by Pu Songling
Like Aesop and other fabulists of literary history, Pu Songling also employs creatures from the natural world—though they often appear anthropomorphic, since the animal spirits possess shapeshifting ability— to communicate his homilies and behavioral models. Snakes’ common association with metamorphosis and duplicity in Chinese folklore is due to “their mutant nature; they slough their skin, live in water or tunnel beneath the ground, and move constantly between land and water” (Sterckx 177). It’s no surprise, then, that a snake spirit posing as An Youyu’s beloved in “Huaguzi” (huaguzi) almost succeeds in killing him; yet An’s earlier act of kindness is repaid by a river deer spirit he’d rescued from hunters. The spirit sacrifices its own immortality to resuscitate An, prompting Pu to declare in his commentary on the story, “When it comes to repaying a debt of gratitude sincerely, even going so far as to sacrifice one’s own life, people should feel ashamed by the selfless examples of the wild creatures.” The alligator’s “emerging in the spring like a rain-bringing dragon from its muddy lair in the Yangtze and lake region was familiar to the Chinese of antiquity” (Schafer 217), and hence it was important as the harbinger of a particular phase in the cycle of nature. Chen Bijiao, in “The Princess of West Lake” (xi hu zhu), is “moved to take pity” on an alligator that has been shot with an arrow and captured, so he applies some medicine to the wound and then releases the creature. In the course of the story, he receives rich compensation for the good karma generated by this act of mercy, and Pu points out in his closing commentary that it is Chen’s empathy with a suffering fellow being that has been repaid. But not all such thoughtfulness is immediately rewarded, suggesting Pu believes that one should act righteously simply because it is the right thing to do; Dou Xu compassionately takes the title character in “Princesss Lotus” (lianhua gongzhu) under his protection in a dream, and upon waking he constructs a new nest for a large colony of bees, thereby helping to deliver them from an enemy that had threatened their survival.
While noting that popular Buddhism in medieval China specifically ministered “to the welfare and mundane concerns of commoners,” hence including belief in the “Pure Land in the West” (one of the four major sects in Chinese Buddhism, the Pure Land Sect taught that everyone, not solely the educated elite, can obtain enlightenment via faith), and “the worship of Buddhist saints, such as Guanyin and Amitayus,” Zhenjun Zhang also describes essential elements of popular Buddhism that are pervasive throughout Pu’s stories: “the belief in karmic retribution,” and “the belief in Buddhist hells” (12). In his stories that address post-mortem judgment in the underworld, Pu Songling often focuses not on the central deliberative figure in the underworld, the Hell King,2 but instead on the concerns and responses of the functionaries—ghostly clerks and messengers, demonic officers—working within the underworld bureaucracy to carry out the commands of the Hell King, summoning individuals to be judged.
Thus the protagonist in “The Cloth Merchant” (jiu chong) strikes up a friendship with a clerk, unaware that the clerk has come to bring him before the Hell King. When the merchant learns the truth and begs for his friend to spare him, the clerk explains that he can simply collect the other individuals on his list first, giving the merchant time to dispose of his worldly resources so he can have a bridge constructed in the mortal world, since “every passerby will benefit” from it—and that act of generosity itself saves the merchant, since his name is consequently crossed off the Hell King’s register. However, these tactics tend not to work for individuals who are neither sincere about them nor deserving of clemency. Such is the case for Miao Yongding in “The Drunkard” (jiukuang), who faces the consequences both of trying to evade deserved punishment for his abusive alcoholic behavior by offering bribes, and of failing to deliver on the compensation he promised the Hell King’s messenger in order to be released from the underworld. The heartlessly cruel magistrate, Song Guoying (“The Lucheng Magistrate” [lu ling]), so viciously and dispassionately orders the flogging deaths of people unable to pay their taxes that his actions provoke the direct intervention from “an agent of the underworld,” who remains invisible and silent to everyone but Song, till the magistrate subsequently dies of mysterious causes. Pu’s Hell King narratives always reinforce the karmic lesson that one must reform one’s behavior or suffer the consequences for it.
