Hi All,

Just briefly discuss this issue with one of my close buddy.

When is the actual birthday of Guan Gong and the death date of Guan Gong.

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For years, many people had been wondering which are the correct dates.

Here's the answer:

1 13th of 5th Month - Birthday or the Memorial Date for Guan Gong's Son - Guan Ping

2 24th of 6th Month - The actual Birthday of Guan Gong aka Guan Sheng Di Jun, Xie Tian Da Di, Xuan Ling Gao Shang Di (the 18th Generation Jade Emperor)

3 7th of 12th Month - the Death date of Guan Gong and his son, Guan Ping. In history, this is the date recorded for Guan Gong and Guan Ping's beheaded date.

In Spore, we rarely see any Memorial Ritual being held for Guan Gong's Death date, but in other countries, they do have small Ceremony for paying respect to this well-known hero in our Chinese History.

thanks for the clarification

Welcome my bro :P

'saint'

hmm...also wandering...how does Guan Di becomes a Buddhist deity and also the 18th generation Jade Emperor. Blown my head off! :wacko:

The period where Guan Gong was "imported" into Buddhist Context was in Sui Dynasty.

According to a temple in China, that kept all the necessary information on the growth of Buddhism, there's an article written as:

In Sui Dynasty, 12th month of Kai Huang Period, a Master Monk named Zhi Kai was appointed to Yu Quan Mountain to build a Buddhist Monastry.

Before this Mountain was being appointed to build this Monastry, a Demon named Da Li Gui Wang had conquered the Mountain as his based/home.

After Master Zhi Kai arrived at the Mountain, Da Li Gui Wang was very unhappy with Master Zhi Kai's motive, Da Li Gui Wang had transformed into many strange and scary images in-order to scare off Master Zhi Kai.

But since Master Zhi Kai was already appointed as the In-charge, he can't returned back without any result, so he was trapped in the Mountain for 17 days.

On the 17 days, Master Zhi Kai started to interact with the Demons, saying "Life and death is just there, since you all don't appreciate the peaceful living here, I felt totally ashame of you all".

Immediately after he said the sentence, all Demon was gone. Appear infront of him was 2 Generals, which we known as Guan Gong and his son, Guan Ping.

After explaining to Master Zhi Kai why they were here, Master Zhi Kai was happy to meet them and decided to invite them into Buddhism as one of the Dharma Protector.

From then, Guan Gong was official being appointed as the Protector of Buddhism.

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Records on the election of Jade Emperors, till now, have yet to reveal to any outsiders.

But from researchs, we can roughly know how Guan Gong is being elected:

1 by the merits that he accumulated

2 the loyalty he had for his Country

3 the closeness between the brotherly love

4 the rightoeus he had

5 the popularity in folks' mind

According to the Buddhist tradition, in the year 592, Guan Yu appeared before Buddhist Master Zhiyi, Founder of the Tian Tai tradition of Buddhism, together with a great number of spiritual beings. Master Zhiyi, who was then meditating, was distracted, by such a great display of spirits before him.

Guan Yu requested and received a great number of Dharma teachings from Master Zhiyi, and also took the Five Precepts (not to take lives, not totake what is not given, not to engage in sexual misconduct, not to lie, not to take intoxicants which leads to heedlessness). Henceforth he is appointed the Guardian of the Buddhist Temples.

Another story is based on the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Guan Yu manifested himself to a monk named Pujing on Yuquan Hill on the night of his death. From Pujing Guan Yu sought the Buddhist teachings and entered the faith. While this being a modification of the "true" account, Pujing did exist in history. The location at which Pujing built a grass hut for himself was where the Yuquan Temple was later built on.

Hi Jave/Dorje,

Greatly appreciate your quick response.

Done some digging sometime ago. My senior didn't buy the Kai Huang's story. He think that this story is Chinese invention (folk-lore). There are other versions but not verifiable.

