Chinese Mythology and Tales

Chapter 6

t h e s u p e r n a t u r a l

A discussion of the supernatural in Chinese literature must begin by defining terms. There is no premodern Chinese term that directly translates as “super- natural”; the modern ch’ao-tzu-jan is derived from English. Content that we would now describe as supernatural is labeled either with varying words for “strange” or with names of classes of extraordinary beings. “Supernatural” im- plies another realm distinct from the natural, but in premodern China such events and creatures are not beyond or apart from nature; instead the odd and exceptional is an inherent part of the natural system. Yet these phenomena were perceived as a category in premodern Chinese literature. While the word “su- pernatural” can be used for convenience’s sake, this inherent difference in definition should be kept in mind.

The following discussion includes the literature in which extraordinary be- ings figure and the literature of the strange. It is impossible to exclude the supernatural visions of Buddhism and Taoism from this survey; however, scrip- tures and temple inscriptions as such are omitted, and early Chinese mythology is discussed in chapter 2. This is an essay on literature of the supernatural, not beliefs in the supernatural, although the two are inextricably connected: re- ceived lore about the supernatural provides material for literature, and literature is instrumental in its transmission. Although it is impossible to ascertain whether an author believed what he wrote, premodern authors themselves problemat- ized the question of belief. Belief in some level of supernatural interaction with the human world was the mainstream view throughout the history of pre-

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modern China, but at the same time it was acknowledged that these were particularly fertile grounds for fabrication and delusion. Another distinction frequently applied by traditional critics, and closely related to belief, is that between the strange for its own sake and the strange as a means to raise other issues. It would seem that the supernatural may be employed for divergent purposes but derives its power from fascination with the supernatural itself; the mask is never entirely meaningless.

Elements of the supernatural are found throughout the history of Chinese literature, cutting across genres. It has differing importance in different genres: it is the preeminent topic of the classical tale, one important topic of vernacular fiction and drama, and a specific mode in poetry. Each genre explores different territory of the supernatural.

The discussion begins with an introduction to the categories that make up the supernatural in China and follows with a chronological treatment of dif- ferent works. This opening thematic section is not meant to imply that these concepts were ahistorical and unchanging; it should be regarded instead as an extended definition of terms, while acknowledging that meanings shift over time.

T E R R I T O R Y O F T H E S U P E R N A T U R A L

One of the principal concerns of literature of the supernatural is the revelation of startling but still comprehensible patterns in the universe: this is seen in tales of omens and prophecy, destined retribution and reward. The correspondences are startling because of their distance in time or space; the supernatural is expressed in the nonlinear, causal link between them. The crucial terms are chao (omens), ming (fate), kan-ying (stimulus-response), yin-kuo (karmic cause and effect), and pao (retribution). Omens were seen as an indication of the condition of a kingdom; aberrations in human affairs would cause anomalies in nature as well, and these strange events in turn foretold the downfall of a state, although the initial cause of both omen and disaster lay in this world. The concept of omens as responses to human events is described in pre-Ch’in texts, but omens were systematized with the centralization of the empire. Im- perial gathering of omens is one of the earliest forms of writing about the supernatural. Relevant omens included natural disasters and monstrous births, but also popular phenomena not normally categorized as supernatural, like children’s rhymes and changes in fashion.

The pre-Buddhist concept of fate allows for injustice: man’s life span, wealth, or success is predetermined through no fault or virtue of his own. This concept of unjust fate survives into later periods alongside schemes of moral justice. Yet in the crucial matter of national fate, the Mandate of Heaven that grants a dynasty its right to rule contains a strong component of moral judgment. The

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concept of different elements in the universe, man and nature or Heaven and earth, responding to each other like strings resounding to the same note, is ancient; later kan-ying is used more specifically to refer to the response of supernatural beings to human actions. The Buddhist concept of karmic retri- bution replaced an apparently arbitrary fate with a karmic sense that current circumstances were earned by one’s behavior in former lives; the range of moral correspondences in time and space is increased dramatically. Buddhism sup- plied the vocabulary and clear mechanisms for discussing rewards for the good and punishment for the wicked, but these ideas became shared cultural prop- erty. Narrative is more interested in retribution that takes place within the same lifetime; retribution remains one of the central subjects and organizing prin- ciples of both classical and vernacular fiction up until late in the Ch’ing dynasty (1644–1911). These correspondences are usually depicted as the work of an im- personal “Heaven,” although divinities and other creatures may work to fulfill the ordained pattern.

Dreams can be another means of linking worlds and bringing the supernat- ural into personal experience. Although there exist from early times theories explaining dreams in psychological and medical terms, literature is more con- cerned with dreams having a source outside the self. On the simplest level, dreams foretell the future or reveal the present at a distant place (most com- monly the death of a distant loved one is revealed in a dream). A dream can also be an experience of another real world. In both stories of prophecy and accounts of dream travel, there is a need to demonstrate the correspondence between the worlds inside and outside the prophecy and the dream. Buddhist ideas about the illusory nature of all human existence gave dream narratives new range, allowing for the creation of elaborate illusory worlds.

Much of the literature of the supernatural deals with human interaction with nonhuman creatures, not all of which will be familiar to readers of other traditions. In rough descending order, there are gods (shen), hsien, ghosts (kuei), yao (specters), and supernatural animals like the dragon. The Chinese word shen can mean the spirit that animates a living being, a positive spiritual force, or a divinity. The world of Chinese literature is uninhibitedly polytheistic. On the whole, the more abstract and general gods, while theoretically the most powerful, do not receive as much attention in literature as those of more mod- erate rank and more local appeal. Divinity is a status accessible to exceptional humans as well, often a reward for extraordinary deeds. By the same token, there is emphasis on the humanlike needs and desires of the divinities; inter- actions with the gods can be much more personal than simple reward and punishment. The Chinese tradition emphasizes the symbiotic relationship be- tween gods and their worshippers: humans’ devotion grants deities their power, and humans worship divinities because of their power. The divine system as a whole is frequently imagined as a bureaucracy, but there is a fascination with the individual divinities that defy the system.

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Hsien defies exact translation. It has been rendered variously as immortal, transcendent, and fairy; each translation seems to capture different aspects of the hsien. In one of its principal meanings, hsien describes humans who, through Taoist self-cultivation (whether alchemical, physical, or chemical), transcend their human status and achieve agelessness. For that sense of hsien, both immortal and transcendent seem appropriate, the latter expressing the idea of ascent more clearly. Yet some hsien occupy the lower ranks of divine hier- archies in the heavens, enchanted islands, mountains, and caves without ever having been human. Those who have ascended are of both sexes, but primarily male; those who are themselves aspects of paradise are primarily young, beau- tiful females. For the latter kind of hsien, fairy is a more appropriate translation. Although there can be some blurring between the concepts of shen and hsien, as in the common compound shen-hsien, differences remain. Becoming a hsien is a goal to which one can aspire, while becoming a shen is an unsought reward for worldly accomplishments. Hsien appear in the literature as elusive figures, associated with lightness and flight, promising a realm of pleasure and detach- ment from worldly care that is hidden but alluringly accessible to humans. Taoist hagiography provides a vivid range of images: figures riding cranes or deer, swooping through the clouds, or lurking in the woods. Their relationship to humanity differs from that of the gods. The exchange of worship and the demand for recognition are not as crucial to their identity, and in their emo- tional detachment they seem less human than many gods. They relate to hu- mans as enigmatic teachers inspiring humans to fly off following them. The female hsien are objects of desire, the most sensuous embodiment of paradise.

