Mythology & Religion Power Ranking TOP100
I wrote a book ranking the most powerful gods, monsters, and heroes from world mythologies, religions, and legends in order of strength! Of course, the rankings reflect a fair amount of my personal opinion, but the reasoning behind each placement is grounded in the actual lore and episodes from each mythology, so I think it makes for a fairly convincing read.
In this series, I’d like to introduce some of the characters featured in the book’s ranking. There are plenty of other characters beyond the ones covered here, so I think anyone interested in mythology, religion, or legends will find it an enjoyable read!
Rank 7: Yuanshi Tianzun (Chinese Mythology / Taoism)
Overview
Yuanshi Tianzun is one of the supreme deities in Taoism, known together with Taishang Laojun and Lingbao Tianzun as the “Three Pure Ones (Sanqing).” Yuanshi Tianzun is described as the deified form of “Taiyuan” — the “primordial existence that preceded the birth of the universe.”
In other words, Yuanshi Tianzun is the “ultimate being” that existed before everything in this world — before matter, non-matter, and even the very concepts of time and space.
Before Taoism fully developed, Chinese mythology held that the world was created by Pangu, but in modern understanding, Pangu is often considered to be a kind of avatar or manifestation of Yuanshi Tianzun.
There is also a theory that the other two Pure Ones are likewise avatars of Yuanshi Tianzun, making him the root and source of all existence. However, Taoism also holds an arguably even more important concept than Taiyuan: the “Tao (Dao).”
The Tao is said to be the fundamental principle underlying all existence and phenomena — the essence of how the universe exists and evolves.
By mastering the Tao, one can become immortal (like the gods and immortals of Chinese mythology) and gain the ability to wield supernatural powers, including manipulation of all natural phenomena and even conceptual laws like time and space.
One way to distinguish the two is this: Taiyuan represents “the primordial energy of the cosmos itself,” while the Tao represents “the fundamental principle of the cosmos (the laws of the universe) itself.”
The governance of the Tao belongs to the other two Pure Ones, which means Yuanshi Tianzun is not considered to hold authority over the Tao directly.
Ranking Reason
Yuanshi Tianzun is the very “force at the root of the universe” given divine form — already beyond the concept of a “supreme deity” in the ordinary sense.
While he is close to being a pure concept, he possesses power that transcends all things as the origin of the cosmos, and no god could even begin to match him in battle.
Naturally, the concept of death does not apply to him, and if he were to “die,” the collapse of the universe would be an inevitable consequence — since he is the very source of it. This means he cannot truly be defeated.
Even a being with the power to destroy the universe could not eliminate Yuanshi Tianzun, who existed before the universe was born.
However, Yuanshi Tianzun does have a clear limitation: if the other two Pure Ones are treated as separate beings rather than his avatars, then he does not possess the authority to freely manipulate the “Tao (the laws of the universe).”
The maintenance of the Tao falls under the domain of Lingbao Tianzun, and the one who has truly mastered the Tao is Taishang Laojun, the ancient sage.
This means Yuanshi Tianzun would be at a fundamental disadvantage against an opponent capable of freely altering the laws of the universe — though since he predates the universe itself, he cannot be defeated by someone who merely controls those laws either.
This aspect makes him difficult to evaluate properly, but I settled on this position for the ranking.
