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Shanhaijing · Classic of the Central Mountains

Ditai

帝台

Deity
Ancient

The Divine Personage Who Feasted the Hundred Gods

Ditai has no described form; Guo Pu's note says only 'the name of a divine personage.' He survives in the seventh central sequence as three relics. On Mount Xiuyu, first peak of the Ku range, lie the 'gaming stones of Ditai': five-colored, patterned pebbles shaped like quail eggs. With these stones, the text says, he prayed to the hundred gods, and whoever wears one is proof against gu poison.

Mount Guzhong, 'Drum-and-Bell Mountain,' is 'where Ditai feasted the hundred gods with wine.' And on Mount Gaoqian rises a spring, piercingly cold and clear, called 'the draught of Ditai'; those who drink of it are freed from pain of the heart. Stones, banquet-ground and draught sketch a figure never once shown: a host among the hills around Mount Song who prayed to the gods and poured them wine, of rank enough to seat all hundred of them at his table.

Bound by Fate

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