Chang\' E

Chang' E , Ch' ang-O or Chang-Ngo 嫦娥 (Pinyin: Cháng' E), old name Heng-E or Heng-O 姮娥 (pinyin: Héng' E), is a character of the Chinese Mythologie, woman of the archer Houyi. Separated from her husband and the remainder from human, it resides eternally on the the Moon, in a palate of Jade named Vaste coldness, with for only companions Wugang, an immortal apprentice exiled, occupied to cut down a Cannelier which pushes back unceasingly, and a Lièvre apothecary says “jade hare”, assisted according to some of a Crapaud. A woman accompanied by a clamping plate and a white hare on a painting on silk of Mawangdui (IIe front century J.C.) could represent it.

The Taoïsme regards it as the goddess of the Moon (supreme Yin). She is evoked every year the 15 of the eighth month at the time of the Fête of the semi-autumn.

In the poetry of the Dynasty Tang, it represents a forsaken beautiful woman; Li Shangyin mentions it in two works: the Moon of white frost and Evening of the Moon

The lunar crater Chang-Ngo is dedicated to him.

The Programme Chang' E is the name of a series of Chinese space missions having for goal the study of the Moon.

Caption of Chang' E

Tell Chinese very popular, Chang' E flies away in the Moon tells how heroin, having swallowed wrongly an elixir of immortality, escapes in the Moon from where it does not go down again any more. Its first versions, dating from the end of the Kingdoms combatants with the Han, are extremely short (twenty to thirty characters). Although more developed, the legend of his/her husband Houyi (in whom it always does not appear) is made fragments brief and not always coherent. The details of the tale are thus left with the imagination of the narrator and there are various versions.

Some sources

Guizang : formerly Chang' E swallowed the elixir of immortality of Xiwangmu, it flew away in the moon of which it became the genius.
Huainanzi : Houyi asks for grasses of immortality Xiwangmu. Chang' E conceals them to fly away in the Moon. Since, the hope of living eternally became unrealizable, because no one does not know any more where these grasses push.
With the research of the gods of the Dynasty Jin: Houyi asks for grasses of immortality Xiwangmu. Chang' E steals them, then before leaving for the Moon, a soothsayer named consults Youhuang, which predicts an exit favorable to its plan. Arrived on the Moon, it is transformed into clamping plate.

A current version

At the time of the Empereur Yao lived a hunter, archer of elite named Houyi. One day, an extraordinary fact occurred: the ten suns usually following one another the length of ten days appeared together, draining the rivers and burning the ground. Yao then required of Houyi to cut down nine of its arrows of them, which it did. It obtained thanks to this exploit a great reputation. It conceived the desire to become immortal and left it during a forwarding of hunting towards the west to research of the goddess Xiwangmu, mistress of the Garden of long life. She entrusted an elixir to him to divide with his Chang wife' E when they would be old. Houyi, of return to him, transmitted the instructions of Xiwangmu to his wife and locked up the elixir in an unit. But one day that it was with hunting, the desire to know immortality had the top and it opened the box to drink its half of elixir. Houyi returned just and surprised his wife who, décontenancée, swallowed without reflecting the entirety of the bottle. The immortal ones have the gift to be transported in the airs, but Chang' E, having absorbed the double of the amount necessary, had lost the control of its body. It rose until on the Moon where it remains since.

Some alternatives

the shape of the product of immortality can be an elixir, a pill or grasses.
In certain versions of popular China, it is not the Xiwangmu goddess but a hermit who offers to Houyi grasses immortality.
Chang' E is sometimes girl of Ku and sister of the Yao emperor, or immortal of the palate of the Empereur of jade private of its statute for fault and banished on ground.
a passage of the Chants of Chu associates Houyi with certain Mifei “dévergondée”, woman of Hebo with which it bores the left eye of an arrow. Certain versions thus suppose a extra-marital adventure to him for which Chang' E is avenged by swallowing totality for the elixir.
Certaines sources makes of Houyi a disputed sovereign or a tyrannical character. The narrators who take them into account report that after its victory over the suns, Houyi was selected as emperor but became a tyrant. His wife then swallowed the entirety of the elixir to prevent it from harming eternally.

Other occupants of the Moon

Wu Gang

Wu Gang is an ambitious young man endowed with a great physical force but deprived of perseverance, thus never manages it to acquire a true professional field. It is at the head put one day to become immortal and takes for that a Master, but does not follow any teaching to bottom. One day, it requires to visit the Moon accompanied by its Master because it did not learn how yet to fly correctly. Exceeded, the old immortal one decides to punish it. When Wu Gang wants to return on Earth, he refuses to help it and insists that he manages by his own means. “If you cannot fly, you will not be able to return”, says him it “that when you cut down this tree”. It tightens an axe to him by showing him immense a Cannelier. The left Master, Wugang puts himself at work, but after each blow of axe the bark is closed again, with the result that it is always with his task.

The exact date of appearance of this legend is unknown. Wugang is mentioned for the first time in the Xiyangzazu of the Tang dynasty; one presents it to it like an immortal apprentice exiled on the Moon in punishment of a not specified fault. The belief in the existence of a cinnamon-tree on the Moon dates at least from Han, since the Huainanzi mentions it. It could be a question of the interpretation of the shades of surface. Indeed, on certain Han frescos representing the lunar disc one can see like a network of branches. In the literature, the Moon is sometimes called “palate of the cinnamon-tree” or “moon-cinnamon-tree”.

The jade hare

Another current interpretation of the shades of the Moon is there to see the silhouette of a rabbit or a hare. The lunar hare or jade hare is mentioned in the Yuefu poems of the Han dynasty. Later on, he will see himself entrusting the task to manufacture the drug of immortality using a rammer and a jade mortar. A late legend claims that it obtained this promotion while proposing to sacrifice itself to nourish an old man who was not other than immortal a incognito. “Lunar Hare” and “jade hare” are synonyms of the Moon in the literature.

The clamping plate

The product of immortality manufactured by hare is sometimes called “pill of clamping plate”. The association of the clamping plate to the body rounded with the Moon is already mentioned in the Questions with the sky of qu Yuan (IIIe-IVe front century J.C.). “The clamping plate swallows the Moon” indicates a lunar eclipse. Zhang Heng of Han is the first to bring back the belief that Chang' E was transformed into clamping plate. The “palate of the clamping plate” is also a literary synonym of the Moon .

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