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chapter 4
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
For noble and commoner alike, the scourge of illness was perhaps the most compelling evidence for the existence of demons. Chinese attrib- uted illness, like misfortune in general, either to adventitious affliction by some malefic entity or to just punishment inflicted on the victim for his or her own moral transgressions. Thus the agents of sickness and plague were sometimes perceived as demons, and in other cases as the minions of divine justice. This ambiguity was also characteristic of the Wutong cult. Wutong was feared as an evil spirit that visited sickness and other miseries on luckless innocents, yet Wutong also appeared as a benevolent god who delivered the community from plague. In Wutong, the demonic and the divine were folded into a single entity. In the realm of illness and disease, as in Chinese religion in general, the emphasis shifted away from ancestors or malevolent ghosts toward gods and their underlings as the primary sources of supernatural affliction. From the Song dynasty onward a class of specialized gods emerged to whom com- munities would appeal for deliverance from the ravages of epidemic dis- ease. Some of these gods were portrayed as stalwart champions of their mortal clients, but in other cases plague deities shaded toward the de- monic, for they were perceived as both cause and cure.
An abiding concern with illness and its causes and remedies appears already in the Shang oracle bone divinations, which were principally de- voted to securing the well-being of the Shang ruling class. The Shang at- tributed many physical infirmities to a common etiology: the curse of an
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ancestor. To the Shang, illness was not a discrete set of pathologies to be treated by specific therapies collectively categorized as “medicine.” In- stead, illness, like war and harvest failure, was an ominous symptom of a rupture in the reciprocal economy of exchange between deified ances- tors and their mortal descendants. In the oracle bone inscriptions, the word “curse” (sui) generally signified illnesses inflicted by direct ances- tors or other spirits of the dead. Treatment therefore centered on pla- cating the offended spirit with offerings and reestablishing ritual harmony between the dead and the living. The Shang apparently also believed that some illnesses resulted from demonic affliction in the form of “evil wind.” But there is no evidence that the Shang utilized drugs or any other kind of medication to cure illness, nor do we find a group of healers other than the diviners who interpreted oracles received from the dead.1
Belief in demonic causes of illness remained prominent in the Zhou and Han eras as well. Despite the efforts on the part of the Zhou to erad- icate the ancestor cults of the Shang, the belief that the dead could harm the living persisted, spurring the invention of exorcistic therapies to com- bat demonic attack. Whereas the Shang concept of illness revolved around propitiation of dead kin and nurturing the symbiosis of ancestors and descendants, Zhou lore tended to emphasize the malevolence of the dead, particularly ghosts seeking revenge. A cogent example of Zhou belief in the demonic nature of illness appears in the Chronicles of Zuo’s account of the sudden death of the Marquis of Jin in 581 b.c.e. The marquis is reported to have had a dream in which he was visited by an ancestral spirit of the Zhao lineage, which the marquis had ruthlessly massacred two years before. The giant, menacing figure—readily recognizable as a demon by his “disheveled, unbound hair hanging to the ground”— gravely announced that he had petitioned the Celestial Thearch for per- mission to punish the marquis for his iniquity, and the supreme deity had granted his request. Sure enough, the marquis was struck by a sickness that neither spirit mediums nor physicians could cure, and he died soon after.2 The belief that the ghosts of the wrongfully dead exacted revenge by inflicting illness on those responsible for their deaths endured in pop- ular belief throughout Chinese history.
But demonic affliction did not necessarily spring from this kind of per- sonal animus. Sudden outbreaks of disease or perturbations of the mind were often regarded as random events caused by malignant, though not necessarily evil, entities. The entries in the Classic of the Mountains and Seas suggest that the most common maladies travelers in strange lands were likely to suffer were derangement (huo) and malefic poisoning (gu).3
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“Derangement” was a general term for infections of the mind that caused delusions, erratic behavior, and physical illness. Episodes of huo were typically blamed on demonic possession. Gu, already identified in the Shang oracle bones as a baneful affliction, appears to have been a gen- eral term for black magic, but gu also denoted a variety of debilitating illnesses.4 One of the most systematic discussions of gu appears in a fa- mous dialogue between a later Marquis of Jin and the renowned physi- cian He recorded in the Chronicles of Zuo. In 541 b.c.e., the marquis fell ill and summoned He to cure him. Physician He diagnosed the mar- quis’s ailment as a case of gu, which He described as a degenerative ill- ness caused by sensual, especially sexual, indulgence. The learned doc- tor advised his patient that the most certain cure required that the marquis rein in his unbridled concupiscence.5 The connection between gu and se- duction by women insinuated in Physician He’s admonitions