Geography/Culture: Chinese. Sacrifices to the Earth were first made by an Emperoro in 113 BCE.
Linguistic Note: Chinese t'u, earth. The character for the whole Earth, hou, in the expression Hou-T'u, was originally written with the character hou meaning thick.
Description: Goddess of the planet; Earth in Her totality; Tutelary Deity of the whole Earth (originally the whole Earth meant the whole kingdom of China); Mother of the Earth; Matron of soil and its fertility; She Who is our dwelling place and from Whose bounty comes our nourishment.
To Whom Sacred: ox (sacrifice); sheep (sacrifice); square marble altar (perhaps called The Altar of Heaven, in which case certain constellations would also be sacred to Her); the t'sung, a square container with a cylindrical interior usually made of jade (symbol of earth); five colored soils, or five mounds of soil.
Festival: sacrifice at the Year End Solstice (ie Winter in the Northern hemisphere) offered by the Ruler. (Only the Emperor {and Empresses?} could worship Sovereign-Earth).
Male Associate: She Herself is often considered male. One of Her names in this conception is Kung-Kung-Chih-Tzu (with a crescent moon on its back across top of last u), who seems to be a god of agriculture.

Titles/Variants, etc:
• A more definitly female form of Her name is Hou-T'u-Niang-Niang, Lady-Sovereign-Earth.
• Transcription variant, Hu-Tu.
• She is also worshipped as Jen-Shen, Spirit-of-Humanity, though the two are distinguised from each other in Her Cycle of Transformations.
• See also Prah-Thorni, ----, below.
• Also worshipped as Shê, Terrestial-Spirit, below.
• See also Ti-Ya, Earth-Dumb, below.
• She is also called T'u-Shên, Spirit-of-the-Earth.

Geography/Culture: Indo-Chinese. Especially Siam and Cambodia.
Description: Goddess of earth; She Who, by wringing Her long hair in front of Her breast, brings forth rivers and floods.
To Whom Sacred: the touching of the hand to Earth (for Earth to bear witness); {long hair}.
Male Associate: the Bodhisattva who was to become the future Buddha.

Titles/Variants, etc:
• Equivalent to Hindu Dharani, She-Who-Sustains, Who is linked with Prthivi, Extended-One, (ie dharani is given in parenthetical italics beside Prah Thorni in Couchoud AM).
• The description of Burmese Wathundaye, ----, Who is linked with Prthivi, Extended-One, is almost exactly the same as that of Prah-Thorni in Couchoud AM.

Geography/Culture: Chinese.
Linguistic Note: plural Shên.
Description: Divine Shehe Who was worshipped by the first Sages as a collective of the five Terrestrial Spirits (shên), of the Mountains and Forests, of Rivers and Lakes, of Tablelands and Hills, of Mounds and Dikes, and of Springs and Marshes; Shehe Who can be worshipped by the people with thanksgiving for past blessings and prayers for continuing blessings especially in the form of protection of the crops agains mildew, locusts and caterpillars; Tutelary Deity of the land, the soil and grain harvests; Shehe Who protects, cares for and controls the land under Eris jurisdiction.
In the course of time human beings after death came to considered Shên, local patron (because they were all men!) deities of the soil. They were worshipped in their own neighbourhoods by the local people, while the ruler worshipped Hou-T'u, the Whole Earth, and sacrificed for the nation.
To Whom Sacred: millet (the first crop sown and the first reaped. Perhaps the five colored soils (or five mounds of soil) which are sacred to Hou-T'u represent the five Terrestial Spirits.

Titles/Variants, etc:
• She is a form of Hou-T'u, Sovereign-Earth, above.

Geography/Culture: Chinese.
Description: She Who, with Her consort, is the origin of people and all creation.
Male Associates: Consort, Thien-Lung, (T'ien-Lung), Deaf-as-Heaven. Ti-Ya and Her consort are both associated with Wen-Chhang, the god of literature.

Titles/Variants, etc:
• Perhaps a form of Hou-T'u, Sovereign-Earth, above.
• Also called Ti-Mu, TE-MW, Earth-Mother.