Guiling Shengmu
Character from Investiture of the Gods
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Guiling Shengmu (simplified Chinese: 龟灵圣母; traditional Chinese: 龜靈聖母; pinyin: Guīlíng Shèngmǔ; lit. 'Holy Mother of the Spirit Turtle') is a character in the Chinese Ming dynasty novel Investiture of the Gods (Fengshen Yanyi). She is a disciple of Tongtian Jiaozhu, the leader of the Jie Sect (截教), and one of his four senior disciples. Her original form is a large female turtle.[1]
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In Fengshen Yanyi
Guiling Shengmu is one of the four senior disciples of Tongtian Jiaozhu, along with Duobao Daoist, Jinling Shengmu, and Wudang Shengmu.[2] After Huo Ling Shengmu is killed by Guangchengzi, Guiling Shengmu attacks him. Guangchengzi uses the Heaven-Flipping Seal (番天印), forcing her to reveal her original form as a large turtle. Tongtian Jiaozhu then expels her from Biyou Palace and forbids her from attending his lectures. The novel also says that she was originally a female turtle who attained the Dao around the time Cangjie created writing.[3]
Guiling Shengmu later joins Tongtian Jiaozhu in the Ten Thousand Immortals Formation (萬仙陣).[4] She fights Ju Liusun and drives him back with the Sun and Moon Pearl (日月珠). Ju Liusun flees westward, where Guiling Shengmu encounters Jieyin Daoist. Jieyin blocks the pearl with a lotus and strikes her with a rosary, forcing her back into turtle form.[5]
Jieyin stops Ju Liusun from killing her and has the White Lotus Youth (白蓮童子) capture her. The youth releases mosquitoes from a bundle, and they drain Guiling Shengmu's body, leaving only her turtle shell. The mosquitoes then fly west, and one of them eats three of the twelve grades of Jieyin's lotus platform.[6] Later interpretations identify these mosquitoes with Wen Daoren (蚊道人; the mosquitoe immortal). The name Wen Daoren, however, does not appear in the original novel's account of Guiling Shengmu's death.
Guiling Shengmu is not included among the deities given titles by Jiang Ziya in the final investiture.[7]
Later folk tradition
Guiling Shengmu was later used as a character in Xiao Fengshen (小封神), a Taiwanese novel by Xu Bingding. The work uses characters from Investiture of the Gods in stories involving the temples and deities of Tainan. In Xiao Fengshen, Guiling Shengmu is the master of Furong Cave (芙蓉洞) and becomes involved in a conflict involving Kui Xing and the Little Supreme God.[8]
In the story, Guiling Shengmu is wounded and retreats to the Dragon-Tiger Pool at the Xiahai City God Temple. She later dies at Anping Harbor. The episode is part of Xu Bingding's use of local Tainan places and temple traditions in the novel. Xu Bingding also connected Guiling Shengmu with a local religious tradition at Nan Chang Bao'an Temple in Tainan. The temple enshrines a stone bixi as Bailian Shengmu (白蓮聖母). According to local tradition, the stone turtle was one of a group of monument bases transported to Tainan during the Qing period and was lost at sea before being recovered by fishermen in 1911. In Xiao Fengshen, Xu Bingding identifies the stone turtle as the transformed body of Guiling Shengmu.[9][8]
Worship
Guiling Shengmu was worshipped at a temple in Gegu, Tianjin, according to a field study by the Institute of Qing History at Renmin University of China. She was one of 13 female deities recorded as being enshrined at the temple during the Qing dynasty and the Republican period.[10]
In Tainan, Taiwan, Guiling Shengmu was incorporated into a local tradition associated with Xu Bingding's Xiao Fengshen. The work identifies a stone turtle preserved at Nan Chang Bao'an Temple with Guiling Shengmu.[9]