also in- formed the widespread conviction that gu was a form of witchcraft. Wugu, or black magic practiced by sorcerers, figured in the most noto- rious witchcraft scandal of the Han dynasty, which occurred in 91 b.c.e., in the twilight years of the megalomaniac emperor Wu (r. 140–87 b.c.e.). This case, which was rife with sexual innuendo, centered on ac- cusations that certain officials and even imperial princesses had used gu witchcraft in an attempt on the aged emperor’s life. The hysteria whipped up by these charges, the investigations they prompted, and the recrimi- nations launched by the targets of the accusers resulted in hundreds of deaths, including the executions of the most powerful civil official in the empire and two of Wu’s daughters.6 In this instance the sorcerers allegedly employed effigies and spells to curse their victims, but in later accounts gu witchcraft involved the use of poisons concocted from venomous rep- tiles and insects. Physician He identified gu with flying insects spawned by rotting grain, and later texts linked gu to maggots; such associations echoed the common belief that parasitic worms living in the human body could cause illness and death.7
The earliest surviving medical literature demonstrates that belief in the demonic origins of illness was deeply entrenched at the highest lev- els of Han society. The ancient medical treatise Recipes for Fifty-Two Ail- ments, recovered from the early Han tombs at Mawangdui (dated to 168 b.c.e.), prescribed a broad range of therapies for the alleviation of com- mon ailments, both internal and external. What is striking about these remedies is their frequent recourse to spells and other exorcistic tech- niques such as ritual dances, magical weapons, and purgative drugs. From the evidence of this text, which probably drew on a medical tradition
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dating back to the Warring States period, we can conclude that physi- cians routinely engaged in exorcism, uttering maledictions against inva- sive demons and summoning spirits to drive them out of the victim’s body. The use of these exorcistic incantations demonstrates once again the con- viction that knowledge of a demon’s identity endowed one with power over it.8
The rise of correlative cosmology in the Warring States and early Han periods profoundly altered Chinese conceptions of disease and medicine. Human anatomy and, even more importantly, the functions of the body were easily analogized to the organic processes of cyclical change, de- pletion, and renewal embedded in Five Phases and yin/yang cosmologies. These ideas crystallized into a sizable corpus of homeopathic medicine that linked the microcosmic functions of the body to the macrocosmic phenomena of the natural world. This emerging medical discourse postu- lated that human physiology was governed not only by the individual’s own actions, but also by the movements of celestial bodies, the alter- nation of the seasons, and the constantly changing natural environment. The salience of any particular set of these ruling principles at a given time dictated the proper means of regulating the body through con- sumption of food and drink; schedules of movement and rest; choice of clothing, lodging, and all other appurtenances of daily life; and disci- pline of conduct and the emotions. The new medical tradition repre- sented the correlations between the functions of the body and their gov- erning macrocosmic forces in terms of qi, which in this context perhaps can be translated as “vital humors.” Illness resulted from disruption of the normative rhythms of the body, which in turn was attributed not to evil demons but to “pathogenic humors” (xieqi). The therapies gener- ated by this medical discourse spurned exorcistic practices in favor of regulation of the body and behavior in harmony with the macrocosmic environment.9
During the early Han dynasty, then, various theories of human phys- iology that disparaged demonic invasion as the principal cause of dis- ease began to coalesce into what eventually became the classical tradi- tion of Chinese medicine. Although antecedents of this new conception of the body can be glimpsed in the Mawangdui medical texts, it emerges clearly in the anthology of medical writings known as The Inner Canon of Huangdi (Huangdi neijing), compiled in the first century b.c.e.10 The heterogeneous texts united in The Inner Canon did not constitute a sin- gle coherent tradition, but they established a core of basic ideas about the structure and function of the body. The body was conceived in terms
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of twelve functional vessels and the conduits connecting them, through which vital humors circulated. The physiology of circulation of vital hu- mors through these vessels and conduits was based on analogy with in- ternal organs of the body rather than anatomical evidence of the work- ings of specific organs, blood vessels, muscles, nerves, etc. The kidneys, for example, were classified as yin vessels in which the latent energetic forces of the body were concentrated, while on the psychic level the kid- neys were associated with willpower and susceptibility to fear.11 Med- ical therapy aimed at ensuring that vital humors circulated without ob- struction through these conduits and vessels. This nascent canon of medical knowledge still admitted the importance of external influences on bodily functions, though. The application of analogical reasoning de- rived from correlative cosmology to the vessels of the body ramified into a complex system of correspondences between bodily functions and cos- mological processes.