Kuei (ghosts) have a similar ambiguity in meaning to shen: they can be the souls of deceased humans; demonic figures that never had a human past; or the negative embodiment of universal forces, the malevolent opposite of shen. Horror is one of the possible tones of ghost tales, but it is not necessarily the predominant one: melancholy, romance, and comedy are also possible and more prevalent than in the West. Early texts like Tso chuan (Tso Commentary; third century b.c.e.) describe those untimely or wrongly killed as becoming ghosts, remaining in this world partly through their own strength of mind; in Buddhism the ghost is one of the orders of being to which one might be con- demned for a period of time, one of the lower moral tiers of the system. Some ghosts are vengeful, but many are simply unsettled, seeking a proper burial. For a young woman to have died unmarried is often enough of a source of instability for her to remain on earth as a ghost; the young female ghost is a focus of literary and erotic interest. There is strong emphasis on the continuity of human feelings and relationships beyond the grave. Ghosts are also a means of inter- acting with the national past; an encounter with a historical ghost often takes on an elegiac tone. There are stories that look at the world of the dead from the inside, often as a mirror for the human world; its bureaucracy is treated more satirically than the heavenly equivalent. Under exceptional circumstances,

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ghosts, particularly passionate and loyal lovers, can return to life, reanimating their own corpses or the bodies of others recently deceased. Souls can travel in circumstances other than death: the most beloved narrative device is the woman whose soul follows her lover while her body remains behind.

Yao are in a sense the negative reflection of hsien; in this case progression from one state to another is threatening to the human order since creatures below human status intrude on human identity and space. Yao originally meant any kind of anomaly, particularly sinister omens, but after the Ch’in and Han dynasties it came to have the specific association of a nonhuman creature at- taining the ability to assume human form and deceive men. It is also used as a general term for anything monstrous or spectral. Transformation is possible for all animals, with certain species far more adept than others: the shape-shifting fox, snake, and ape have their own independent narrative traditions stretching into the Ch’ing. Plants, especially trees and flowers, can also transform, if less frequently than animals; even inanimate objects, particularly if tainted with human contact or attention, attain this power. In the Six Dynasties period (220– 589) these transformations were viewed as threats to order; the creature in ques- tion was to be eliminated once exposed. In Ming and Ch’ing fiction, these animals’ self-advancement is rationalized as a curriculum or ladder of promo- tion, advancement depending on either sexual parasitism or virtuous self- cultivation. Overall, such creatures, especially the commonly depicted species like foxes and snakes, become more human and less like beasts as time goes on.

Human descent into nonhuman form is not nearly so common as the op- posite trajectory, but it does occur. Reincarnation renders the boundaries be- tween species permeable, but rebirth as another species is not the same as metamorphosis. Voluntary transformations into animal form are a playful power granted to Taoist adepts; they seem to be chiefly an entertaining spectacle, without the threat of the witch who can move in the shape of a cat. Most often men turn into man-eating tigers; this is very similar to European lycanthropy, a descent into bloodthirsty madness. Other transformations seem to be more direct moral punishments (the form of a pig being particularly humiliating). There are occasional stories of humans using sorcery to transform others into beasts against their will, but again, this is much more rare than in European literature, and some argue for an Indian origin of such stories.

As for animals beyond the range of mundane zoology, dragons can be both a raw elemental force and anthropomorphic divinities. Their chief association is with water, dwelling under the seas or lakes and rising into the heavens to produce storms. They are certainly more than animals, able to assume human form at will, and in either guise their power can be beneficial or destructive. Their underwater palaces, complete with fish and crustacean minions, are a favorite site of imaginary geography in many tales. The distinction between Chinese dragon and Indian Nāga is blurred after the arrival of the latter with Buddhism, in part because they are similar creatures and also because in Chi-

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nese they are both referred to as lung. Other supernatural creatures, like the feng-huang (phoenix) or ch’i-lin (unicorn), though both decidedly auspicious, do not have as broad a range of narrative possibilities; they remain decorative images or symbols rather than characters with whom humans interact.

This introduction of terms makes plain that boundaries are more permeable than in some other traditions: all humans might become ghosts; the extraor- dinary few can become gods or hsien; animals can become yao (attempting to be human but not accepted as human) or even hsien; humans can be reborn as animals. Similarly, interactions with alien beings are charged with interest precisely because of difference, but are often ruled by fundamental similarities. Yet quite often there is reciprocity between the realms; both sides avenge wrongs, repay debts, and contract relationships according to the same rules.

Perhaps because the interaction across boundaries is so vital, the most inti- mate possible contact between two realms is particularly fascinating. An erotic encounter with an alien woman, in its two aspects as a desired encounter with a goddess and a perilous encounter with a demon, is one of the central topics in Chinese tales of the supernatural, developing in both poetry and fiction. This theme has great power both in its own right and as a vehicle for allegorical expression.

As these creatures enter the human world, humans stray into other realms. All the major religious traditions contribute fantastic geographies, which are freely combined in literary works. Buddhism bequeaths an elaborate architec- ture of heavens and hells, as well as the idea of a western paradise. Taoist- inspired paradises can be located not only in the literal heavens but in a variety of sites contained within the terrestrial world, mountain peaks, caves, or im- mortal islands. Journeys to paradise tend to be temporary sojourns; journeys to hell a graphic illustration of the punishment awaiting evildoers. The fantastic geography of the edges of the world bears considerable resemblance to the borders of the maps in other cultures: there are distortions and exaggerations of human shape or society, kingdoms of giants, of women, and of dwarfs.

Another territory of the supernatural is that of human beings becoming strange by the acquisition of magic arts, the supernatural as deed rather than identity. There is a distinction between magical powers that are the results of merit (whether inherent or acquired in study) and amoral skills that can be learned by anyone. Taoist adepts and Buddhist monks displaying the former kind of power can often be “marvelous people,” standing on the borders be- tween humanity and their respective states of transcendence. Both can amaze ordinary mortals with their powers and eccentricities, but for the Taoists there is more emphasis on enigma than on the moral clarity displayed in Buddhist miracles. There is a sense of Buddhist miracles as the by-product of advanced spiritual states, while Taoist arts are more deliberately learned and blur more easily with other forms of sorcery. The Taoist pursuit of immortality through discipline or alchemy is a distinct tradition; the tan, the elixir of distilled

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life force that embodies a Taoist’s achievement, is a focus of particular interest, as it can be toyed with and lost. Fang-shih (mountebanks) or shu-shih (adepts) seem closer to being technicians; they understand secret knowledge without the glamor of transcendence.

