A hero of our times
By Yang Yang | China Daily | Updated: 2025-02-14 07:05 Visitors pose for photos with a statue of Nezha, the character of the animation blockbuster Ne Zha 2, in Chengdu, Sichuan province, on Saturday. Studies of Buddhist literature from the Tang Dynasty have found that Nezha was depicted as the third son of one of the four Heavenly Kings of Buddhism, the Guardian of the North, according to A Study on the Evolution of Nezha's Divine Image, a paper by professor Liu Wengang of Sichuan University, published in 2009 in the periodical Religious Studies. For Liu, the first remarkable evolution of Nezha's image occurred in the Southern Song Dynasty, during which Li Jing, a strategist in the Tang Dynasty, was worshipped as the heavenly king, Nezha's father. From a fierce Yaksha god to a Chinese deity, this change opened up space for development of Nezha's image with colorful interpretations of stories in the following centuries.
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