Peach Banquets
The Jade Emperor and his wife Xi Wangmu (Queen Mother of the West) ensured the deities' everlasting existence by feasting them with the peaches of immortality. The immortals residing in the palace of Xi Wangmu were said to celebrate an extravagant banquet called the "Feast of Peaches" (蟠桃會 Pántáo Huì, or 蟠桃勝會 Pántáo Shènghuì). The immortals waited six thousand years before gathering for this magnificent feast; the peach tree put forth leaves once every thousand years and it required another three thousand years for the fruit to ripen. Statues depicting Xi Wangmu's attendants often held three peaches. And the Eight Immortals crossing the seas to attend the banquet is a popular subject in paintings.
Both the Stories of the Emperor Wu and Research into Nature wrote about an imaginary meeting between the Emperor Wu of Han and the Queen Mother of the West offering the Peach to him.
Read more about this topic: Peaches Of Immortality
Famous quotes containing the words peach and/or banquets:
“Nature, doubtless, has some compelling cause
To glut the carriers of her epidemics—
Nor did the peach complain.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“There is ... no glamor at banquets—I mean the large formal banquets of big associations and societies. There is only a kind of dignified confusion that gradually unhinges the mind.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)