Laba Festival, and the Kitchen God worship activities were also fixed on Xiaonian Day.

"Xiao Nian" was originally set on the first day after "La Festival" (for example, the Southern Dynasty set La Festival on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, so Xiao Nian was the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month). After the Song Dynasty, "Xiao Nian" was moved to about a week before the New Year. In fact, the date of Xiao Nian is not uniform across the country, ranging from the 23rd to the 25th day of the twelfth lunar month.

Some people have summarized some rules like "North Three, South Four" or "Officials Three, Civilians Four", but there are many counter-examples. In fact, there is no need to follow rules to celebrate holidays. The day of the holiday is not the key, but who you celebrate with and how you celebrate are the most important. Don't you think this makes sense?

This article is a work of Science Popularization China-Starry Sky Project

Produced by: Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology

Producer｜China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd.

Author: Cleaner, PhD student at Nankai University

Reviewer: Wang Hongzhi, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University