Sorcery falls into familiar categories: magic of creation, of illusion, or of influence over one’s fellow man. Arts such as divination, physiognomy, and medicine straddle the borders between scientific discipline and the supernat- ural. The written word is crucial: written amulets are the most powerful means of exorcism or protection, especially among Taoist practitioners.

There are more sinister arts, which involve poisons and the stealing of souls. Negative portrayals of sorcery are colored by the ambivalence felt toward pop- ular religion. Much of this sorcery has associations with illicit religious practi- tioners; the image of a sorcerer is often an evil Taoist or monk. Sorcery is strongly associated with plotting rebellion. One of the most constantly recurring tricks is the animation of paper cutouts of soldiers or horses to generate armies. The most unsympathetic portrayals of sorcery shade over into descriptions of chicanery and fraud, but false sorcery has just as much power to stir up rebellion and is also feared.

It is the nature of the strange that not everything fits neatly into categories; there are, of course, anomalies that defy the classification scheme outlined above.

E A R L Y P H I L O S O P H I C A L A N D H I S T O R I C A L W O R K S

In the period before the Han dynasty, there are records of the supernatural in both historical and philosophical works, but not a literature devoted exclusively to the supernatural. Historical works, especially Tso chuan, already offer nar- ratives of ghosts and omens, as well as explanations of their origins and meaning.

The philosophical works of the pre-Han and Han illustrate a debate on the existence of spirits that lays the basis for later ideas about ghosts and gods. The famous comment in the Analects of Confucius—“The Master did not speak of anomalies, acts of violence, rebellions, or gods”—necessitated self-justifications for generations of authors of such material but did not silence them; Confucius’s own remark recognized these as topics about which most others did speak. Mo Ti (480?–400? b.c.e.) justified belief in ghosts both by listing evidence from earlier history, including tales of vengeful ghosts, and by pointing out their utility as a means of social control. Later the rationalist Wang Ch’ung (27–c. 97 c.e.) presented the skeptical position with a decisive clarity that was not surpassed in the following centuries. Yet, while Wang Ch’ung argued that ghosts are products of the human mind and the pursuit of immortality is a falsehood, he did believe in yao in the sense of omens; there is ch’i (energy), which creates images and forms to foretell the future. Dragons are also an accepted part of his world.

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Chuang Tzu (355–275 b.c.e. is the earliest author to whom the word “fan- tastic” (in the sense of fanciful) applies; he does not take a documentary or argumentative approach to the supernatural. He creates a world of conversing animals, river gods, shadows, giant birds, and skulls; but they are just part of his palette, alongside historical figures, bandits, and craftsmen. Upending divisions between strange and ordinary, real and unreal was Chuang Tzu’s purpose, quite the opposite of most other sources, which strove to distinguish the supernatural from the natural. He is considered the inventor of yü-yen (lodged words, or parables), but those who followed in that tradition never used quite as outra- geous a range of creatures and dialogues. His model, with the idea of an ad- ditional layer of meaning justifying dubious surface content, became one of the major justifications for writing about the supernatural. Chuang Tzu was also the first to use the terms hsiao-shuo (literally “small talk”; later a term for fiction) and chih-kuai (tales of the strange), so on the level of these individual words he was the founding ancestor of writing about the supernatural. Indeed, the sem- inal influence of Chuang Tzu on all subsequent fictive literature may be readily gauged by the ubiquitous references to him, whether explicit or inexplicit, in later works.

Many of the philosophical works loosely categorized as Taoist include rele- vant ideas: Lieh Tzu (including materials dating from as early as 300 b.c.e., and as late as 300 c.e.) is roughly similar to the Chuang Tzu, but it presents super- natural material in a more coherent and somewhat more earnest manner, in- cluding discussion of the difference between reality and illusion, theories on the origins of dreams, and descriptions of the weird kingdoms beyond China. Huai-nan Tzu (by Liu An, c. 179–122 b.c.e.) elucidates the concept of kan-ying. Ko Hung’s (283–343) Pao-p’u Tzu (The Master Who Embraces Simplicity) is a vital source for ideas about attainment of immortality and animals’ capacity for transformation and sorcery.

C H ’ U T Z ’ U A N D T H E S U P E R N A T U R A L I N P R E - T ’ A N G P O E T R Y A N D R H A P S O D I E S

Ch’u tz’u (Elegies of Ch’u; 300 b.c.e.–200 c.e.) is a poetic corpus from the southern state of Ch’u in which many kinds of writing about the supernatural intersect. “T’ien wen” (Heavenly Questions) is a set of unanswered questions offering a glimpse of an entire mythical system; “Chiu ko” (Nine Songs) and “Chao hun” (Summons of the Soul) appear to be devotional or ritual songs, and “Li sao” (Encountering Sorrow) and later poems use the divinities and devotees of the “Nine Songs” world as allegory. This is a world of worshippers and shamans longing for distant deities, bedecking themselves with flowers to attract them, being ecstatically possessed, and following those divinities on diz- zying tours of the cosmos. The shifting perspectives of possession and ritual performance allow the possibility of speaking in the voice of the divinity, looking

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on the world from outside. Although this religious system becomes inaccessible to later readers, the Elegies of Ch’u bequeath a vivid and expansive vision of the cosmos and an individual human’s relation to it, particularly the tie between a human and a divine lover. The Elegies of Ch’u is the most important influence on later poetic treatments of the supernatural.

Although there are both male and female divine lovers in the “Nine Songs,” it is the female lovers of the “Shan kuei” (Mountain Goddess) and the “Hsiang chün” (Goddess of the Hsiang River) who live on in the tradition. The divine lover of the Elegies of Ch’u is elusive and fickle, hovering at the edges of per- ception and strongly identified with the natural scenery in which she dwells, a river or a mountain. Consummation, if possible at all, is brief and always returns to desperate longing.

The journey through the cosmos (treated briefly in some of the “Nine Songs” but more extensively in “Encountering Sorrow”) takes place in alternating flashes of light and dark; at dawn the sojourner is at one extreme of the universe, at dusk at another. Supernatural creatures appear as steeds and an entourage. The world has exotic, mythical points at the extremes, peaks or constellations, but not a coherent geography; it is a world of constant motion and upward flight. “Summons of the Soul” and the poems in its tradition also draw a cosmos through which the individual soul wanders, but it is a much more threatening vision, as all the cardinal directions are populated by soul-destroying monsters, and the emphasis is on the lost soul finding its way back home rather than on the desire to fly.

