What do I mean by primordial deities and later-arising deities?

I use these two terms to explain different origins of belief. Primordial deities concern powers and symbols already present in nature before humans appeared. Later-arising deities more often developed after humanity appeared, through life, cultivation and local beliefs.

For example, the sun already exists. It did not become the sun in the sky because someone practised spiritually. People experience its light and heat, see the earth illuminated and all things warmed, and express reverence for this power through the image of a sun deity. Lunar beliefs can also be understood through natural symbolism.

Another situation involves someone who helped a local community and was later commemorated and worshipped as its guardian deity. When discussing later-arising deities, I use beliefs of humans cultivating into deities to explain this. It distinguishes original contexts, rather than claiming every local deity has the same history.

Making this distinction is not a competition over supernatural power. I care more about whether our minds can become broader. Wishing safety for ourselves and family is fine. Seeing more people and being willing to care about others’ suffering is also a direction for learning. Understanding the spirit a deity represents still needs to return to how we are willing to cultivate ourselves.

Later, when introducing the Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady, I again said it is difficult to compare primordial and later-arising deities directly in terms of power. These names describe different origins of becoming a deity. Hearing ‘primordial’ does not let us rank every ability.

At the same time, learning about deities requires distinguishing the nature of their stories. Some accounts concern primordial deities, while others portray the same figure as a filial daughter in the human world. These stories have different backgrounds and cannot be joined without explanation into a supposedly confirmed biography.