Mythological Accounts of The Queen Mother in The T'ang Dynasty
During the T'ang dynasty (June 18, 618-June 4, 907) Poetry flourished throughout China (this period is commonly known as the "Golden age of Chinese poetry"). It was during this period that the Queen Mother became an extremely popular figure in poetry. Her mythology was recorded in the poems of the Quan Tang Shih, ("Complete Tang Poetry") a collection of surviving poems (of an estimated 50,000 written during the period) from the T'ang dynasty.
After the fall of the T'ang dynasty, (around 910 - 920) a Shang ch'ing Daoist master and court chronicler named Tu Kuang - t'ing wrote a hagiographical biography of the queen mother as part of his text "Yung ch'eng chi hsien lu" ("Records of the Assembled Transcendents of the Fortified Walled City"). This account represents the most complete source of information about T'ang society's perceptions of Xīwángmǔ.
Read more about this topic: Queen Mother Of The West
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