Chang'e first appeared in Guicang, a divination text written during the Zhou Dynasty (1046 BC – 256 BC). From the few preserved fragments of the text, it mentions "Yi shoots the ten Suns",[1] and "Chang'e ascending to the moon."[1] Chang'e—originally named Heng'e (姮娥)—was renamed to avoid the taboo on sharing names with a deceased emperor,[2] in this case, Liu Heng, an emperor from Han Dynasty. Many Chinese poems are written around the theme of Chang'e and the moon.
In pre-Qin Dynasty (before 221 BC), the text, Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海經), mentions "a woman is bathing the moon; she is Chang Xi, the wife of Emperor Jun. She has given birth to twelve moons, and only then does she begin to bathe the moon"[3] (有女子方浴月，帝俊妻常羲生月十二，此始浴之。). The name "Chang Xi" in this text refers to "Chang'e" since the pronunciation of "e (娥)" is identical to "xi (羲)" in ancient Chinese.[4]
Late Tang Dynasty (618–907), famous poet, Li Shangyin, wrote the poem "Chang'e" based on the story of Chang'e stealing the immortal elixir. Like this goddess, the poet discovers a connection in the solitude of moonlight, sensing their shared loneliness while gazing at the night sky. Among the hundreds of poems around Chang'e and the Moon, she gradually evolved into a symbol of nostalgia and solitude[5] for numerous poets beyond Li.
Now that a candle-shadow stands on the screen of carven marble
And the River of Heaven slants and the morning stars are low,
Are you sorry for having stolen the potion that has set you
Over purple seas and blue skies, to brood through the long nights?
During the Ming and Qing dynasties (Ming: 1368–1644, Qing: 1644–1911), with the flourishing of urban literature, the image of Chang'e gradually became more secularized. In the novel Journey to the West (西遊記, 1592), Chang'e is a title that refers to the celestial maidens in the Moon Palace, and it is the Weathervane Marshal who teases the Niche Dress Fairy, not Chang'e. In Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (聊齋志異, 1766), while Chang'e remains a celestial being from heaven, her character undergoes a transformation as she descends to the mortal realm, shedding her divinity.
The ornate style of clothing worn by these four women suggests they are Immortals. The osmanthus leaf held by the largest figure, at the right, identifies her as the Moon Goddess Chang’e, who inhabits her celestial palace along with a rabbit that prepares the elixir of long life.The jade rabbit lived on the Moon preparing the elixir of life.
There are many tales about Chang'e, including a well-known story about her that is given as the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival.[7]
In one version, in a very distant past, Chang'e was a beautiful woman. Ten suns had risen together into the skies and scorched the Earth, thus causing hardship for the people.[7]Hou Yi, a legendary archer and the husband of Chang'e, shot down nine of them, leaving just one Sun, and was rewarded with two portions of the elixir of immortality.[7] As he did not want to gain immortality without his beloved wife, Hou Yi waited to consume the elixir and left it with his wife, Chang'e.[8] While Hou Yi went hunting, his apprentice Fengmeng broke into his house and tried to force Chang'e to give him the elixir, so Chang'e took both portions herself rather than giving them up to Fengmeng. Then, Chang'e flew upward past the heavens, choosing the Moon to be her immortal residence as she loved her husband and wished to live near him.[7] When Hou Yi discovered what transpired, he felt responsible for Chang'e, so he displayed the fruits and cakes that his wife had enjoyed, then killed himself.[7]
In older versions of the story, Chang'e stole the elixir from Hou Yi, drank it, and flew to the Moon so that her husband could not go after her.[9]
In the most classic version of the story, Wu Gang does good deeds for the King, and receives an immortality pill from him, and is asked to keep it safe in his house. One day, when Wu Gang was not home, thieves broke in, and Chang'e, in a brief shock of pain, swallows it when she was not supposed to. Citizens cried as Chang'e flew up to the Moon, now living with a jade rabbit. Her husband returns, realizes what just happened and mourns her death. He continues to cut wood for Chang'e in the mortal realm. His name is changed to Hou Yi in some adaptations of the myth.
