Dongyue Dadi

Great Emperor of Mount Tai

Deity of sacred Mount Tai who rules life, death and the underworld in Chinese religion.

The Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak is the deified spirit of Mount Tai, chief of the Five Peaks and ruler of life and death. Han sources already spoke of Tai Shan as the judge of the dead, and his cult grew into a vast bureaucracy of underworld courts. Emperors climbed his mountain to seal the mandate of heaven; the people came to his temples to plead for life and for the dead.