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Hello all, I am wondering if there is anyone here who can identify this Emperor? I have searched and searched to no avail.

Thank you very much :)

Doug

I hate to demote the 'emperor' but he appears to be a member of the working class, namely an ancestral figure who is wearing the crane emblem, which denoted a first-class civil servant in Ming and Qing times. He appears to be holding ingots of gold, suggesting he might have been a tax collector or that he left a substantial bequest of money to his heirs.

I'm including the URL to a wikipedia site with more information on rank badges.

Best regards,

Bill H.

URL Title :RankBadges

Also, my best guess was Liu Bei? But I think that is wrong also. :(

The thing that confuses me with what I am finding is the Feng Huang emblems. I keep reading that they were worn my female and not male?

Hello,

This is a Daoist deity not an emperor. I think it is the God of the Earth.

I will look into these both. I thought a Deity also..(I am still very ignorant though..)
I was almost sure those were Phoenix emblems with the sun?

Thanks so much for the help my friends. :)

Doug

Just follow the link below and switch to images. You will see lots of images of the deity. This is a very popular deity in the Daoist pantheon.

Better reload the URL. I'd prefer it to being xiafanged for reeducation. Thanks, BH

Thank you very much Peter and Bill.. I did after searching quite a lot.. find this exact Deity.

http://kwokarts.blogspot.com/2010/01/tua-pek-gong.html

Actually your figure represents someone whose ship was beached on Penang Island in the early 18th century and would up being deified after his death locally in what is now Malaysia as the auspicious spirit for merchants. He even has his own wikipedia page (URL below).

This kind of canonization happens fairly regularly in Asian religions or so it seems, especially in comparison with the time it takes to produce a saint in the West. There's a deity in Burma called the nat among which there is at least one merchant's spirit who was accorded patron status after being eaten by a Tiger.

In Japan, Fukusukesan, the patron deity of merchants, is a dwarf who wears a samaurai outfit. he apparently has been ranked among the good-luck stars for only a century or less after someone associated his otherwise benign image with a stroke of luck (a picture included herewith in case someone needs help with lotto),

Best regards,

Bill H.



URL Title :TuaPekGong

LOL! Thank you Bill, I all of a sudden feel very Lucky!!! :)

How Fun!

Just for the record, the God of the Earth is a relatively low-ranking deity in the Daoist pantheon, but it its small altars are strewn all over the countryside, where it is a veritable peasants'deity. This deity has many different names, but the name of God of the Earth is probably a direct translation of the name Tudigong.
According to Wikipedia (Chinese Wikipedia) this deity has its source in the Zhou dynasty (1121-249 BC), more than 2000 years ago.
It it is said to be related to one Zhang Fude, and Fude is just another name for that same deity.

Now I am really confused..

I am trying to contact the guy who did the restoration on the one that is without question the same figure (the 5 phonenix or crane symbols) etc.. I have a link to it on a previous reply..
The guy I am writing to (Micheal Kwok) actually helps build Temples and statues in Singapore and did a restoration on this exact pose of this Deity. (There are subtle differences in the position of the Phoenix or Cranes)
I am hoping to find the correct staff for him and perhaps re-do the facial hair at some point.
Thanks so much for the help Peter and Bill. This is fun and informative! :)
Peter, I will research your leads to see if I can also look at the relationship of this Deity to the other more Ancient one.
I found two major temples so far that are dedicated to Tua pek Gong, one in Sibu and one in
Penag I think it is called (both in Malaysia)?

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