Essential to this new conception of the body was the idea that the in- dividual assumed primary responsibility for his or her own health and well-being. Health and sickness were commonly expressed through po- litical metaphors. Indeed, the transitive verb zhi was employed for both “cure” and “rule.” The body came to be understood as a country headed by a ruler (the mind) in concert with his officials (organic processes identi- fied with the five viscera) and populated by a coterie of spirits that ani- mated the body and regulated its functions. As ruler of one’s own body, each individual must conduct his or her life in such a way as to harmo- nize the vital humors within the body with the ever-changing macrocos- mic qi.12 Using the terms of Ge Hong’s simile, the person who avoids dissipation and preserves the vitality of his body will prolong his life, just as the austere ruler who nurtures the welfare of his subjects thereby perpetuates his rule.13
By the second century c.e., the disparate strains of homeopathic med- icine based on correlative cosmology became synthesized and codified into a “classical” canon of medical orthodoxy, one perhaps best described as “qi medicine.”14 Yet, while qi medicine triumphed as the dominant medical orthodoxy, it did not eradicate older beliefs in the demonic causes of illness and disease. Malign demons resurfaced in the subtly altered form of numinous influences, often given concrete expression as gods and spirits, emanating from celestial bodies and other phenomena of the natural world. One example is the baleful star known as Taisui, which shadowed the progress of Jupiter in its twelve-year rotation through the heavens. The “lodging” that Jupiter occupied in the firmament had its
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corresponding region on earth. As Jupiter moved through its celestial or- bit, it brought blessings and good harvests to its terrestrial equivalent. But Taisui, moving in the reverse direction, sowed death and calamity in the regions that fell under its baleful influence. In popular belief, though, Jupiter and Taisui became conflated, and people sought to ward off the influence of Jupiter as well.15 The two chapters of Wang Chong’s book devoted to belief in baleful asterisms attest to the prevalence of the fears aroused by Jupiter/Taisui. Wang also bore witness to the frequent re- course to talismans and exorcisms to protect mortals from this chief of the spirits of pestilence.16 The movements of another celestial spirit, Taiyi (who, as mentioned earlier, also figured as the supreme deity in official Han religion), were also linked to illness and death. The conjunction of the location of Taiyi and the direction of the wind was said to deter- mine whether the wind would have malefic or auspicious effects. If the wind blew from the direction of Taiyi, blessings would ensue; but wind blowing in the opposite direction was an evil wind that caused sickness. The etiology of disease caused by Taisui or wind was couched in metaphors of war and combat. For example, Taisui, or alternatively wind, “launched offensives” (chong) against the victims of disease, who must mobilize their body’s defenses (“camps” and “guards”) to repel this de- monic invasion.17
The demonic conception of disease also survived in the enduring belief that violent death left a residue of morbidity that could infect the living, a fear vividly expressed in the idea that victims of violent or premature death lingered in the mortal world as ghosts. (Indeed, another meaning of gu in Han times was demonic affliction caused by vengeful ghosts.) The malignant touch of these ghosts, much like the Shang curse of the ancestor, could result in potentially fatal illness. Exorcism was deemed the most effective remedy. “Ghosts of those who die violent deaths fre- quently inflict illness on mortals,” wrote the commentator Gao You around the turn of the third century c.e., “but sorcerers are able to ex- terminate them by means of conjuration and inquest (zhuhe).”18 The ex- orcist’s use of spells to subject demons to summary investigation, judg- ment, and execution reflected his role as a magistrate of the world of shades. Just as the Lord of Mount Tai and his underlings conducted searching judicial inquiry into the mortal conduct of the dead, so too could the exorcist assume the mantle of bureaucratic authority in order to discipline and punish wayward demons.
As is true for most Chinese mythology, mythical accounts of the causes of plague appear fairly late in the written record, in texts of the
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Warring States and early Han eras. One myth, evidently widespread in the Han, traced the origins of disease to the ill-fated progeny of the an- cient sage-king Zhuanxu. Although Zhuanxu was celebrated in Zhou legends for siring eight talented sons who were boons to humanity, it was also said that Zhuanxu had three sons who died in childbirth and became plague demons: the fever demon (nuegui), who dwelled in the Great River (presumably the Yangzi); the wangliang inhabiting the Ruo River19 (elsewhere described as mountain goblins, in this instance the wangliang were associated with water, more properly the domain of the wangxiang); and a third who lurked in the dark, dank corners of human dwellings and frightened children.20 The sons of Zhuanxu who died in childbirth clearly belonged to the category of the ghosts of those who suffered untimely deaths and continue to haunt the world of the living. According to Cai Yong (132–92), the Great Exorcism (Nuo), one of the most important rites of the Han court’s ceremonial calendar, was performed primarily to drive these plague demons from the palace precincts.21
The Great Exorcism was a spectacular ritual conducted at the time of the midwinter La festival, when the cosmic powers of death and decay were at their height, to expel demonic influences prior to the inaugura- tion of the New Year. The Great Exorcism is best known through de- scriptions of its performance in connection with the state cult, but sim- ilar rites were conducted by the populace at large.22 The most detailed account of the Great Exorcism appears in the poet Zhang Heng’s (78–139) “Ode to the Eastern Capital.” In Zhang’s description of the Great Exorcism, the chief exorcist, known as the fangxiang, donned an animal mask and led an assembly of officials through a series of purga- tions aimed at eradicating twelve classes of baleful demons. Palace at- tendants clad in fur, feathers, and horns masqueraded as the evil demons. The exorcist called upon specific deities to “devour” the demons, and with a great flourish of weapons the assembly dispatched each group in a specific manner of execution (e.g., mutilation, decapitation, or drown- ing).23 Although little is known of the character of the plague-expelling deities invoked to repel the demons, it seems that they were associated with both the twelve months of the year and the twelve points of the compass, and thus represented guardian deities deployed across both space and time.24
The Great Exorcism thus was a rite of mortification and purification wherein exorcists impersonated spirits in order to stage a ritual combat