Chang'e also appears in Wu Cheng'en's late 16th-century novel, the Journey to the West; here, she is said to live in the Guǎng Hán Gōng (廣寒宮; 'Vast-Cold Palace'), located upon the Moon. During a heavenly festival of immortal peaches (after Sun Wukong's banishment), the heavenly official (a Canopy Marshal named Heavenly Tumbleweed) who would become Zhu Bajie, became heavily drunk, saw the goddess Chang'e, and attempted to force himself on her, only to be prevented and reported for this act. He was reincarnated as a boar/man beast-monster, who would later be recruited by the Bodhisattva, Guanyin, as a guardian for Tang Sanzang as he went on his pilgrimage to India for the Tripitaka, the three baskets of scriptures written by TathāgataBuddha. Later into the story, the goddess Chang'e's pet, the Jade Rabbit, became an antagonist and had to be retrieved by Chang'e and Taiyin Xingjun before Sun Wukong killed the rabbit.
Adaptations into film and novels
In 2020, a film called Over the Moon premiered on Netflix. A young girl named Fei Fei flies to the Moon using a rocket she built to find Chang'e. Her hope is to convince her father true love exists and persuade him not to remarry. Chang'e is mourning over the loss of Houyi, who died on earth before they could be reunited. She believes Fei Fei holds the key to reuniting her with Houyi (through a magical potion created by Jade Rabbit) before the last sliver of moonlight is gone.
Chang'e was mentioned in a conversation between HoustonCAPCOM and the Apollo 11 crew just before the first Moon landing in 1969:
Ronald Evans (CC): Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, is one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says the girl named Chang-O has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported. Michael Collins (CMP): Okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.[note 1]
In 2007, China launched its first lunar probe, a robotic spacecraft named Chang'e 1 in the Goddess' honor. A second robotic probe, named Chang'e 2, was launched in 2010.[10] A third Chang'e spacecraft, called Chang'e 3, landed on the Moon on 14 December 2013, making China the third country to achieve such a feat after the former Soviet Union and the United States. The lander also delivered the robotic rover Yutu ("Jade Rabbit") to the lunar surface. On 3 January 2019, Chang'e 4 touched down on the far side of the Moon and deployed the Yutu-2 rover. Likewise all Chinese landers since then are named as Chang'e.[11]
In popular culture
Statue of Chang'e; Temple of the Jade Emperor (Thni Kong Tnua) in Penang, Malaysia. On the evening of the Moon Festival, an altar is erected outside the temple before the goddess; it blesses the clothing or hair accessories placed there and gives beauty and love to their owners.
Colored Paintings of the Summer Palace Corridor: Guanghan Autumn Scenery, a copy of Qian Hui'an 's imitation of Qing Dynasty painter Hua Yan in the late Qing Dynasty
Illustration of Chang'e in "Three Religions in China: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism" (1887) of DuBose
Chang'e flies off into the Moon as her husband Houyi watches
Notes
^NASA transcripts had attributed the response to Aldrin (Apollo 11 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Page 179), but corrected NASA transcripts attribute it to Collins (Woods, W. David; MacTaggart, Kenneth D.; O'Brien, Frank. "Day 5: Preparations for Landing". The Apollo 11 Flight Journal. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved 26 June 2018.)
References
^ abLi Jiahao (April 2013). "Identifying the Wangjiatai Qin (221 B.C.E.–206 B.C.E.) Bamboo Slip "Yi Divinations" (Yi zhan) as the Guicang". Contemporary Chinese Thought. 44 (3): 42–59. doi:10.2753/csp1097-1467440304. ISSN1097-1467. S2CID144857053.
^Li Xiaotong (2023). "Comparison of Moon Imagery in Chinese and Western". In Bootheina Majoul; Digvijay Pandya; Lin Wang (eds.). Proceedings of the 2022 4th International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2022). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, vol. 726. Paris: Springer Atlantis. pp. 357–361. doi:10.2991/978-2-494069-97-8_45. ISBN978-2-494069-96-1.
^Bynner, Witter (1929). The Jade Mountain. Knopf. p. 75.
Allan, Tony, Charles Phillips, and John Chinnery, Land of the Dragon: Chinese Myth, Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2005 (through Barnes & Noble Books), ISBN0-7607-7486-2
Laing, Ellen Johnston, "From Thief to Deity: The Pictorial Record of the Chinese Moon Goddess, Chang E" in Kuhn, Dieter & Stahl, Helga, The Presence of Antiquity: Form and Function of References to Antiquity in the Cultural Centers of Europe and East Asia. Wuerzburg, 2001, pp. 437–54. ISBN3927943223
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