Zaojun (Stove God)

K.M.

Role

The role of the Stove God is simple, yet includes many aspects. Each year the Stove God rises to the heavens on New Year’s Eve to report to his superior (Shahar and Weller, 5). People burn the image of the Stove God, as this sends him to the Jade Emperor of Heaven, to whom he reports on family behavior over the previous year (Knapp, 90). Ronald Knapp explains that the family usually smears sugar paste over his lips or gives him alcohol to ensure that the god only reports good things about the family (Knapp, 90). Sending the stove god up to the heavens involves burning the image in either the doorway of the household or the courtyard, and additionally firecrackers are set off along with it (Knapp, 88-90). The role of the Stove God is to survey, protect, and bestow good fortune for the whole year (Knapp, 91). In this sense, although the Stove God is only a low-ranking deity in the celestial bureaucracy, he offers a lot to each family household. Although he monitors human behavior, he also brings good luck and protects the family. There was a point in time where the Stove God was allowed to be worshiped along with ancestors when worshiping other gods was banned by the Ming government (von Glahn, 201). This was likely due to him being such a casual deity and not being as venerated or as high-ranking as the other deities.

History

There were many different animal forms that people thought the Stove God took. Carolyn Phillips states an animal believed to be an incarnation of the Stove God was the toad and this can be seen in the older characters for zao or “stove,” which depicts a toad crouching inside a cave (Phillips, 23). Others think the toad crouching inside a cave is actually a frog, which represents water, and is thought to have protected against the fiery elements of the stove (Phillips, 23). Robert Chard agrees that the Stove God’s earliest form may have been a toad or a frog. He states that some scholars think that the Stove God must have existed much earlier than that, citing as evidence the graph zao … for “stove”, which seems to display a toad or frog, which they argue is the earliest form of the deity (Chard, 4). One of the first images of the Kitchen God is as an insect called a chan, which was a form of cicada (Phillips, 23). Phillips also discusses that paleolithic ancestors may have perceived the insects as the embodiment of the spirit who protected their homes and that the cicadas were often found in early stoves (Phillips, 23). Some say that the Stove God was the mysterious Yellow Emperor around the time of legends 2600 BCE (Phillips, 23). The earliest references to the Stove God as a deity were mentioned in the Zhuangzi and sources in the Daoist canon (Chard, 4).

Images

The Stove God’s image was found in many places ranging from humble huts to imperial palaces and offerings were made by scholars and illiterate people alike (Knapp, 84). Plenty of attention is given to the image above the stove, with people burning incense to the god. The Stove God is depicted as an older man with a long beard and mustache in some fairly nice robes. Originally, the “stove ghost” was depicted as a female but by the late Six Dynasties period, the god was male and depicted alongside his wife (Chard, 5). The Stove God could be somewhat larger than the other deities (in width) and his features a bit more subdued than the sharper features of other deities. Images of the Stove God are often on thin paper, as they are meant to be burned every year (Phillips, 28). The Stove God has many small variations in his image, but he is consistently depicted as an older or middle-aged looking man with scholarly robes, and he is always placed above the stove.

Connections to Society and Culture

The stove has been a symbol of a single family unit (Chard, 10). Having an image of the Stove God above the stove meant that a family was truly being watched over by him and would always have a report for the Jade Emperor. When the government forbade worship of any kind besides that of ancestors and the Stove God, he was always there for the people and families who worshiped him (von Glahn, 201). Family has always been a huge part of Chinese culture and society, having children take care of parents in old age, giving birth to children, specifically sons, to continue the family line. The Stove God embodies this in a way that no other deity can. He is a god of the unity of a family and though he is most popular in the rural areas of China, in a way he is one of the embodiments of Chinese culture.

Works Cited

Chard, Robert Lawrence. “Master of the Family: History and Development of the Chinese Cult to the Stove.” PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1990.

Knapp, Ronald G. China’s Living Houses : Folk Beliefs, Symbols, and Household Ornamentation. University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

Phillips, Carolyn. “The Kitchen God of Chinese Lore.” Gastronomica 13, no. 4 (Nov. 2013): 22–31.

Shahar, Meir and Robert P. Weller. Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China. University of Hawaii Press, 1996.

von Glahn, Richard. The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture. University of California Press, 2004.