Shenshu and Yulü
deities in Chinese mythology
Shenshu or Shentu (Chinese: 神荼) and Yulü or Yulei (simplified Chinese: 郁垒; traditional Chinese: 鬱壘) are a pair of deities in Chinese mythology who punished evil spirits by binding them in reed ropes and feeding them to tigers. Their images together with reed rope seasonally adorned the doors or gates to ward off evil, and are considered the earliest examples of Menshen (門神, 'gate deities' or 'door gods') venerated under such practice. Later traditions identified other gods or deified people as gate deities.
The description dates to writings from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, during the Eastern Han dynasty, and the attribution to the Classic of Mountains and Seas dating much earlier appears to be spurious.
Early sources
The earliest record of Shenshu and Yulü occurs in a passage quoted from Shanhaijing (山海經; Classic of Mountains and Seas) in Wang Chong (d., c. 97 AD)'s Lunheng (論衡, "Discourses in the Balance", although the passage is not found in surviving recensions of the Shanhajing, and the attribution to the earlier work is disputed.
The passage records the myth that two gods Shenshu and Yulü stand upon a giant peach tree that "twists and coils as far as 3000 li". At the tree's north-east was the ghost gate (guimen; 鬼門; also 'gate of the spirits of the dead [demons]'). At the ghost gate, the two gods inspected the transit of countless dead spirits, and the evil-deeded ones they bound with reed rope and fed to tigers. This gave rise to the custom, allegedly set forth by the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), that at the change of seasons, giant peachwood dolls shall be erected, the two gate gods and the tiger be painted on doors, and a reed rope be left to hang, in order to ward against evil.
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