Aside from the Chuang Tzu, “Encountering Sorrow” is the most important early text using supernatural imagery for allegorical purposes. Its quest for the divine lover is traditionally read as political, the fickle goddess becoming a figure for the ruler who spurns Ch’ü Yüan (340–278 b.c.e.), the putative author of the Elegies of Ch’u, and the fantastic journey a search for a virtuous ruler. The continuation of the journey tradition becomes strongly associated with the Taoist quest for immortality and transcendence (as in “Yüan yu” [Far Roaming]) or with the glorious progress of a divine ruler through the cosmos (in “Ta jen fu” [Rhapsody on the Great Man], by Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju [179–117 b.c.e.]). The journey theme evolves into the yu-hsien shih (poems of wandering immortals) of the Six Dynasties (for example, Kuo P’u’s [276–324]). In Chung Jung’s Shih- p’in (An Evaluation of Poetry; c. 513–517), an influential work of literary criti- cism, a distinction is made between yu-hsien shih, in which the authors use the immortals to express their own discontent, and poems celebrating the immor- tals, with both possibilities leading back to the Elegies of Ch’u.

The figure of the goddess continues to be developed in Han rhapsodies. In “Kao-t’ang fu” (Rhapsody on Mount Kao-t’ang, attributed to Sung Yü [290?– 222? b.c.e.]), she presents herself to a king in an erotic dream, but then reveals her identity as the ever-changing morning clouds and evening rain; she is still literally the stuff of the natural world. In “Shen-nü fu” (Rhapsody on the God-

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dess, also attributed to Sung Yü), the poet who had earlier given an account of the king’s experience himself dreams of the goddess. She is given much more detailed, human flesh, but consummation is denied. Already she approaches in dreams, at one remove from literal experience. The goddess who is “the clouds and the rain” not only provides the standard euphemism for sexual intercourse but remains the embodiment of desire, equal parts temptation and frustration. In the later poetic tradition, the physical figure of the goddess van- ishes and becomes latent in the landscape; she is a tantalizing illusion as much as an actual presence.

C H I H - K U A I ( T A L E S O F T H E S T R A N G E )

It was in the Han and Six Dynasties that the supernatural became set apart as a topic for literary works. The term chih-kuai was not used as a term for a genre until the late T’ang (618–907) (and more clearly in the Ming), but was used as the title of several books in the Six Dynasties. Today these works are often considered the ancestors of Chinese fiction; although this is true to the extent that the subject matter and motifs of the chih-kuai are developed further in later fictional genres, there is disagreement over how they should be regarded in their own context. Some critics argue that they were intended as historical works; some that they are primarily persuasive texts; and others that they do involve an element of entertainment and esthetic pleasure. Authorial prefaces positioned themselves in the context of historical or expository writing; chih literally means “to record.” These works are presented as having definite sources, whether in personal experience, other written sources, or oral narrative. In form, chih-kuai are generally assemblies of short, simple prose anecdotes; some collections are topically or geographically organized, but others are not. Many of the entries take the form of mini-biographies, beginning “So and so was a person from such and such a place . . . ,” starting out firmly grounded in this world and in the experience of a single, named individual who confronts an intrusion of the strange. The combination of bizarre content with a matter- of-fact presentation provides for the particular pleasure of this genre. Although the literature of the supernatural continued to evolve throughout the premodern period, most of its topical territory was established in the Six Dynasties chih- kuai.

One of the founding works in this genre, representative of supernatural ge- ography, is Shan hai ching (Classic of Mountains and Seas). It is arranged according to the cardinal directions and distance from the center, describing the geographical features, flora, fauna, and inhabitants of distant lands and seas. Its date of composition is disputed; current scholarship argues that it contains many different strata, with chüan (scrolls) 1–5 dating approximately to the Warring States period (403–221 b.c.e.) and the later portions to the Han (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) or perhaps the Wei-Chin dynasties (220–420). The entries are

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short and often cryptic, sometimes containing fragments of mythology. These distant realms are populated with chimerical creatures, assemblies of the limbs and heads of many different species. Eating or wearing the flora or fauna of these exotic places often has medicinal or magical effects. The Shan hai ching is one of the most visual of the chih-kuai collections and was associated early on with a set of illustrations of its creatures, subsequently lost, but it was reil- lustrated later. Although most of the creatures are restricted to this work, the book as a whole remains influential, standing on the borderline of geography and fiction to provide an appealingly imaginative space through which to jour- ney. The parallels to Western bestiaries and geographies from around the same time are striking and merit further investigation. T’ao Ch’ien (365–427) uses it to make his own kind of circuit of the cosmos through pleasure-reading in his series of poems, “Tu Shan hai ching shih-san shou” (On Reading the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Thirteen Poems). Much later, when the voyagers of the Ch’ing novel Ching hua yüan (Flowers in the Mirror, A Romance, by Li Ju-chen [c. 1763–1830]) leave Chinese waters, they journey through the lands of Shan hai ching.

Chang Hua’s (232–300) Po-wu chih (A Treatise on Curiosities) represents a part of the genre focusing more on marvelous objects than on narrative and on chih-kuai as a source of scarce information. Chang Hua as the expert on oddities becomes a character in chih-kuai as well as a collector himself. Serving its encyclopedic project, the collection is topically arranged, beginning with ge- ography, mountains and waters, continuing through oddities of foreign nations, strange animals and plants, and ending with miscellaneous tales and legends. Although there were further continuations of this subgenre, overall it dwindled in later periods.

The most prominent work of the genre is Kan Pao’s (fl. 320) Sou-shen chi (Search for the Supernatural). Kan Pao was a historian himself, and in his preface he defends his work in those terms: despite the difficulties of being entirely accurate in historical writing, historians proceed in their endeavor. Should there be errors in what he records, he takes solace that others share in his faults. He moves from a historical to a persuasive justification: he wishes to “make it clear that the spirit world is not a lie.” This purpose does not, however, exclude pleasure in storytelling. There is a general scholarly consensus that the current version of Sou-shen chi is a late Ming recompilation from compendia. Its loose topical arrangement, starting with immortals and working down to animals, may date from this period. It owes its appeal to a rich variety of contents and mood, as well as an accessible writing style. There are many omens, mon- strous births, freaks of nature, and even changes of fashion, with and without explanation. Yet the most influential stories are well-developed narratives, rang- ing from romantic liaisons with female ghosts to horrific confrontations with demons, from origin myths to heroic tales of monster-slaying. The perspective of Sou-shen chi is founded on the encounters of a broad range of ordinary people

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with the weird; that individual perspective remains influential in the later tradition.

