Jade Emperor

Also: Yùhuáng Dàdì

Chinese tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains: ruler of heaven
Symbols and attributes: Imperial robes
Queen Mother of the West: relation to the Jade Emperor varies: Queen Mother of the West
Kitchen God: reports to: Kitchen God

The Jade Emperor, a Ming dynasty painting.

Key myth

Ruler of the bureaucratic heaven, with ministers, officials and a court, in popular religion. Given special rank by the Song emperor Zhenzong in the 11th century. In Journey to the West, Sun Wukong storms his court.

Where sources differ or caution applies. A late development; absent from early myth.

Primary sources

Journey to the West
Song dynasty edicts

All sources for the Chinese pantheon

Place in the family graph

Choose a deity to see where it comes from. Dashed lines are links the sources describe that are not parent and child.

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Jade Emperor: sky, storm and thunder, wisdom, writing and divination. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse