The visible stars in Chinese (Taoist) mythology

Have you checked out Tyler J. Rowe's article yet?

Layla Nahar said:

the Year Star (Jupiter),
the Sparkling Deluder (Mars),
the Grand White Star (Venus),
the Chronographic Star (Mercury),
and the Quelling Star (Saturn)

Click to expand...

You do realize that none of these are actually 'stars'?

caw

Oh--- if you want to go back to primary sources, try the ancient text, the Shiji (aka the Records of the Grand Historian). Here are several ISBNs in various languages. The text is divided into five categories; in the Treatises category, there is one single chapter that deals with astronomy. The author himself was a court astrologer, so it will have a lot of color and texture that other works might lack. The hard part is finding that particular part in English--- with 130 chapters for scholars to choose from, most of the English-language work seems to concentrate on the historical and biographical chapters. But if you can read French or Chinese, your opportunities widen considerably.

It might help to know the basics. The night sky in Chinese astronomy is divided up into 28 sections called lunar mansions. These sections are based on the position of the moon over the course of 28 days. In astrology it means different things when the moon enters a certain mansion. The mansions are also grouped into 4 "palaces", each of which contains 7 mansions (and the stars within those mansions). This website gives a nice rundown of the four palaces, as well as mansions and stars within them, and what they mean.

Chinese astrologers usually read entire constellations rather than individual stars because specific constellations were thought to have influence over specific things. One constellation might influence the emperor's health, another might reveal the mood of the people. What astrologers were actually reading was things like how bright certain stars shined, or how fast they flickered, or how their colors changed. Atmospheric conditions effect all of these factors, so the "mood" of the stars was always changing. The planets were considered wandering stars. The ancient Chinese knew of five planets--Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. They also deified eclipses (Rahu), and comets (ketu), and these were often shown in images of the planet deities, along with the sun and moon, usually represented as an emperor and empress. The constellations were also given human form and depicted in the form of deities.

The painting at the bottom of this page depicts the Buddhist representation of the (five) planets. Not sure how much it deviates from the Daoist representation, or if they both eventually merged (the line between Buddhist and Daoist concepts is very muddy in Chinese mythology) but it's worth a look.

A bit late to the party. But have you encountered this link yet? http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/chinese.htm Might be of use to you.

I don't know if this PDF will offer more information, as it's more constellations than "personalities": https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S174392131100319X

This link is about the mythology of the stars. Again, I'm not sure it will offer more information or help, but perhaps it's worth looking at: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/mlc/mlc07.htm