The popular divinity, Yu-hwang shang-ti, is an ancient magician, exalted to this dignity probably by the Tauist writers of the T'ang dynasty. In the Pen-hing-king of the Tauist collection it is said, that a magician of the Chang family was the son of a king in a former kalpa, who, instead of succeeding his father, became a hermit, and after eight hundred kalpas, and much patient endurance of injuries, attained to the rank of the "Golden immortals" (Kin-sien), and at the same time a Buddha with a special title, Tsing-tsing-tsi-jan-chio-ju-lai, "The pure, calm, and spontaneously perceiving Ju-lai." After a million more kalpas he became Yu-ti, or Yu-hwang ta-ti, "Emperor of all the immortals." In the same way, Tsi-wei ta-ti, "God of the stars round the north pole," is the emperor who rules over the presiding gods of all the stars, according to the one account. The magician Chang and the magician Liu mounted dragons and rode up through the sky towards heaven, and Chang gained in the race.

In the Tsin dynasty, A.D. 300, Cheu Hing is reported to have died and risen again. He is said to have related what he saw when dead. He saw T'ien-ti, the "Heavenly emperor," enter the chief hall of his palace. Clouds, purple in colour, dense and dark, obstructed the view above him. His face was a square foot in size. Cheu Hing was told by those on his right and left, "This is the heavenly emperor Chang." His palace is the Yu-ts'ing kung, which is represented in temples by a building beneath the abode of the Three Pure Ones. It is the heaven to which the soul flies when Tauist prayers are supposed to help the dead to reach the Tauist heaven. The expressions

are--Hwun fei ch'ung-siau, "The soul flies to the high firmament;" Ling-t'eng t'ien-kung, "The soul ascends to the heavenly palace." These passages are the earliest I have yet found giving the family name Chang to Yu-ti. This magician or god Chang is to be distinguished from Chang Tau-ling as already described, ancestor of the present Chang T'ien-shi, and from the medical divinity Chang Sien, who was, in fact, a distinguished physician of the Sung dynasty. The personage called Chang Sien, in common Chinese paintings, with bow and arrow shooting at the moon, is this physician who lived about seven hundred years ago.