There is certainly nothing sectarian about Pu Songling’s depiction of the deities of Buddhism and Daoism, which is in keeping with his eclectic enthusiasm for all things beyond the mundane. Just as he openmindedly depicts practices associated with folk beliefs that aren’t part of a preexisting religious system (like in “The Witch’s Trance Dance” [tiaoshen] or “The Iron Skin Method” [tiebushan fa]), or presents figures from traditional Chinese mythology (like “The Thunder God” [lei gong], a punitive entity tasked with destroying wicked individuals) with no less respect than that accorded more conventional deities, reverence for all things strange, the central aesthetic of Pu’s story collection, also characterizes his portrayals of figures from the Daoist goddess, the Queen Mother of the West, to Kuixing, the god of literature.3 The most popular Buddhist deity of the Pure Land Sect, the bodhisattva Guanyin, is referenced in her capacity as goddess of mercy in “The Respectful God” (shang xian), when relatives of Pu’s friend, Gao Jiwen, visit a fox fairy so they can solicit another deity to procure some medicine for them, and that deity in turn offers to “go to the abode of Guanyin” and request some of her medicine, “since hers will cure any illness.” The Gaos’ respect for all three deities is what assures their success. Similarly, scholar Hu Dacheng’s mother, a devout Buddhist, always urges him to do obeisance whenever he passes a Guanyin temple on the way to school. Thus when he’s separated from his wife, the title character of “Lingjiao” (lingjiao), due to wartime chaos, and is eventually reunited with her thanks to the intervention of an older woman, they come to realize that she “had actually been the goddess Guanyin in human form. From this point forward, their devotion to Guanyin, including the chanting of scriptures, became even more pious.”
A parallel respect for the Three Kingdoms era historical hero, Guan Yu (d. 219 C.E.), deified as Guangong or Guandi, the god of war, means in “The Witch’s Trance-Dance” that his very name can be used to authorize the exercise of power by women performing ritual dances. Daoists in particular revere Guangong for his bold and principled spirit, and I found it interesting to discover when I visited his gravesite in Haizhou that a Daoist statue of him as a mountain spirit had been placed in a cavern as part of the resort being constructed at the top of the mountain. That’s because Guangong is also associated with Cai Shen, the god of wealth; the mountain, consequently, is a particularly auspicious site for a resort. Government Minister Dong Kewei (“Minister Dong” [dong gongzi]) is very nearly decapitated—but intervention by Guangong means that not only does he remain attached to his head, but his intended murderers are themselves dispatched by the deity, leading Pu to comment that there have been “many signs of Guangong’s divine intervention, but none so strange as this.” In Strange Tales from Liaozhai, prudence seems to dictate the wisdom of remaining respectful towards all entities outside the mortal realm; but for Pu Songling this is less a matter of calculated canniness than passionate exuberance and empathy. After all, as he informs us in his preface to the collection, “The only ones who truly know me are those spirits of the green woods and of the dark spaces we cannot pass!”
Notes
1 For the sake of comparison, consider the Katsina, or cachina, entities that to the Hopi indigenous American people represent “the hundreds of spirit beings who are associated with rain, clouds, and the dead—ancestors of Hopis” (Pearlstone 43). The Hopi see unity in this plurality; hence the dancers who portray these beings in ritual dances are also considered Katsina, while Katsina masks “are never referred to as such by Hopis, rather they are known as ‘friends’” (Pearlstone 45). Rather than reading the proliferation of spirit entities as reminders of the limitat
ions of human power, the Hopi construe them as allies, reinforcing their connection to the land, making their relationship to them reminiscent of the veneration accorded Chinese gods of place.
