Tiangou

 


Tiangou is a celestial canine from Chinese mythology. He is usually associated with eating the sun or moon during eclipses but has many more roles than this. Tiangou's name means celestial dog.

In his best known interpretations Tiangou is a giant black dog surrounded by flame. The most famous story about Tiangou is when he ate the moon in pursuit of Change'E. HouYi the legendary archer hero was given an elixir of immortal for his many great deeds. However his wife Chang'E drank the elixir before he could. For this the gods imprisoned Chang'E on the moon. They did this by making Chang'E so light that she floated up to the moon and couldn't step on the Earth. As Chang'E was floating away HouYi's dog licked up some of the immortal elixir that had been spilled on the ground. The dog grew in size to be larger than the heavenly bodies. It pursued Chang'E, trying to get the rest of the immortality elixir through her. The dog eventually ate the whole moon with Chang'E on it. Queen Mother of the West then restrained the dog and made him spit up the moon and Chang'E unharmed. The Queen Mother then made it guard the heavenly gates and he became the celestial dog, Tiangou.

Event though the myth states that Tiangou ate the moon he was responsible for both lunar and solar eclipses. During an eclipse the god ZhangXian would shoot Tiangou with his arrows until the dog released the sun or moon. ZhangXian was the protector god of children and responsible for protecting life so it would continue on in the future, he was the enemy of Tiangou. Even with ZhangXian fighting Tiangou, people would clap, yell, bang pots together and do whatever they could to make as much noise as possible to scare off Tiangou during eclipses. Comets were also associated with Tiangou and believed to be him running across the night sky. Both comets and eclipses were seen as bad omens. It was a sign that the emperor was losing control over heavenly affairs, if he couldn't keep the celestial dog in order, and because of this his celestial mandate which allowed him to rule was beginning to slip away.

Tiangou was a mythical character with a complex morality. On one hand he was the protector of the gates of heaven, but also he was inclined to misbehave and tried to devour celestial objects. Even though Tiangou was a powerful celestial being he had the mind and behavior of a regular dog.

Tiangou has had many different interpretations through history and wasn't always the moon devouring celestial dog. The earliest account of Tiangou was in The Classic of Mountains and Seas, from the 4th century. There Tiangou was described as a white headed fox. In art it was shown carrying a snake it its mouth. This creature was said to live in the mountains and be a force of good. It could protect people against all sorts of evils. Around the year 650, in the book JinShu, Tiangou is identified as the star Sirus. Between then and the Qing dynasty Tiangou started being associated with comets. It wasn't until the book XieJiBianFang in the Qing dynasty that Tiangou started being associated with the story of HouYi and eclipses. In addition to this, the legend of Tiangou was taken to Japan, where it morphed again into the bird like tengu.  

  


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