Deity East Asian traditions
Xuan Wu
玄天上帝 zh 현천상제 ko
Taoist water deity, tutelary deity of Ming Empire
- Also called Dark Warrior, Mysterious Warrior, Dark Deity
Armed conflict
Sailing
Domains on record
Overview
From Wikipedia, quoted unmodified under CC BY-SA 4.0; the article’s history is its list of authors.
Accounts
Where Xuan Wu appears
Each work is its own account. Where two disagree about a parent or a deed, both readings stand.
What this means
Works this figure is recorded as appearing in. Each is an account, not a chapter of one story: where two of them disagree about a parent or a deed, both readings stand and this site keeps the disagreement. The earliest account below is computed from these works, not stated by any source — a fact about which texts this collection holds and when they were written, not a date for the figure, who has none, and not a floor for the tradition, which is older than anything that survives of it.
Later works
Later works that name Xuan Wu
Written in 1500 CE or later, and not religious texts: works that retell or borrow the figure, not accounts of it.
What this means
Sorted out of the accounts by each work’s own recorded date on the source clock, and by its record not marking it as a religious text: the split is worked out here, not stated by any source. A religious text of any date stays among the accounts. None of these supplies the earliest account.
Connections
How Xuan Wu connects
Grouped by the kind of relationship, because a successor is not a son and a shared symbol is not an influence.
Identification 2
What this means
One figure treated as another in some context. Not literal identity in all contexts, and usually a claim by a third party.
Does not imply literal identity in all contexts · that either tradition made the identification
Imported from Wikidata unless a tile says otherwise. Nothing here has been read by an editor.
Attribute 2
What this means
A domain, symbol or epithet as sources record it.
Does not imply an exclusive domain · the same association in every account
Imported from Wikidata unless a tile says otherwise. Nothing here has been read by an editor.
Sources
Sources and evidence
Where every statement on this page comes from, and how each one stands.
6 statements on this record
- 6 Imported Taken from Wikidata as it stands. Nobody here has read it.
Only this record’s own statements. What other records say about it is counted on theirs.
Three layers, three licences
- Text
- Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted, not merged
- Pictures
- Wikimedia Commons · each file’s own terms
Review
Not yet read by an editor here. Every relationship on this page is an import.
Disagreements are kept, not resolved, and a count of sources is not a confidence score.
Keep exploring
More from East Asian traditions
Daoism, Confucian practice, Chinese folk religion, Shinto and Korean tradition.