Doumu
Dǒumǔ, also known as Dǒumǔ Yuánjūn, Dòulǎo Yuánjūn and Tàiyī Yuánjūn, is a goddess in Chinese religion and Taoism. She is also named through the honorific Tiānhòu, shared with other Chinese goddesses, especially Mazu, who are perhaps conceived as her aspects. Other names of her are Dàomǔ and Tiānmǔ.
She is the feminine aspect of the cosmic God of Heaven. The seven stars of the Big Dipper, in addition to two not visible to the naked eye, are conceived as her sons, the Jiǔhuángshén, themselves regarded as the ninefold manifestation of Jiǔhuángdàdì or Dòufù, another name of the God of Heaven. She is therefore both wife and mother of the God of Heaven. In certain Taoist accounts she is identified as the ambiguous goddess of life and death Xiwangmu.Taoist esotericism
In the esoteric teachings of Taoism she is identified as the same as Jiutian Xuannü and Xiwangmu, representing the mother of the immortal "red infant" Dao enshrined at the centre of the human body. This links her directly to the myths about the birth and initiation of Laozi and the Yellow Emperor, as attested, among others, by Ge Hong.In Vajrayana traditions of Chinese Buddhism, Doumu was conflated with Bodhisattva Marici at least by the Tang dynasty. Marici too is described as the mother of the Way and the Dipper, at the centre of Brahma's Heaven of primal energy. Marici's chariot is dragged by seven pigs.Citations