More controversial is the 18th generation Jade Emperor story(s). Guan Di wasn't even a Deity, so how can he becomes the Jade Emporer? The Jade Emporer is just below the Three Pure Trinty (Tai Shang Lao Jun, Yuan Shi Tian Jun and Ling Bao Tian Jun), existence is eternal. The Jade Emporer residues in the 33rd Heaven. How can Guan Di, a human commander, be appointed the Jade Emporer and by who?
(Sorry if I offences. I'm researching from a Taoist perceptive).


Regards.

In Buddhism, you can be reborn in the God realms due to your past merits and good karma. Gods, in Buddhist tradition, are not out of samsara, and most likely to be reborn in the Lower realms, because all/most of their good karma has been exhausted by being reborn as Gods.

Therefore, according to Buddhist tradition, an appointment of another Jade Emperor is not impossible. In fact, it is a fact that there are changes in the hierarchy of the Gods.

AFAIK, the Jade Emperor is a title, meaning that in future times there could be other Yu Huang Da Di, other Tai Shang Lao Jun, other Ling Bao Tian Jun, other Xuan Tian Shang Di, etc.

I'm looking from a Buddhist point of view. I hope I'm not posing a clash of ideas with Taoism here.

The night is young but already I'm seeing stars!

Hi Bro,

Many people do just react like your Senior on the Kai Huang issue, but this is the actual documentation in the Sui Dynasty.

This story has been proven by Masters over the years and now, the article is still kept in one of the Monastry in Yu Quan Mountain.

Whether is Master Zhi Kai or Master Zhi Yi, this we have to go deep into the research on the names as recording of names is still a big headache on researchers and history recorders.

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As for the Jade Emperor's issue, many people do have the same thinking as you as Jade Emperor shall be an eternal position in heaven.

But if you will to have a more deeper research on Deities, it's not difficult to know that every Deities (including all high ranking Deitites or Buddha) will have to go through certain "testing" after a certain billion/zillion years.

During this "testing" (like what bro Dorje had posted), the Deities might "reborn" or re-transform/manifest into different forms in different realms.

Usually after such "testing", the existing Deities will proceed to another realm that is totally not able to discover by the Mortals (or we can said - totally disconnect with the Mortals World)

Deities or Buddhas that we can see, hear, called upon, pay respect in now are still not at the highest realms (cos they still have connections with the living kinds), once they are out of all these realms, they will be in NO FORMS or so-called NULL (cannot be understand by Mortals or neither any Immortals).

Here's an extract from [ http://www.eng.taoism.org.hk/daoist-script...oks/pg3-5-4.asp ] that indicate folklore on Emperor Guan Yu. Notice he was addressed as "Emperor" and not "Jade Emperor" :

The Book of Enlightenment and the Dissemination of Belief in the Emperor Guan

In the Qin Dynasty, there appeared various kinds of Moralistic Storybooks named after Imperial Sovereign Wenchang, Emperor Guan, and Patriarch Lu, who were all Immortals popularly worshipped by the ancient Chinese. A complete works was compiled of those books related to the worship of the Immortals mentioned above. During the time of the Qianlong Emperor, there were many document collections, such as the Collection of Patriarch Lu, the Collection of the Emperor of Polite Letters, An Edition of the Martial Emperor, and the Collection of Saintly Imperial Sovereign Guan. Later in the Ming and Qin dynasties, Guan Yu became a household name after the propagation of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the Qing dynasty, temples for worshipping Saintly Imperial Sovereign Guan could be found all over China. Compared with the Heavenly Consort worshipped by the people along the coast of Southeast China, Emperor Guan was the most popular spirit worshiped in the rural areas of Northern China. In fact, he was widely worshipped in the Qing dynasty as a result of royal worship, the exaggeration of literary works and operas, and legendary stories. Besides, the circulation of the Moralistic Storybooks published in his name was one of the key reasons for his popularity. Zheng Xifu pointed out: "The immense popularity of Emperor Guan was to a large extent associated with the large-scale printing, circulation and worship of the Moralistic Storybooks about him. The numerous Moralistic Storybooks on Emperor Guan written through Planchette Writing were undoubtedly beneficial to his continuous extensive worship and high prestige among the people." Wa Dezhong, a Japanese scholar, wrote: "The comprehensive worship of Emperor Guan is due to the following reasons. They are the popularity of the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the existence of Moralistic Storybooks, the Perfect Book of Enlightenment from Saintly Imperial Sovereign Guan, and the appearance of oracles from him during the practice of Planchette Writing." his essay gives a brief illustration of the Book of Enlightenment, and then gives a survey of the relationship between the popularity of belief in Emperor Guan and the wide circulation of Moralistic Storybooks.

