the most revered and popular of Chinese Taoist deities. In the official Taoist pantheon, he is an impassive sage-deity, but he is popularly viewed as a celestial sovereign who guides human affairs and rules an enormous heavenly bureaucracy analogous to the Chinese Empire.

The worship of Yü Ti was officially sanctioned by the Taoist emperors of the Sung dynasty (AD 960–1279), who renamed him Yü Huang Shang Ti (Jade August Supreme Lord) and accorded him a status equivalent to that of the Confucian supreme power. Yü Ti is usually depicted on a throne wearing the Imperial dragon-embroidered robes and beaded bonnet, holding a jade ceremonial tablet.