YU TI

Pinyin You Di (Chinese: Jade Emperor), also called Y Huang (Jade August One) the most revered and popular of Chinese Taoist deities. In the official Taoist pantheon, he is an impassive sage-deity, but he is popularly viewed as a celestial sovereign who guides human affairs and rules an enormous heavenly bureaucracy analogous to the Chinese Empire. The worship of Y Ti was officially sanctioned by the Taoist emperors of the Sung dynasty (AD 9601279), who renamed him Y Huang Shang Ti (Jade August Supreme Lord) and accorded him a status equivalent to that of the Confucian supreme power. Y Ti is usually depicted on a throne wearing the Imperial dragon-embroidered robes and beaded bonnet, holding a jade ceremonial tablet.