Kings of Oxen and Horses: Draft Animals, Buddhism, and Chinese Rural Religion

For centuries in China, people beseeched deities to protect the draft animals on which they relied. Across social classes—from peasants plowing the fields to merchants transporting goods through soldiers riding into battle—animals were essential to daily life and so took on a central place in the religious imagination. Prayers and rituals for animal well-being were most frequently addressed to the Horse King, divine protector of horses, donkeys, and mules, or the Ox King, who watched over o...