Any books or records stated that Guan Gong is currently the 18th generation Jade Emperor? Was the title of "Yu Huang Da Tian Zun" being bestowed to Guan Gong by any Chinese Emperors?

In folks culture, you are able to see Guan Gong with this title --> 玄靈高上帝

And from record, here's the list of the 18 Generations Jade Emperor (or before the title Jade Emperor existed, folks used to address him as Heavenly Emperor - Tian Di):

第一代玉皇大天尊 玄玄高上帝 - - - - - - 黃 老

第二代玉皇大天尊 玄元高上帝 - - - - - - 紫 徽 帝 君

第三代玉皇大天尊 玄明高上帝 - - - - - - 大 寰 教 化 聖 主

第四代玉皇大天尊 玄微高上帝 - - - - - - 鴻 鈞 老 祖

第五代玉皇大天尊 玄寰高上帝 - - - - - - 星 化 帝 君

第六代玉皇大天尊 玄中高上帝 - - - - - - 氣 原 天 尊

第七代玉皇大天尊 玄理高上帝 - - - - - - 光 華 聖 主

第八代玉皇大天尊 玄天高上帝 - - - - - - 大 羅 祖 師

第九代玉皇大天尊 玄運高上帝 - - - - - - 精 一 天 師

第十代玉皇大天尊 玄化高上帝 - - - - - - 延 衍 祖 師

第十一代玉皇大天尊 玄陰高上帝 - - - - - 北 華 帝 君

第十二代玉皇大天尊 玄陽高上帝 - - - - - 廣 度 尊 王

第十三代玉皇大天尊 玄正高上帝 - - - - - 度 化 天 尊

第十四代玉皇大天尊 玄氣高上帝 - - - - - 伏 魔 祖 師

第十五代玉皇大天尊 玄震高上帝 - - - - - 興 儒 天 尊

第十六代玉皇大天尊 玄蒼高上帝 - - - - - 救 世 天 王

第十七代玉皇大天尊 玄穹高上帝 - - - - - 妙 樂 國 王

第十八代玉皇大天尊 玄靈高上帝 - - - - - 關 聖 帝 君

From here, you can see that, 玄靈高上帝 is being positioned at the 18 place.

Some of the records that the mortals can refer to:

In 高上玉皇本行集經 (Yu Huang Scripture), there's a part that mentioned the father of Jade Emperor is 妙樂國王.

In 瑤池聖誌, the book did mentioned on these 18 generations of Jade Emperors.

In Guan Gong's Mantra:

太上神威 英文雄武 精忠大義 高節清廉
運協皇圖 德崇演正 掌儒釋 道三教之權
管天地人三才之柄 上司三十六天星辰雲漢
下轄七十二地 冥壘幽酆
秉注人生功德 延壽丹書 執定生死罪過 奪命黑籍
考察諸佛 諸神 監制群仙群職高證妙果 無量度人
至靈至聖 至上至尊 伏魔大帝 關聖帝君 大悲大願
大聖大慈 真元顯應 昭明翼漢天尊

It did mentioned that Guan Gong is the overall in-charge of the 3 Chinese Religions and also, look into all the necessary issues that happened in the 3 Realms.