2 For a discussion of the function of the Hell King in Strange Tales from Liaozhai, particularly in the sense that Yama is used to represent all of the individual judge-kings in the underworld, see the volume two essay, “Justice After Death: Pu Songling and the Tradition of the Hell King” (xxi-xxix). In this present volume, the Hell King makes a number of personal appearances: in “The Hell King” (yanwang), where he punishes a jealous wife who tortured her husband’s concubine by stabbing needles into her intestines when she gave birth, by having the wife nailed to a door; in “General She” (she jiangjun), the formerly loyal officer who launched a secret attack against the emperor is visited in a dream by the Hell King, who angrily orders demons “to pour boiling water on She’s feet,” so he wakes up in agony, succumbs to malaria, and dies confessing his treachery; and in “The Bureau of Examination Frauds” (kao bi si), where the Empty Belly King of the Ghosts, an abusive department chief in the underworld’s bureau devoted specifically to detecting and punishing cheating by scholars (a subject that was particularly painful for Pu Songling, who was unjustly accused of plagiarism at one point, and who repeatedly witnessed less deserving scholars receive the government appointments he was denied), is exposed by an honest scholar, and horrifically punished by the Hell King.
3 This respect, however, can also be manipulated for satirical effect, as in “Hungry Ghost” (e gui), where Zhu Ma’er, a corrupt, elderly official who has always punished with disproportionate severity, and hence “didn’t have a single sincere friend,” is mocked by “a certain madcap scholar” who leaves “a shrine effigy, moulded in the likeness of Ma’er” for the official to discover. This mockery, with its inference that Zhu Ma’er flatters himself by imagining that he wields godlike power, drives him to such extreme anger that his health’s deterioration is accelerated.
The Tales
167. The Drunkard
Miao Yongding was a bagong scholar from Jiangxi province. He was accustomed to drinking wine to excess, so his relatives generally avoided him. Occasionally, he went to visit his uncle’s family.
Miao had a comic personality and was good at telling jokes, so when guests in his uncle’s home began chatting with him, they were quite amused, and they all ended up carousing together. But Miao became drunk and started behaving irrationally, cursing the guests quite uncongenially. Then the guests became angry and started making an uproar. Miao’s uncle had to speak with each of the people, to try to placate them. Miao complained that his uncle was just taking the guests’ side against him, angrily blaming his uncle for the troublemaking.
There was nothing his uncle could do, so he quickly sent word to Miao’s family about it. When some of his family members arrived, they helped up the drunken Miao and took him home. As they laid him on his bed, his limbs felt cold and numb; just as they were touching him, he suddenly stopped breathing.
When Miao died, a man in a black cap appeared, bound him up and dragged him away. In a short while, they arrived at a public office, decorated with white and blue-green tiles, and it seemed to Miao that no place else in the world could be compared to it. They came to the bottom of some steps, like they were waiting to see some government minister. Miao thought to himself: The guests must have filed a suit against me for brawling with them.
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Bagong scholar: Such a scholar received designation as a “Graduate for Preeminence” (Hucker 359) and was admitted to the Directorate of Education on the basis of recruitment examinations held every 3-5 years in addition to those students who were nominated by local officials, local schools, etc. (251).
When he looked back at the black-capped man, he saw that the man’s furious eyes looked like those of an ox, so he didn’t dare ask him any questions. However, he began to reckon to himself: Since it was a bagong scholar quarreling with someone, perhaps my crime won’t be considered very serious.
Suddenly in the hall a clerk delivered the announcement that the cases of those being sued would be heard in the office the following morning. Consequently, many people in the hall began leaving, like a stampede of birds and beasts. Miao followed after the man with the black cap as he left the hall, since he couldn’t go home to spend the night, sheepishly ducking his head as he stood underneath the eaves of the hall.
The black-capped man said to him angrily, “Wine drove you crazy, you good-for-nothing! The sun’s about to set, everyone’s leaving to find a place to sleep and something to eat, but where will you go?”
Miao trembled and replied, “I still don’t know what’s happening, I can’t tell my family members where I am, and I have no traveling expenses, so how could I possibly return home to my village?”
“You drunken fool!” declared the man in the black cap. “If it was for wine, you’d have the money to spend! If you talk back to me again, I’ll pound you, you drunkard!” Miao just hung his head and didn’t dare make a sound.
