Popular religion and belief in deities is often treated in the scholarly literature as a venue for interaction between the imperial court and the masses. In different historical periods, a single god may be represented differently by different social formations and by people of different status. Indeed, the image of the deity may be reshaped to suit the circumstances and needs of different historical and social contexts, and as an expression of the political and cultural interaction and power relations between different actors. This article consists of an analysis of stone inscriptions of the Three Kings of northwestern Guangxi in different historical periods. Study of the changing representations of the deities in different historical periods shows how under different historical circumstances, state officials and the local populace used different written and iconographic representations of the deity to communicate their conceptions of the state and notions of ethnic identity.