Some chih-kuai collections are more clearly affiliated with particular reli- gious or philosophical positions, most prominently Taoist or Buddhist. The most obvious of these are the collections concentrating on biographies of Taoist hsien, for example, Lieh-hsien chuan (Biographies of Transcendents), attributed to Liu Hsiang (79–8 b.c.e., but the work is probably later). This hagiographical tradition continues into subsequent dynasties; later popular publications are frequently illustrated, suggesting a guide to iconography as well as narrative. These collections focus on the experiences of the hsien more than on the or- dinary mortal who encounters them. There are also collections of Buddhist miracle tales, such as Hsüan-yen chi (Records in Proclamation of Manifesta- tions), attributed to Liu Yi-ch’ing (403–444). The moral values of miracles are more overt than those of the hsien’s mysteries; there are many stories of bodhi- sattvas or their images rescuing believers or, at the other extreme, illustrations of the punishments of hell. Buddhist tales allow for personal rescue by and contact with the major figures of the pantheon. This tradition later led to pure hagiographies in a series of biographies of eminent monks from various dynasties.

Although the collections from the Six Dynasties are the most famous, the chih-kuai tradition continues into the early twentieth century. After the rise of ch’uan-ch’i, the longer and more elaborate classical-language narrative form, the question of which works count as chih-kuai becomes more problematic; it is best to see chih-kuai and ch’uan-ch’i as a continuum along which one can place various works, rather than as absolutely distinct. In later periods chih-kuai material is often contained in miscellanies, pi-chi, such as Shen Kua’s Meng- hsi pi-t’an (Brush Talks from Dream Brook), mixed together with other topics and subject matter.

Most of this kind of writing from the T’ang dynasty and earlier has been preserved in the great encyclopedia T ’ai-p’ing kuang-chi (Extensive Records from the Reign of Great Tranquility; 977). T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi was the com- panion work to the other imperial encyclopedia, T ’ai-p’ing yü-lan (Imperial Digest of the Reign of Great Tranquility), including material from sources too informal or dubious to meet the latter’s standards. Aside from the sheer amount of valuable material that it preserves, T ’ai-p’ing kuang-chi always carefully notes the works on which it draws, many of which are now lost. It is arranged by topic, beginning with the gods, hsien, and the human world, working its way through categories of human beings, character traits, and then on to strange phenomena: ghosts, foreknowledge, reincarnation, retribution, dreams, mon- sters, and foreign peoples. T’ai-p’ing kuang-chi not only saved a great volume of unorthodox material from loss but also provided the framework in which later readers imagined it. The categories listed above are also strongly influ- enced by its structure. The republication of T ’ai-p’ing kuang-chi in 1566, along

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with republication of selections from it under a variety of titles in the latter half of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), played a central role in reawaking interest in chih-kuai and was extremely influential on later works in the genre.

Hung Mai’s (1123–1202) Yi-chien chih (Records of the Listener) is a personal chih-kuai collection of unprecedented scope. Hung collected anecdotes from a wide variety of informants and some earlier written collections; once he ac- quired a reputation for collecting weird anecdotes, people sent them to him in great numbers, and he filled volume after volume, with no topical organization. In his prefaces Hung emphasizes the oral nature of his anecdote gathering. Hung positioned himself as a historian, in his prefaces criticizing anecdotes that were too implausible (yet there are hints of playfulness at other points in the prefaces). Some changes in content relative to earlier collections reflect historical change: more merchants are characters, relations with the supernat- ural are often depicted as litigious, and the examination system has become a preoccupation of tales of prophecy and accurate dreams. Divinities play a larger role than in Ming-Ch’ing collections.

Throughout the tradition, there is a strong identification with informal, oral storytelling; although this can be a conventional pose, in general many chih- kuai collections are assemblies of a multitude of voices and can be fruitfully read as portrayals of a variety of views of the supernatural, mediated by the male literatus author. The strong association of this subject matter with informal exchanges gives some idea of the prevalence of these topics in society.

C H ’ U A N - C H ’ I

The distinctions between ch’uan-ch’i and chih-kuai have been discussed else- where. In terms of depiction of supernatural beings, ch’uan-ch’i brought several kinds of innovation. Supernatural beings could become psychologically com- plex and sympathetic characters, notably the fox spirit Miss Jen in Shen Chi- chi’s (c. 740–c. 800) “Jen-shih chuan” (The Story of Miss Jen). Miss Jen’s lover is willing to continue his relationship with her after discovering her true identity and thus for a time spares her the fated end of fox stories. In the end, however, she is slain by hunting dogs and becomes a tragic figure. The romance with a nonhuman woman was particularly suited to chuan-ch’i’s combination of the emotional with the marvelous. Inclusion of poetry allowed the romance of the divine woman that had been developed in poetic genres to be brought into narrative; this is most obvious in Shen Ya-chih’s (781–832) work. In “Hsiang- chung yüan chieh” (An Explanation of the Laments Written in Hsiang), the hero literally encounters a goddess of the Elegies of Ch’u, speaking that lan- guage herself. In Li Ch’ao-wei’s (fl. 790) “Liu Yi,” a human man is drawn into the complicated dynamics of a dragon clan. At the same time that the dragon maiden becomes a damsel in distress and her father a dignified, human- seeming sovereign, an uncle contains the violence of the elemental side of

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the dragon’s nature. In this case the supernatural marriage is allowed a happy resolution.

Dreams as complex illusory worlds in their own right were portrayed in elaborate narratives, such as Li Kung-tso’s (c. 770–c. 848) “Nan-k’o t’ai-shou chuan” (The Story of the Prefect of South Branch) and Shen Chi-chi’s “Chen- chung chi” (Record of the World Within a Pillow). Here the dream takes up the bulk of the narrative, rather than simply being a prophecy or sign referring to the waking world. “The Story of the Prefect of South Branch” is the more complex story, with the dream of wealth and glory revealed not as a pure fab- rication, but with exact correspondences between the dream and a miniature world in an actual anthill. This more elaborate construction and exposure of illusion is closely related to Buddhist ideas about life as illusion and illusions as means of enlightenment.

P I E N - W E N

The earliest extant semivernacular narratives, a prosimetric form called pien- wen (transformation texts), also expanded new possibilities for portrayal of the supernatural. As Buddhist sutras had done earlier, some pien-wen with Buddhist subject matter excel at portraying vast mandalas of fantastic beings, divinities or demons, surrounding the central Buddha, and panoramas of other worlds, whether the Buddha’s paradise or hell. This aspect is not surprising if one considers pien-wen’s probable origins as picture storytelling: the verse sections often particularly dwell on the visual spectacle. “Mu-lien pien-wen” (the Mu- lien story, “Ta-mu-ch’ien-lien ming-chien chiu-mu pien-wen” [Transformation Text on Mahāmaudgalyāyana’s Rescue of His Mother from the Underworld]; eighth–ninth century) combines this spectacular cosmos with a basic human relationship. Unlike the hapless travelers to hell in earlier chih-kuai, Mu-lien is not only a witness to suffering in hell but an actor who can leap from hell to paradise at will and change that suffering with divine assistance. By presenting a world populated largely by supernatural beings, rather than the brief inter- section of the human and nonhuman worlds, it lays a basis for the depiction of the supernatural in vernacular fiction. “Hsiang-mo pien-wen” (Transformation Text on the Subduing of Demons) contains a vivid description of a battle of supernatural transformations or manifestations between a heretic and one of the Buddha’s disciples, prefiguring the exuberant displays of transformation in Hsi-yu chi (Journey to the West).