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against the specters of pestilence, drought, flood, and other calamities. The Rituals of Zhou described the fangxiang who presided over the Great Exorcism as “clad in a black tunic and crimson robe and having a bear (or tiger) skin with four golden eyes draped over his head, while grasp- ing a lance and shield in his hands.”25 The bear headdress with four golden eyes suggests a totemic mask that endowed the wearer with su- pernatural powers, and many authors have concluded that the fangxiang was a type of shaman. William Boltz argues convincingly for seeing the fangxiang as a conjurer of visions, a phantasmagoricist who enables the troops of exorcists under his command to visualize and then put to death the multitude of specters that afflict humankind.26 But the fangxiang was indeed a shaman in the sense that he was someone who impersonated the demonic spirits he sought to exterminate. The striking semantic re- semblance between the names of the fangxiang and his chief adversary, the demonic fangliang, reinforces this sense of the fangxiang as a posi- tive alter ego of the forces of disorder. Impersonation of spirits as a means of enabling mortals to communicate with them was a common feature of Chinese religious life. The Odes describes the use of mediums in an- cestral rites to impersonate the dead and enable them to partake of the food offerings sacrificed to them, a practice that was still current in the Han dynasty.27
Although the Great Exorcism also aimed at eradicating demons rep- resenting calamities of fire and water, its main theme was the expulsion of pestilence (zhuyi, zhuli).28 Individual households also performed rit- uals of expiation known as Nuo on the eve of the New Year as a means of protecting family members from sickness and pestilence.29 One of these Nuo rites, recorded in a Han prognostication text but apparently ple- beian in origin, involved tossing beans, sesame seeds, and locks of fam- ily members’ hair into the household well while uttering a spell invok- ing the well spirit’s protection against the “plague demons of the five directions” (wufang yigui).30 In Tang times, Huangdi was credited with inventing the Nuo ritual as a means of expelling “evil specters” (yao- jing), “fevers” (zhen), and “drifting, wandering, floating ghosts.” Rather than annihilating these malign spirits, though, the ritual was supposed to banish them beyond the frontiers, at a safe remove from the commu- nity. This theme of expulsion of pestilential spirits outside the bound- aries of the community later became a common motif of plague cults. We find no mention of the fangxiang exorcist in descriptions of the pop- ular Nuo of Tang times. Instead, the ritual typically invoked the de-
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monifuge spirit Zhong Kui to drive away malicious spirits, though in some cases the deities of the underworld such as Yama, the Lord of Mount Tai, or the General of the Five Paths of Rebirth (Wudao jiangjun) were summoned to reclaim the vagabond souls of the dead.31
Of the twelve classes of demons mentioned by Zhang Heng as targets of the Great Exorcism, the only ones specifically linked to plague and epidemic were mysterious specters known as the Wild Youths and Rov- ing Lights (yezhong32 youguang). Xue Zong (d. 243), in his gloss on Zhang’s poem, identified the Wild Youths and Roving Lights as “evil spir- its,” adding that they were a group of eight brothers who often engaged in malice in the world of mortals.33 The Dunhuang manuscript of the Al- bum of the Specters and Apparitions of White Marsh also identified the Wild Youths and Roving Lights as a demon gang of eight brothers whose appearance foretells many deaths from plague throughout the empire.34
The illustration accompanying this passage depicts a group of eight youths surrounding a fire-cart (figure 13). The fire-cart may reflect Bud- dhist influence; in the Treatise of the Perfection of Wisdom, one of the most influential Mahàyàna texts in Chinese Buddhism, sinners are trans- ported to hell in a fire-cart, and later Buddhist depictions of the under- world include a “fire-cart hell.”35 But the fire-cart also symbolized an excess of yang humors, believed to be one of the chief causes of sickness. Already in Han times the Roving Lights plague spirits were associated with exorcisms conducted on Double Fifth (Duanwu, the fifth day of the fifth month), which immediately preceded the summer solstice, the apogee of fiery yang influence, as well as the midwinter Great Exorcism. The winter and summer solstices were deemed the most dangerous times of the year, because mortals were especially susceptible to demonic in- vasion at these times of extreme imbalances of yin (winter) and yang (sum- mer) influences in the cosmos. Not surprisingly, then, the rituals per- formed both on Double Fifth and at the midwinter La festival, held around the time of the winter solstice, were principally devoted to ex- orcising baleful forces.
The association of disease with the hot, humid climate of the south, the direction of fiery yang, and the increased activity of insects and other loathsome vermin during the summer probably reinforced the notion that the fifth month was a time of great vulnerability to disease. Indeed, throughout the entire fifth lunar month Chinese scrupulously obeyed nu- merous taboos and took precautions to protect themselves from pesti- lence and other kinds of misfortune. As the Han ritual calendar, the Monthly Ordinances (Yueling), observed:
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In [the fifth] month the days attain their greatest length. Then yin again contends with yang, and death once again begins to overtake life. The su- perior man fasts and follows ritual taboos, remaining in retirement at home and avoiding violent activity. He puts a halt to music and spectacles, keeps his distance from women, curbs his intake of food, and avoids spicy flavors. He restrains his desires and soothes his spirit. The corps of officials cease judicial proceedings and inflict no corporal punishments. In these ways the transition to Ascending Yin can proceed in orderly fashion.36
The extremes of yin and yang were equally hazardous during this limi- nal period of cosmological transition. Ying Shao, writing in the late sec- ond century, mentioned the custom of “wearing the five colors to ward off the five weapons” (wubing; a metaphor for demonic attack) at the time of the summer solstice in connection with exorcising the Roving Lights demons. Ying reported that an epidemic that swept through the capital during the Yongjian reign period (126–31 c.e.) was blamed on
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Figure 13. Wild Youths and Roving Lights, depicted pulling a fire-cart. The caption reads: “When abroad at night one might see the light of a fire, and underneath it several tens of youths who carry a fire-cart on their heads. These creatures constitute a single group, but they are given the names ‘Roving Lights’ and ‘Wild Youths.’ If you see them, the empire will be afflicted by epidemic and death. The youths are eight brothers.” Dunhuang ms. of Album of the Specters and Apparitions of White Marsh, ninth to tenth century. From Pelliot no. 2682, rpt. in Dunhuang baozang 123: 287. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France © BnF.
