Around 2000 B.C., there ruled in Imperial China, an emperor, Son
of Heaven and Lord of Ten Thousand Years, who had a peculiar talent
for sensing by sight alone the phenomena we now called
"earth-warming." One fine summer afternoon, while listening to one
of his imperial concubines playing the PiPa (a pear shaped
mandolin), and gazing toward his Summer Palace Gazebo, he saw ten
suns overlapping each other, beating sharp rays never seen before.
Ever conscious of his role as protector of the community, he feared
the overpowering suns would scorch the people, dry up wells, rice
paddies, lakes and seas. The earth, be dreaded, would overheat and
burn to its horrific conclusion.
What was to be done? Quickly he summoned his imperial presence,
General Hou Yih, an officer guardsman of the imperial household
guards, who distinguished himself as his Lord Protector by having
been a very skilled archer of tremendous strength. When he was told
of the ten overlapping suns burning brightly at noon and
threatening to scorch all on earth, he immediately shot nine arrows
aimed at nine suns across the sky. They were reported to be on
target, and by the evening, only one sun was going down over the
meadows. Earthwarming was no longer a threat to life, limb, and
agriculture.
His Imperial Majesty and his consort, the Empress, were impressed.
Soon, the Goddess of the Western Heavenly Realm beard of General
Hou's giant Leap for mankind. She commissioned him to be architect
and imperial builder of a multi-colored rainbow palace from her
imperial collection of jade, a gem stone valued highly by the
Chinese Imperial Dynasties and henceforth by Chinese people
everywhere.
Naturally, as a General, he was able to marshall the sinew of armed
men for the building project. The Palace was so well built and so
appropriate as a fortress that Her Imperial Majesty felt that it
would be a tragedy that a man so gifted should die a premature
death, either in a battle or by accident. Therefore, she decided to
confer eternal life on him by offering as a reward the "Elixir of
Immortality-Life Eternal" in the form of the "Pill of Life
Eternally" on the singular condition that he was not to swallow it
until a full year of prayerful contemplation and fasting at a local
monastery. He took it home, but busy with imperial duties, he had
it hidden in a secret place without telling his Wife Lady O-Chang
about the potent power of the Pill.
While away on one of his imperial missions, Lady O-Chang
accidentally found the pill in its secret hiding place and
swallowed it. Lo and Behold! She was airborne within seconds and
bound for eternal banishment to the full brilliant moon above to
complement the divine natural beauty of the moon with her own
beautiful attributes of form and substance. As she was soaring like
an eagle at full flight, contrary to the earthly laws of gravity.
General Hou saw this totally unexpected turn of events and took
arms in hot pursuit.
However, as if by divine intervention, typhoon winds swept and
turned him back to earth. His was the earth and all therein to
cherish and love till the end of his days Lady O-Chang, on the
other hand, became the divinely beautiful Moon Goddess whose
celestial realm was the Moon and stars that twinkle like a thousand
points of light in a heavenly dance, fluttering, flickering, to and
for across the skies at night, delighting one and all, especially
during this season of the mid-Autumn Moon, when the celestial
Goddess of the moon makes her appearance at the offerings put
forward by earth people!
Children are asked to concentrate quietly at these prayerful
offerings, for deep thoughts and clear minds do sometimes render
the unexpected sighting of this phantom goddess of the night. For
some five thousand years now, during the August Moon Festival,
Chinese elders repeat this epic legend of magic for children and to
all who would listen of how, why, and when this Festive Day and
Night is celebrated. Lady O-Chang has reached the status of
immortality in the form and substance of the Goddess, as lovely as
she ever was while here on earth.
* Lady O-Chang in the story above is
also known as Chang-Er locally.