T ’ A N G P O E T R Y

Although the poetic and narrative traditions of the supernatural share some themes and vocabulary, there is a markedly different emphasis between marvels of the senses and of incident, between the personal journey and a third-person

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account. The influence of the Elegies of Ch’u is all the more strongly felt in poetic engagements with the supernatural.

Poems about temples or popular religion can be points of contact with the supernatural. Wang Wei (701–761) wrote poems about popular rites in which the divinity worshipped is almost present. For example, in “Yü-shan shen-nü tz’u ko erh shou: sung shen ch’ü” (Second Song for the Worship of the Goddess at Yü Mountain: Bidding the Goddess Farewell), he evokes the world of the Elegies of Ch’u while remaining on the outside. The frenzied devotion of the believers and the actual goddess seem equally strange and marvelous.

Han Yü (768–824) has an ambivalent attitude toward the supernatural, wa- vering between a fascination with divinities and suspicion of the human rep- resentatives of supernatural forces. The focus of tension is often a young, lower- class woman with access to the world of the supernatural. “Hua-shan nü” (The Girl of Mount Hua) casts aspersions on the sexual interest of worshippers in a female religious figure. In “Hsieh Tzu-jan,” Han Yü portrays a young woman’s apotheosis as an actual event, but nonetheless misguided. He extols the values of home and family, staying in this world, making her an exile to be pitied. Elsewhere Han Yü invents his own supernatural stories: in “T’iao Chang Chi” (Written Playfully to Chang Chi), he recasts Li Po’s (701–762) and Tu Fu’s (712– 770) poetry as the myth of Yü controlling the flood; in the end, through contact with their poetry, he ascends to the heavens in his own vision of the spirit journey.

The vocabulary of Taoist transcendence and spirit journeys remains a living one, deployed by different poets to different effect. Wu Yün (d. 778) is one of the poets most devoted to this subject matter. His “Yu-hsien shih” (Apotheosis, or Roaming to Transcendence) renders the ascent to the heavens in highly visual terms, beginning with losing the human world, obscured by dust, and the glittering lights of the immortal world. Wu’s friend Li Po claimed the tra- dition of spirit journeys for himself. The conventions seem in his hands more the work of an individual personality than a shared cultural vocabulary; his own figure, making spirited claims on the supernatural world, looms large. His po- ems on these subjects often present a colorful vision of the otherworldly, which dramatically vanishes; Li Po is left frustrated, but making a bold statement of his determination to achieve immortality, as in his “Ku feng” (Old Style) Poems 5 and 7. Li Po is often imagined by later dynasties as the drunken hsien of poetry, reeling beyond this world, but that image is largely self-invented.

Li Ho (790–816) was called the “spectral talent” (kuei-ts’ai) for his poems of disjointed and fantastic worlds. The dissolution of the scene into hallucinatory images adds to the uncanny effect, suggesting haunting even when nothing overtly supernatural is described (as in “Hsi wan liang” [Ravine on a Cold Evening]). “Kung wu ch’u men” (Don’t Go Out the Gate) is an even more horrible revisiting of the devouring cosmos of the “Summons of the Soul”; the order of the cardinal directions and the safe place back home has broken down.

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In his visions of heaven, such as “Ti-tzu ko” (Song of the Child of the God) or “T’ien shang yao” (In Heaven), he notices the individual actions of particular supernatural beings, rather than simply making them part of a static, dazzling tableau.

The last pages of Ch’üan T’ang shih (Complete T’ang Poems) contain po- ems attributed to supernatural beings or acquired by supernatural means. Many of these are gleaned from narratives, with the narrative context retained as a preface. Most common are ghost poems, which turn on a body of imagery suggesting gloom and loss.

D R A M A

Supernatural elements are well represented in Chinese drama; there seems to be more overlap between the supernatural topics in drama and vernacular fic- tion than between either and the classical tale. For some dramas, the tie to religion is closer than for other genres, because the performance can itself occur at a temple or in a ritual context. Portrayals of gods or demons can serve as exorcism or as devotion. The supernatural is acknowledged early as one of the subjects of tsa-chü drama; a Ming list gives three supernatural subject catego- ries: “gods and Buddhas,” “gods, immortals, and Taoist transcendence,” and “spirit-heads and ghostly faces” (Chu Ch’üan; 1378–1448; T’ai-ho cheng-yin p’u [A Formulary for the Correct Sounds of Great Harmony]). The Mu-lien story was one of the most commonly enacted. Immortals also appeared frequently, among other contexts, in longevity plays for birthdays.

On stage, the supernatural could be conveyed through special effects and spectacular acrobatics, with large numbers of acrobats as minor demons or battling immortals. This kind of spectacle is the territory the drama shares with vernacular fiction; riotous divinities like the monkey Sun Wu-k’ung from Jour- ney to the West and Ne-cha (Nat.a) from Feng-shen yen-yi (Investiture of the Gods) figured prominently in both genres. At the other extreme, the poetic language of arias could conjure up otherworldly landscapes without stage business.

The structural nature of the drama, demanding resolution, excludes some of the inexplicable oddities of chih-kuai. Supernatural justice is a favorite struc- turing principle. The wronged or vengeful ghost makes a frequent appearance in the drama, often exposing crimes and leading to the conclusion, as in “Kan t’ien tung ti: Tou Ŏ yüan tsa-chü” (Moving Heaven and Earth: Injustice to Tou Ŏ), by Kuan Han-ch’ing (c. 1220–c. 1307). The supernatural demonstrations of Tou Ŏ’s innocence—snow in the midst of summer, the innocent’s blood flying up to a silk banner without a drop falling to the ground—are the climax of the play.

Chinese drama’s focus on romance leads to differing treatments of liaisons with nonhuman women. The supernatural plot material best developed in the

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drama is the amorous ghost or wandering soul, beginning with Cheng Kuang- tsu’s (c. 1260–c. 1320) “Ch’ien-nü li-hun” (Ch’ien-nü’s Soul Leaves Her Body) and reaching its apogee in T’ang Hsien-tsu’s (1550–1616) “Mu-tan t’ing” (The Peony Pavilion). The combination of narrative and lyric allows these women to be desiring, sympathetic selves rather than simply the objects of desire, as the female ghosts of the classical tale were. “The Peony Pavilion” ’s Tu Li-niang, who meets her lover in a dream and pursues him as a ghost, seems one of the very few supernatural females with whom female readers personally identified. Both women allow their desires to lead them out of the human state, and as disembodied souls they can pursue their desires more directly than they could in human form.

