“The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl” is one of the four great love legends in China. This was listed by the Chinese government as one of the intangible cultural heritages in 2008 (ihchina). The legend expresses the conscious and unconscious themes of separated lovers.
The Mythical Legend
There are mainly two versions of the mythical legend as described below. They express the ancient Chinese beliefs that souls can appear as stars and do cosmic tasks similar to earthly ones and can be reborn on earth as gods/goddesses or people, according to their karma.
Version One: The Emperor of Heaven as the Authority
According to the story in Xiao Shuo edited into the encyclopedia-style book Records in Tianzhong by Yaowen Chen in the Ming dynasty (1368–1664 CE) (Yaowen). There was a weaver girl (Zhi Nü) in the East of the vast starry River of Heaven (the “Silver River” in Chinese, the “Milky Way” in English), who was the precious daughter of the Emperor of Heaven.
For 10,000 years the Weaver Girl (Zhi...
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Bibliography
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Wang (王敏琴), M., Bailey, L. (2018). Chinese Cowherd and the Weaver Girl. In: Leeming, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200177-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200177-2
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Chinese Cowherd and the Weaver Girl- Published:
- 21 June 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200177-2
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Chinese Cowherd and the Weaver Girl- Published:
- 18 April 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27771-9_200177-1