plague demons known as the Wild Youths and Roving Lights. Afterward people ascribed outbreaks of epidemic to these same demons and wore five-colored silk cloths embroidered with the legend “Roving Lights” to render themselves immune. “Wearing the five colors,” Ying explained, referred to attaching small pieces of green, red, white, black, and yellow silk to one’s clothing as protective amulets.37 Colored silk streamers also were tied to the entrance gates of homes to ward off plague. Plague ex- orcism rites grew increasingly elaborate during the Era of Disunion. A sixth-century work on annual festivals reports that in south China on Double Fifth people used mugwort (which, because of its red color and pungent aroma, was regarded as a powerful vermifuge) to bind up effigies (presumably representing the plague demons) and hang them from their gateways in order to dispel “pathogenic humors.” They also wore col- ored silk ribbons attached to their sleeves, and silently intoned the name of the “demonic Roving Lights” to protect themselves against infection from virulent disease.38
The Great Exorcism and Double Fifth rituals both portray the ex- pulsion of plague demons as a violent combat against heinous, terrify- ing creatures. In many remedies for demonic affliction preserved in the Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments, the physician or the spirits he conjures subjugate the demon by violent means, using magical weapons such as a rammer, a thuja-wood pestle, or an iron hammer.39 A relief carving from the Wu family shrine, constructed in the mid-second century c.e., very likely illustrates a conjurer engaged in just such an exorcism. The relief shows two figures, one wielding an axe and the other a hammer, com- ing to the rescue of the central figure, who is writhing in the clutches of a snake (the snake, of course, was a common metaphor for demonic afflic- tion). Another figure, with fin-shaped legs, gesticulates in the background; this figure presumably is a spirit medium summoning the warrior spir- its to kill or expel the demon.40 Ying Shao’s invocation of the five weapons as a metaphor for attack by plague demons undoubtedly alludes to Chiyou, the reputed creator of the five weapons. As noted in chapter 1, Chiyou was venerated in Han times as an apotropaic deity who uses his formidable arsenal to drive off evil spirits. Indeed, the fangxiang exor- cist described in the Rituals of Zhou closely resembles descriptions of Chiyou, and it has been argued that the fangxiang assumes the alter ego of Chiyou to conduct the Great Exorcism.41 A Han relief carving from a second-century c.e. tomb, which has been identified as an illustration of the Great Exorcism rite, portrays Chiyou as a demonifuge acting at
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the behest of the fangxiang exorcist (figure 14).42 In this frieze, the figure at the far right, wearing a headdress with bearlike ears, is shown in the act of devouring a man, which recalls the metaphorical use of “devour” to connote demonic attack. The cannibal, undoubtedly a demon, is con- fronted by another fantastic bearlike creature flourishing five weapons, most notably a crossbow above his head. This figure, which appears re- peatedly in Han mortuary art, can be firmly identified as Chiyou.43 To Chiyou’s right stands another figure, presumably the fangxiang exorcist, with a bear headdress and holding a shield and sword. Behind the fang- xiang a series of figures run toward the demon carrying not conventional weapons but rather ladles, spades, and a flask. These demonifuge spir- its battle demons by dousing them with some sort of purgative water or elixir. The efficacy of purgative waters for dispelling demonic invasion is well attested in other Han sources.44 The mural’s depiction of illness and cure as a mortal combat between violent demons and guardian war- rior spirits again reminds us of the martial metaphors commonly used in Han medical texts.