Hung Sheng’s (1645–1704) “Ch’ang-sheng tien” (Palace of Eternal Life) clothes the story of the ill-fated love between the T’ang emperor Hsüan-tsung and his concubine Yang Kuei-fei with the trappings of immortal destiny; they were immortal lovers in their previous lives. This is a common means of linking supernatural and mundane material in both the drama and vernacular fiction. The alternation of scenes in different worlds is one of the strengths of the long ch’uan-ch’i form of drama. This glamor makes an even starker contrast with the violence of the An Lu-shan (703–757) rebellion (755–757/763) and the ruler’s unwitting cruelty at the same time as it validates their love. They are allowed final reunion in the supernatural world; as in “The Peony Pavilion,” human passion is granted supernatural power.

While romances with ghosts, immortals, and dragon maidens are retold in the drama, yao are almost entirely absent. The one exception is the snake spirit Miss Pai (Pai niang-tzu). One of her earliest notable appearances is in one of Feng Meng-lung’s hua-pen, which seems to waver between treating her as a demon and as a loyal, love-struck woman. Her story is developed in all the vernacular genres, including more than one chuan-ch’i drama (both called “Lei- feng t’a” [Thunderpeak Pagoda], one in 1738 and the other in 1771), more than one novel (one in 1806), a tan-tz’u (see chapter 50), and other popular story- telling forms. Her redemption is completed in the later plays and novels: she becomes an entirely sympathetic heroine, and her son is allowed to rescue his mother from the consequences of exorcism. Although this happy ending may be related to the generic requirements of the drama, this is the most prominent role ever given the offspring of a liaison with an animal spirit.

V E R N A C U L A R F I C T I O N

Lu Hsün (1881–1936) in his Chung-kuo hsiao-shuo shih-lüeh (Brief History of Chinese Fiction) defines shen-mo hsiao-shuo (novels of gods and demons) as a subgenre, but supernatural elements are not limited to those novels. Novels that contain no hint of supernatural elements are instead a rarity. The uses of the supernatural discussed below are arranged in roughly chronological order.

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There is often a difference of theme and emphasis in its treatment in vernacular and classical fiction. The vernacular concentrates on a panoramic display of the supernatural, or large structural systems, rather than an individual encoun- ter with the uncanny. The vernacular can represent the point of view of a nonhuman protagonist, which remained very rare in the classical.

Supernatural elements appear in the vernacular short story, although they are not as predominant an element as in the classical tale. (One sign of the differing importance of supernatural subject matter in classical and vernacular fiction is that when stories from Liao-chai chih-yi [Strange Tales from Make- Do Studio; see below] were adapted as vernacular fiction, primarily those works with human main characters were selected.) Many of the hua-pen that deal with such topics are reworkings of classical-language stories. The most common intervention of the supernatural in these stories, as in the drama, is the conse- quence of moral retribution. A distinctive story type in the earlier vernacular short story is the “demon” story, in which the male protagonist meets a deadly woman and is saved by the intervention of an exorcist. A tone of horror seems more central to the early hua-pen ghost stories than to the classical tale in general. For example, “Yi-k’u kuei lai tao-jen ch’u kuai” (A Den of Ghosts, by Feng Meng-lung [1574–1646], in Ching-shih t’ung-yen [Common Words to Warn the World], story number 14) describes a man stumbling in a single hor- rific night into the recognition that not only his new bride and her maid but also the matchmaker, her godmother, and a wine seller are all ghosts.

One of the principal uses of the supernatural in vernacular fiction is struc- tural: a supernatural background provides a frame for the events of a novel’s plot. Often the first few chapters of a novel will be set in another world, ex- plaining how extraterrestrial spirits come to be reborn in the human world and enact most of the plot of the book. For example, in Shui-hu chuan (Outlaws of the Marsh, or Water Margin, the earliest edition dating to the early fifteenth century), the 108 bandits are 108 stars who are released by accident. This frame is largely unmentioned throughout much of the novel, but emerges again to justify the union of the bandits and Sung Chiang’s leadership. The same sort of frame of previous lives is present in Hsing-shih yin-yüan chuan (Marriage Destinies to Awaken the World, or The Bonds of Matrimony, from the early Ch’ing) and Ching hua yüan, and used more ironically in Ju-lin wai-shih (The Scholars, from the mid-eighteenth century). Hung-lou meng (A Dream of Red Towers; c. 1763) uses the frame of another world, but makes the link between the two worlds far more complex. The supernatural frame can give mundane events an added sense of meaning and purpose or ironically undercut them.

Vernacular fiction is more interested than the classical in sorcery as a weapon and a means of rebellion, although the actual arts portrayed are the same. This is a means of overlaying supernatural material on historical plots. For many novels, sorcery is simply an additional weapon in the arsenals of opposing ar- mies. Chu-ko Liang’s strategies in San-kuo yen-yi (Romance of the Three King-

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doms) cross the boundaries between the brilliant and the supernatural, and some of the heroes in Shui-hu chuan have magical skills as their special weapon, just as another figure might be very good with the slingshot. In P’ing-yao chuan (The Quelling of Demons), the supernatural skills are more central, as the focus for most of the novel is on the yao who are subdued, rather than the conquerors. The two texts of P’ing-yao chuan treat the supernatural in different ways. In the twenty-chapter version attributed to Lo Kuan-chung (which prob- ably dates from the early decades of the Ming), one of the central elements is a “sorcerer’s apprentice” plot in which a young girl has imperfect control of her newly learned magic, with comic results. In his 1620 edition, Feng Meng-lung attempted to pull the disparate supernatural elements together by adding still another, converting the main characters into foxes. This novel draws on the historical association of rebellions with millennial cults and sorcery. The super- natural enhancement of historical armies takes place on the largest scale in Feng-shen yen-yi (Investiture of the Gods, attributed to Hsü Chung-lin [d. c. 1566]). Vernacular genres, both fiction and drama, thrive on elaborately cho- reographed battles of magical skill. Later the occasional supernatural villain adds variety to martial-arts novels.

Another common means of blending the supernatural and the historical in early vernacular fiction was the demonization of nation-destroying imperial concubines. The largest cycle of stories of this type was focused on Ta Chi, the concubine of the last Shang emperor (middle of the eleventh century b.c.e.). Her story was related in Wu wang fa Chou p’ing-hua (Expository Tale on King Wu’s Expedition Against Chou; 1321–1323), Lieh-kuo chih-chuan (A Fictional- ized History of the States, sixteenth century), and Investiture of the Gods. The real Ta Chi’s soul was sucked away by a fox, which then took her place. Re- placing the human woman with a demon is a means of inserting the supernat- ural into this world that seems as contrived as plots involving earlier lives. The notorious Empress Wu, who established her own dynasty (the Chou [684–705]), shared the same associations; in both Feng Meng-lung’s version of P’ing-yao chuan and Ching hua yüan she is described as a fox. While the vixen in the later classical tale could become a more sympathetic character, in the vernac- ular she became the embodiment of destructive female sexuality.