At that moment a man walked out through the doorway from which they’d just exited, and when he saw Miao, he seemed shocked and demanded, “What are you doing here?” Miao looked carefully at the man and realized it was his mother’s brother. The uncle’s name was Jia, and he had died several years earlier.
When Miao saw him, he suddenly began to understand with even greater fear and sorrow that he, too, had died, so he turned to his uncle and tearfully cried, “Uncle, save me!”
Jia looked at the black-capped man and said, “Your Honor, the messenger of the Hell King, is no stranger to me, so please step into my humble house.” The messenger and Miao then went inside with him. Jia bowed repeatedly to the black-capped man, obsequiously trying to solicit special care for his nephew.
Shortly, Jia had some food and drink brought out, then sat them in a circle so they could drink together. “What business involving my nephew,” Jia asked, “has necessitated bothering you to drag him here?”
The black-capped man replied, “The Hell King was traveling to meet with the Fuluo god, and on his way he observed your nephew crazily haranguing others, so he sent me to seize him and bring him here.”
“Has His Majesty investigated him yet?” asked Gu.
“He’s still meeting with the Fuluo god, so he hasn’t returned home yet.”
Then Jia asked, “For what crime is my nephew supposed to be sentenced?”
“I don’t know,” the man replied. “But the Hell King is quite angry with people like him.” Miao kept to the side and heard the two men’s words, trembling in fear and sweating, so rattled that he couldn’t even pick up a cup or chopsticks.
Soon, the black-capped man stood up, and thanked Jia, saying, “I’ve enjoyed your generous pourings of wine so much that I’m already drunk. Hence I’ll have to entrust your nephew to you. I’ll return home alone and visit you tomorrow.” Then he left.
Jia told Miao, “You have no other brothers, so your father and mother love you as their greatest treasure, and often just can’t bear to scold you. When you were sixteen or seventeen, whenever you’d drink several cups of wine, you’d start ranting, slurring your speech; then, for anyone with whom you had the smallest disagreements, you’d pound on their door, boldly cursing. But we excused it by saying that you were still just a child. I wouldn’t have thought that more than ten years later, you still wouldn’t have grown out of it. And now you’ll have to deal with the consequences!”
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Fuluo god: Unknown reference. See Zhu’s speculation (1:588n17).
Miao fell to the ground, weeping, lamenting that it was too late to do anything about it. Jia pulled him up and said, “I’m in the wine business here, and I have some small degree of prestige, so I’ll certainly do everything I can for you. The man who was drinking here just now is the Hell King’s messenger, and he often drinks with me, hence we’re on ve
ry friendly terms with each other. The Hell King has too many cases to attend to each day, so he may not necessarily be able to remember them all. If I speak to his messenger tactfully, entrusting him with my plan to get you released, it may be possible that he’ll go along with it.”
Then upon considering the matter further, he said, “This business is a pretty heavy responsibility, and less than a hundred thousand taels wouldn’t be enough to carry it off.” Miao thanked him for his efforts as Jia quickly took charge of the operation, with Miao agreeing to his stipulations. Miao then stayed the night with his uncle.
The next day, the black-capped man arrived early. Jia invited him in, where they spoke for a little while, then Jia came to Miao and told him, “We’ve come to an agreement. In a bit, he’ll come back again. I had to expend everything I own in order to draw up a deed of guarantee; I’ll wait for you to return home, then you can leisurely collect the money to pay me back.”
Overjoyed, Miao asked, “How much is it costing altogether?”
“One hundred thousand,” his uncle replied.
“Where can I get that kind of money?” wondered Miao.
Jia explained, “A little over a hundred in gold coins and paper money will be enough.”
“That’ll be easy to get,” Miao happily replied.
They waited till it was almost noon, and the man in the black cap hadn’t yet arrived. Miao wanted to go out to the marketplace, to wander and look around a bit. Jia urged him not to go very far, so Miao promised him, and then went out.