In addition to rites of exorcistic combat tied to the ritual calendar, Chinese of the Han era employed a wide variety of charms and talismans to ward off sickness and plague. Recourse to such devices was at least as common as use of medicinal substances to cure illness. Among the flora and fauna mentioned in the older sections of the Classic of the Mountains and Seas, thirty-nine species are identified as having medici- nal (primarily demonifugic) value and twenty-nine were worn on the body for protection against demons.45 Wearing talismans and amulets prepared by sorcerers and priests was a common practice among all ranks of so- ciety. For example, a girdle ornament known as a gangmao, made of jade, ivory, metal, or peach wood and engraved with an apotropaic charm, was worn on the body as protection against illness (figure 15).46 We have already encountered Ge Hong’s claims that possession of sacred books like the Writs of the Three Sovereigns protected one’s home from vari- ous malign influences, including “humors of illness and plague.” Simi- larly, if travelers carried on their person the diagram of the True Image of the Southern Marchmount (south being the direction of fire and plague), “the five kinds of pestilence will not draw near.”47 The wood of peach and thuja trees was deemed especially baneful to demons. Many of the remedies included in the third-century b.c.e. “spellbinding” text involved making weapons such as arrows, hammers, swords, or staves out of jujube, mulberry, or peach wood.48 Door guardians representing
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods 109
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the demonifuge spirits Shenshu and Yulü also were typically carved from peach wood, reflecting a tradition said to have been initiated by Huangdi himself.49
The emerging canon of qi medicine explicitly condemned belief in demonic origins of illness and epidemic as vulgar superstitions. Wang Chong, diligently seeking rational explanations for mysterious phe- nomena, scoffed at his contemporaries’ misguided belief in ghosts as agents of disease, which to his mind was rooted in terror of the unknown:
Ghosts in this world are not apparitions of the spirits of the deceased; rather, they are spawned from the thoughts and ideas of men. Whence do these thoughts arise? Why, from illness. When men fall ill they become anxious and fearful, and in this state of mind they begin to see ghosts. None who are in good health entertain such anxieties and fears. Thus those confined to sickbeds live in terror of ghosts coming after them; once these anxieties are fixed in the mind, then the eye sees what does not exist.50
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Figure 15. Gangmao amulet. The inscription on the amulet on the right reads: “First month of the year, zenith of firm mao day. This divine wand is made foursquare; red, blue, white, yellow, the four colors inhere in it. The Thearch [Di] commands Zhurong [ruler of fire] to instruct the kui and dragons. Vile vermin and foul pestilence, none dare defy me.” The left can be tentatively translated as: “ Inauspicious day, harsh mao. The Thearch commands the changeling kui. Obedient, they surely yield, transforming this divine wand. So balanced, so square; so even, so straight. Vile vermin and foul pestilence, none dare defy me.” From Tianjinshi yishu bowuguan 1993, plate 124. Cour- tesy of the Tianjin Municipal Museum of Art.
In Wang’s view, human frailty, both of body and spirit, readily explained the tenacity of belief in ghosts and spirits. A fragment of a lost chapter of the Zhuangzi ridicules popular beliefs, too, but it also suggests that exorcism rituals actually had therapeutic value, even if the credulous masses failed to understand it:
The Roaming Bird asked Xiong Huang, “Why is it that nowadays people strike drums and cry and shout to expel demons and ward off plague?”
Xiong Huang replied: “The black-headed masses suffer from many ill- nesses. Thus, Huangdi dispatched Sorcerer Xian, who instructed the black- headed masses to perform ablutions and fasting in order to open up the Nine Apertures; to strike drums and ring bells in order to rouse their hearts; to exercise their bodies marching in processions in order to stimulate the yin and yang humors; to drink wine and consume vegetarian feasts in order to unblock the Five Viscera. As for striking drums and crying and shouting to expel demons and ward off plague, it is simply a matter of the black- headed masses, in their ignorance, believing that illness is caused by demonic curse.”51
The author of this passage provided a rational basis, grounded in the precepts of qi medicine, for exorcism rituals. Although belief in demons could be dismissed as mere superstition, the physical activity of ritual performance had the beneficial effect of stimulating the circulation of vi- tal humors throughout the body. But the strident tone of skeptics who derided belief in demonic affliction in itself bears witness to its tenacious hold on popular psychology.
Wang Chong, too, subscribed to the new medical orthodoxy based on qi humors. He attributed disease to somatic causes, especially inade- quate hygiene and nutrition, that produced imbalances in the body’s vi- tal humors. Even more important in the spread of disease, though, was human ignorance of the real etiology of illness:
Among the acute diseases afflicting humankind, rare are those that are not caused by wind and damp, or food and drink. After falling ill from expo- sure to wind or sleeping in the damp, the vulgar masses foolishly empty their purses and hire soothsayers to determine the cause of the curse they believe has been laid upon them. And after stuffing their bellies in glutton- ous feasting, such people devote themselves to fasting and bathing to dispel the sickness that results. If the illness does not abate, it is said that the exor- cism was not performed properly; if the patient dies, then the medium is blamed for committing some ritual error. . . .
In cases where many people die in a brief span of time, with as many as ten coffins interred at once, people do not attribute the deaths to a contam- ination of qi, but rather to a baneful day of interment. Misfortune is blamed on some ritual transgression, rather than finding a cause in the physical
112 Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
conditions of their existence: namely, the dilapidated, uninhabitable houses in which they live, infested with vermin and infected by putrifying corpses.52
Crowded together in such hovels, these unfortunates pray to their ancestors to alleviate the calamities that have befallen them. In cases of acute illness they do not seek the counsel of physicians, but rather harbor dire fears of lapses in ritual piety.53
Elsewhere, Wang Chong’s convictions about the environmental causes of disease led him to argue that the southern regions of the empire were unfit for human habitation. The toxic “fierce qi” of the hot, fetid south, the land of “Great Yang,” infected not only the landscape and its crea- tures, but also the human beings who dwelled there. “The people of Chu and Yue are frenzied and febrile,” Wang—himself a native of Yue (mod- ern Zhejiang)—declaimed. “When southerners curse a tree, it dies; when they spit at a bird, it falls dead.” It was precisely because of their birth “south of the Great River” that southern sorcerers possessed the power to cure the sick or curse the healthy by means of spells and incantations. By the same token, the myriad creatures of the south were exceedingly poisonous and injurious to humans. While the ignorant say that these creatures are “demons,” in fact their morbidity is a result of the patho- logical excess of Great Yang characteristic of the southern regions.54 Wang could thus comfortably reconcile the vaunted efficacy of the spells of southern sorcerers and the prevalence of disease in the south with his faith in the tenets of qi medicine.
