| 'Tianmen' is the great gate of the paradise. It's the gate of the gods' residence and also the symbolical gate of the ideal world. Tianmen myth is a narration of which core is the Tianmen and about the gods, the heaven and the communication of the gods and people. Tianmen myth is a multiplex myth which is composed of literature, architecture, painting, sculpture and so on. It is developing continuously and owned by several estate.Tianmen myth was formed by searching after the meaning of life. People wished to build a perfect paradise to solve the spirit plight that contains fearing, vacancy, inanity and so on; therefore the Tianmen myth has an ultimate concern function. The fearing about the death is the ultimate plight of human being. Tianmen myth created the circumstances which could help people transcend the limit life and it also give the emperor and common the way to the eternal world. The emperor regarded the gate of the palace as Tianmen for the sake of long live in the fairyland. Civilian Taoism advocated Tianmen excursion by Lung or clouds and planting life tree beside the Tianmen for eternal life. Literati, the special social group, were in a pitiable plight about life meaning. Tianmen myth helped them to get a free life by Tianmen excursion. The death is inevitable, so people bother about the unknown world after death and the placement of the soul. Tianmen myth which reflected by the funeral painting created a happy paradise governed by Xiwangmu. People took seek comfort in this paradise.Tianmen myth accepted much new concepts and theories. Meanwhile, this myth resource expanded from governing class to literati then to the folk. This process embodied the competition in the rights of belief between the emperor, literati and folk. It could also embody the historic process that the thearchy of emperor was on the wane and the folk religion gained in strength in the Pre-Qin, Qin and Han Dynasties.
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