ew days abdicated in favour of his chief minister,
and became a hermit at P'u-ming, in Shensi, and also on Mount Hsiu Yen,
in Yuennan. Having attained to perfection, he passed the rest of his
days in curing sickness and saving life; and it was in the exercise
of these charitable deeds that he died. The emperors Ch'eng Tsung
and Hui Tsung, of the Sung dynasty, loaded him with all the various
titles associated with his name at the present day.

Both Buddhists and Taoists claim him as their own, the former
identifying him with Indra, in which case Yue Huang is a Buddhist deity
incorporated into the Taoist pantheon. He has also been taken to be
the subject of a 'nature myth.' The Emperor Ching Te, his father,
is the sun, the Queen Pao Yueeh the moon, and the marriage symbolizes
the rebirth of the vivifying power which clothes nature with green
plants and beautiful flowers.

T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu

In modern Taoism T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu is regarded as the first of
the Patriarchs and one of the most powerful genii of the sect. His
master was Hung-chuen Lao-tsu. He wore a red robe embroidered with
white cranes, and rode a _k'uei niu_, a monster resembling a buffalo,
with one long horn like a unicorn. His palace, the Pi Yu Kung, was
situated on Mount Tzu Chih Yai.

This genie took the part of Chou Wang and helped him to resist Wu
Wang's armies. First, he sent his disciple To-pao Tao-jen to Chieh-p'ai
Kuan. He gave him four precious swords and the plan of a fort which
he was to construct and to name Chu-hsien Chen, 'the Citadel of all
the Immortals.'

To-pao Tao-jen carried out his orders, but he had to fight a battle
with Kuang Ch'eng-tzu, and the latter, armed with a celestial seal,
struck his adversary so hard that he fell to the ground and had to
take refuge in flight.

T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu came to the defence of his disciple and to
restore the morale of his forces. Unfortunately, a posse of gods
arrived to aid Wu Wang's powerful general, Chiang Tzu-ya. The first
who attacked T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu was Lao Tzu, who struck him several
times with his stick. Then came Chun T'i, armed with his cane. The
buffalo of T'ung-t'ien Chiao-chu stamped him under foot, and Chun
T'i was thrown to the earth, and only just had time to rise quickly
and mount into the air amid a great cloud of dust.

There could be no doubt that the fight was going against T'ung-t'ien
Chiao-chu; to complete his discomfiture Jan-teng Tao-jen cleft the