But Wang Chong also delineated a moral etiology of plague, one that reaffirmed prevailing concepts of divine retribution. In his rebuttal against claims that the Great Exorcism was necessary to prevent epi- demics, Wang argued that pestilence and other calamities act as barom- eters of the ruler’s virtue. Thus the virtuous sage-kings of antiquity re- quired no recourse to sorcerers and exorcists, but the reign of evil in the days of the tyrants Jie and Zhou unleashed rampant disease and devas- tation.55 Wang shared with the learned men of his time the belief that a supreme deity governed human existence and expressed displeasure with or approval of the ruler’s actions through “disasters and marvels.”56 In the new religious movements of the later Han dynasty, this notion of di- vine retribution became fused with an apocalyptic messianism, produc- ing a radically different understanding of illness that rejected both the exorcistic practices of the fangshi and the homeopathic therapies of qi medicine.
The founders of the Celestial Masters and Great Peace sects in the sec- ond century c.e., Zhang Lu and Zhang Jue, first gained audiences as
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods 113
preachers and healers. Both sects rejected conventional medical arts and insisted that faith healing alone could cure the ills that tormented hu- manity. Although these religious teachers shared their contemporaries’ beliefs in the demonic origin of illness, they also impressed on their fol- lowers the stern warning that illness was a punishment for moral trans- gressions. Invading demons were not simply malevolent parasites, but rather agents of moral authority acting in the name of divine judgment. Thus healing must begin with contrition and penance. Confession of sins was central to both the Celestial Masters and Great Peace sects. The Ce- lestial Masters congregations practiced mass rituals of confession and penitence; in addition, they stipulated that victims of illness must write letters of repentance to the ruling gods of heaven, earth, and water (the Sanguan or Three Offices) seeking absolution for their sins. Similarly, the healing regimen propagated by Zhang Jue consisted of a threefold for- mula of repentance, absolution, and exorcism. Once the stricken person had demonstrated remorse and pledged to sin no more, the priest pre- pared a talisman that served as a warrant summoning spirit warriors to come to the aid of the victim. The talisman was then burned and im- mersed in consecrated water, which the victim drank. Finally, marshalling the spirit warriors through spells and ritual dance, the priest exorcised the disease and restored the victim to health.57
The idea that illness was punishment for moral and ritual transgres- sions of course dated back at least to the Shang dynasty. But the correl- ative cosmology that dominated Warring States and Han thought largely ignored the causes and conditions of individual existence and focused instead on the supreme role of the ruler in maintaining cosmic harmony. The “tremblings of heaven,” omens of misfortune that would touch all of the empire’s subjects, occupied the attention of rulers and their officials. The new religious movements of the Later Han, in contrast, shifted the site of divine retribution from the macrocosmic level of the empire to the microcosmic level of the individual person. The Canon of Great Peace (Taipingjing), revered as revealed scripture by the Celestial Masters and Great Peace sects, condemned the evils of the present era while offering a vision of a reformed society in which each individual contributed to order and peace by fulfilling the duties of their calling. The Canon thus assigned to individuals a personal moral responsibility largely absent from the classical traditions of political philosophy. Once individuals assumed the burden of responsibility for their own actions, the ruler could attain the ideal of ruling by nonaction celebrated in the Dao De Jing.58
114 Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
The moral order envisioned in the Canon of Great Peace rested on a bureaucratic infrastructure of gods and spirits engaged in constant sur- veillance of the individual’s conduct. Every sin was duly reported to the divine authorities, who subtracted a corresponding number of days, months, or years from the miscreant’s life span. Ge Hong, writing in the early fourth century, identified these watch-guard spirits as the Three Worms (Sanshi), which dwelled within the body and on every gengshen day (one of the sixty days of the Chinese calendrical cycle) reported the person’s evil deeds to the Sovereign of Life Destiny (Siming), who ad- justed the person’s life span accordingly.59 The Three Worms were be- lieved to actively seek the death of their host, and so became objects of fear and loathing.60 Yet in the eyes of the new religious movements, the agents of disease were not malevolent demons at all, but rather legiti- mate spirits duly deputized by the supreme gods to punish sinners. The plague demons of yore now became transfigured into deities acting as emissaries of divine justice.