The supernatural novel par excellence is Hsi-yu chi (Journey to the West, or Monkey, attributed to Wu Ch’eng-en [c. 1500–1582]). It is the preeminent ex- ample of a story playing overwhelmingly in a supernatural world, with a super- natural figure as the main character. Sun Wu-k’ung’s (Monkey’s) development and steady increase in powers is an influential model for the more systematic pursuit of magical powers by animal spirits in other vernacular fiction. He is a unique protagonist in his resemblance to and yet essential difference from hu- manity, which derives from the special status of our close primate relatives; his monkey nature adds to his license for mischief. This is in marked contrast to the development of fox and snake women whose original form becomes more

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and more remote. Chu Pa-chieh’s (Pigsy’s) nature as a pig is even less concealed and more comic. Pig-human hybrids represent descent and the grotesque, a capitulation to the basest appetites, rather than self-improvement or deception, as is the case for other creatures.

Monkey moves through a syncretic cosmos that incorporates the entire range of Chinese divinities in an apparently bureaucratic order, with the bodhisattva Kuan-yin (Avalokiteśvara), the Buddha, and Lao Tzu communicating with full civil, diplomatic protocol. However, display of divinity, like Sun Wu-k’ung’s failing to jump out of the Buddha’s palm, though he thought he had journeyed to the end of the world, makes the Buddha seem to transcend this order. On the other side of this celestial order are the pilgrims’ erstwhile kin, the demons, a colorful variety of beasts aspiring to improvement of their powers. Some of the demons have their humanlike family entanglements, notably the Bull De- mon King. Monkey himself was once a demon, so the reader gets to tour the cosmos in two directions, with two different dynamics: Monkey’s upward strug- gle bringing chaos to the heavens and the trip to outer realms bringing figures like his former self under control.

Supernatural combat and weaponry are brought to new heights, with em- phasis on transformation and containment. Monkey’s transformations are the most exuberant use of the theme in all of Chinese literature; he can be both a sky-spanning, many-headed monster and an insect that can fly into the body of his foes. In this most famous work of supernatural literature, these pyrotechnic and acrobatic displays can serve both as pure entertainment and as allegory for the struggles of the self.

Journey to the West can also be placed in the context of religious novels. It furthers the cult of Kuan-yin, and Sun Wu-k’ung himself becomes a transcen- dent god. Other Ming novels of gods and magic were more clearly related to established cults, although there is similarly a blend of entertainment spectacle with the religious content. Examples include the derivatively titled works of journeys to the other cardinal directions: Tung-yu chi (Journey to the East, about the eight hsien of popular legend), Nan-yu chi (Journey to the South, about Hua Kuang [Flower Light]), and Pei-yu chi (Journey to the North, about Chen- wu [True Martiality]). All three are associated with the Fukien publisher Yü Hsiang-tou (late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries), and all represent a more popular level of the Ming novel. Vernacular fiction tends to concentrate on the more rebellious and unconventional divinities, which fit the strengths of the genre for description of action and comedy. These novels often serve as the most unified records for story cycles about divinities that clearly developed earlier. Full-length vernacular novels can contain the long story cycles of major popular divinities, as opposed to the more local and private encounter with the supernatural in the classical tale.

Tung Yüeh’s (1620–1686) sequel to Journey to the West, “Hsi-yu” pu (Sup- plement to Journey to the West; some think it is the work of Tung and his father)

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inserts its plot in the middle of the earlier novel, as the entire plot is Monkey’s dream. This novel is a unique exploration of the theme of dream, the only Chinese novel that actually imitates the dizzying, illogical shifts of a dream.

Another category of supernatural fiction is that of satirical works. Chan-kuei chuan (Tale of Beheading Ghosts, by Liu Chang, published 1701) depicts the legendary demon slayer Chung K’uei; his foes are the ghosts that populate the human world, rather than those from the underworld. Demonic disguise allows for caricature of human vice and the satisfaction of seeing it destroyed. The first half of Ching hua yüan, as we have seen above, uses the strange nations of the Shan hai ching for satirical purposes, while the later chapters of the novel instead use the supernatural as an allegory for vice.

L I A O - C H A I A N D O T H E R S

After Journey to the West, P’u Sung-ling’s (1640–1715) Liao-chai chih-yi (Strange Tales from Make-Do Studio) is the most celebrated work of literature of the supernatural in the Chinese tradition; it is viewed as the pinnacle of the chih- kuai and ch’uan-ch’i traditions. Liao-chai chih-yi has antecedents in the chih- kuai revival of the second half of the Ming, discussed in chapter 37. In terms of the subject matter on the simplest level, one can usually find comparable material in earlier collections; but P’u Sung-ling always gives it his own twist. P’u is not interested in establishing clear rules for the behavior of the super- natural, but allows each story to be its own fictional universe.

P’u Sung-ling continues the T’ang ch’uan-ch’i innovation of combining the marvel with psychological depth. He is particularly fascinated with the super- natural romance, allowing female ghosts and foxes to be integrated into the human family. He is just as interested in the variations of human domesticity as he is in the strange; the two are combined in startling patterns. Psychological interests also lead to a subtle understanding of the relationship between human desire and its manifestation in magical creatures, as well as the power of human desire to alter reality. Wishes do come true in P’u’s world, but never as the wisher would have imagined.

P’u Sung-ling’s work was widely imitated, but not entirely successfully, with both romantic fulfillment and moral retribution becoming rote. More interest- ing is the work of those who disagreed with him on a deep level, especially Chi Yün (1724–1805). His Yüeh-wei ts’ao-t’ang pi-chi (Sketches from the Cottage for the Contemplation of Subtleties) is distinguished by an effort to make the supernatural make sense and obey certain explicable rules. The principle he seeks in the world is above all moral, with many of his stories having moral purposes. He can be seen as an extreme example of a compulsion in the Ch’ing dynasty to explain the supernatural, but he will occasionally admit he is baffled. He eschews creatures with any claim of superiority over the human world,

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concentrating instead on the ghosts and foxes who are close to our status, acting as both our mirrors and acerbic observers of our foibles. His world of the super- natural consists largely of conversation: exorcisms are decided by verbal argu- ment, foxes and ghosts lecture on their condition, and he records his own social circle’s debate on the meaning of the anecdotes they share.

The tradition of writing about the supernatural continues in the late Ch’ing; Western-style periodicals such as the daily newspaper Shen pao (Shanghai News) and the illustrated magazine Tien-shih-chai hua-pao (Lithography Studio Illustrated) also contain familiar chih-kuai material, tales of haunting foxes or moral retribution, in that new framework. Both vernacular and classical fiction of the supernatural continued to be composed into the Republican period, and traditional supernatural themes and motifs continue to be evoked in the liter- ature and the films of the People’s Republic.

Rania Huntington