ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors turn to a mythology whose roots stretch back well before the imperial period but which seems to make its first forceful impact on Han iconography from perhaps 100 AD. The greater part of the evidence dates from the eastern Han period and later, but there are a number of references to the Queen Mother in earlier texts, when the elements of the myth were probably in a less mature stage of evolution. The myth and cult of the Queen Mother of the West embraced a number of elements and concepts which, being originally of independent origin, were drawn together by perhaps AD 100. The expression Hsi wang mu has been identified with the terms Hsi mu, of the oracle bone inscriptions, and Hsi lao, which appears once in the Huai-nan-tzu.
