Cult of Gods

Kitchen God

Also: Zàojūn

Chinese tradition. See the whole pantheon.

Domains
the hearth, reports to heaven
Symbols and attributes
Stove picture
reports to
Jade Emperor
The Jade Emperor, a Ming dynasty painting.
The Jade Emperor, a Ming dynasty painting.

Key myth

Each year before New Year, families send him to heaven to report on the household; sweet foods are offered so he'll speak well of them.

Primary sources

  • Folk custom, recorded since the Han

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.

PángǔFúxīNǚwāYellow EmperorShénnóngHòu YìCháng'éQueen Mother of the WestJade EmperorKitchen GodGuan YuMazuDragon KingsYanluo

More traditions

Odin rides to Hel, W. G. Collingwood, after the Poetic Edda.NorsePapyrus of Ani, British Museum (New Kingdom), a Book of the Dead.EgyptianA chaos monster and a sun god, drawn by L. Gruner for A. H. Layard's Monuments of Nineveh.MesopotamianVishvarupa Vishnu, Kashmir or Himachal, in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection.Hindu

Elsewhere in the world

Deities in other traditions who share a theme with Kitchen God: earth, harvest and fertility. This is overlap in one area only.

Norse

Sif

golden hair, grain (by later reading)

Norse

Freyr

peace, fertility, sunshine

Egyptian

Geb

earth

Egyptian

Osiris

afterlife, resurrection, fertility of the flood

Egyptian

Sobek

Nile, fertility, kingship

Mesopotamian

Ninlil

grain, wind (as Enlil's wife)

Compare across cultures