Door God Shentu

According to ancient texts such as the Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), a colossal peach tree grows on Mount Duoshuo in the East Sea, its branches spreading over three thousand li; at the northeast extremity of its boughs lies the Ghost Gate—the passage through which all ghosts enter and depart. The deities Shentu and Yulei were appointed to guard this site beneath the tree, overseeing the ten thousand ghosts: whenever they encountered harmful or malicious spirits, they bound them with reed ropes and cast them to tigers for consumption. Upon learning of this, the Yellow Emperor honoured the two gods with ritual reverence, instituting seasonal exorcistic rites (qu nuo) and ordering people to erect large peach-wood effigies and paint images of Shentu and Yulei on their gateways, suspending reed ropes beside them to repel malevolent spectres. This custom persisted from the pre-Qin era through the Han and Tang dynasties; thus Shentu became the archetypal Door God in China. His image appears repeatedly on stone gateways in Han-dynasty tombs and in New Year woodblock prints across subsequent dynasties, embodying the ancient people’s simple yet profound aspirations to expel evil, invite blessings, and protect home and hearth.