Menshen
deity earth Chinese single tradition · 2
Door gods who are divine guardians of doors and gates in Chinese folk religions. They are used to protect against evil influences or to encourage the entrance of positive ones. The tradition began under the Han dynasty with the divine pair Shenshu and Yulü, but later evolved to feature deified generals from the Tang dynasty.
↻ synthesized from 2 sources
When
- First attested
- 200 BCE
- Attested period
- -200 – 2020
- Historical notes
- Began under the Han dynasty with Shenshu and Yulü; became more popular in Tang dynasty form with deified generals.
Relationships
- manifests as
- Zhong Kui, Shenshu, Yulü, Yuchi Gong, Qin Shubao, Wei Zheng
- co occurs with
- Užsparinė, Cheng'huang, Chen Wenlong, Culśanś
Mentioned by
Sources
wikipedia (2)
Source passages
“Menshen, the gods of doors”
#34834 · extracted by deepseek/deepseek-chat
“Menshen, or door gods, are divine guardians of doors and gates in Chinese folk religions, used to protect against evil influences or to encourage the entrance of positive ones.”
#34843 · extracted by anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5