The Daoist literature of the Era of Disunion spells out in detail the names, titles, and functions of these plague deities. Among the lengthy rosters of demons recorded in the Demon Register of Nüqing, a Celes- tial Masters text believed to date from the late fourth century, we find five “demon masters of the Five Directions” (wufang guizhu) dispatched by the supreme deities to punish the wicked and eradicate evil from the world of mortals. Each of the demon masters commands legions of plague demons who visit maladies on sinners (table 1).61 Knowledge of the es- oteric names of the demons and deities responsible for particular types of ailment or affliction that were recorded in the Demon Register of Nüqing enabled priests to heal the sick by summoning spirit warriors to repel the invading demons.62 The origin of these five demon masters is obscure, but most probably they derived from a conflation of fears of wandering ghosts and popular god cults. Especially prominent in the de- monology of the Celestial Masters are the “ghosts of the five tombs” (wumu zhi gui), who were associated with both vexed ancestral spirits and also victims of “fire, flood, calamity, bandits, and exposure.” Whereas the former brought curses down upon their descendants by filing “sepulchral suits” with the gods of the underworld, the latter were venge- ful ghosts condemned to remain in the mortal world because their corpses did not receive proper burial. Both were malignant specters whose touch caused sickness and death.63
Some of the demon masters, notably the martial spirit Zhao Gong- ming, apparently acquired a place in the popular pantheon. In one of
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods 115
ta b
le 1
. pl
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d ei
ti es
in
d a
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t te
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d p
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la r
l it
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tu r
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C ol
le ct
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Te xt
D at
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am e
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t So
ut h
W es
t N
or th
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r
N üq
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gu ilü
, 3r
d – 4t
h c.
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L iu
Z
ha ng
Z
ha o
Z ho
ng
Sh i
6. 2a
–b gu
iz hu
Y
ua nd
a Y
ua nb
o G
on gm
in g
Sh iji
W en
ye ≠ Ë ≠ D
B ∏ F
i ∏ B
Ø Ω ˙
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v  ~
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sh an
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hu
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nd a
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nb o
G on
gz ho
ng
Sh iji
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ye G
on gm
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sh en
zh ou
≠ Ë ≠ D
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jin g,
1 1.
9b
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ya o
lin gq
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ng W
uf an
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ho ng
Sh
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gu
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≠ Ë ≠ D
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: 1 19
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21 9.
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b ? r œ Ã
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x ua
n- 13
th –
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th c.
le is
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bi fa
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23 2.
3b
SS G
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xi a.
12 8,
1 25
sh iz
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in g
Sh iji
W en
ye ≠ E œ Ã
T ai
sh an
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/ T
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L i
Z ha
ng
L iu
W
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nw u
ba n-
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g yi
gu i
Z iy
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— Ê Ã ≠
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1a
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Fa n
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1 8.
8b K ° ≠ ”
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Z he
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w en
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W uf
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Z ha
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sh en
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sh iz
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2a –5
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B ei
fa ng
Z he
n- 16
01 L
iu D
a Z
ha ng
Z
ha o
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Sh i
Fa n
L i B
ia n
B ai
Q i
w u
zu sh
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Y ua
nb o
G on
gm in
g Sh
ig ui
W
en go
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qi ng
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xu an
ti an
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v  •
sh an
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sh en
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2 .3
0b
Gan Bao’s stories, the protagonist has a vision of Zhao Gongming and his ghostly horde while on his sickbed and dies shortly afterward. Gan’s comment on this story mentions a “sorcerer’s book” that depicts Zhao Gongming and Zhong Shiji as warriors dispatched by the Supreme Thearch to claim the souls of those about to die.64 This brief reference makes no mention of plague, but it suggests that Zhao Gongming, in his role as the grim reaper, had already acquired some notoriety in lay society.
Tao Hongjing, the eminent scholar and conservator of the manuscripts of the Shangqing revelations, included in his Declarations of the Perfected what he believed to be a spurious document that identifies “Zhao Gong- ming and the others spirits of the Five Directions” as tomb spirits who cause harm to the living. In his notes on this document, Tao observed that Zhao Gongming was listed as a plague demon (wengui) in the Pro- tocols of the Twelve Hundred Officers (Qian erbai guanyi).65 The actual text of the Protocols no longer exists, but it is believed to have been one of the original revealed texts of the Celestial Masters, containing the names and ranks of the entire celestial pantheon.66 On the basis of this attribution it seems likely that the pentad of Zhao Gongming et alia was none other than the “plague demons of the Five Directions” (wufang yigui) that appeared as the objects of popular New Year’s exorcisms in the Han dynasty. Support for this association comes from a much later source, a fourteenth-century hagiography of Zhang Daoling, revered by the Celestial Masters as the founder and patriarch of their religion. In this account, Zhao Gongming and the other demon masters, along with three other figures who are sometimes substituted for one or another of them, are identified as the Eight Demon Marshals. The demon marshals spread plague among mortals; each of the demon marshals was associ- ated with a particular type of physical ailment, such as fevers, diarrhea, swellings, violent fevers and chills, headaches, and “red eye.” They also haunted tombs, harassing filial children who came to pay respects to the dead and stealing offerings intended for their ancestors, and they invaded the fetuses of pregnant women. Zhang Daoling was said to have used magical powers to defeat and destroy the eight marshals and their de- mon hordes. In the end the vanquished demons make a pact with Zhang, vowing they will never again invade the world of mortals.67 The close association of this particular group of demons with themes of death, dis- ease, and tombs suggests that this late text perhaps does accurately reflect an early tradition in which malefic demons haunting tombs and ceme- teries are vanquished by, and then enter the service of, righteous gods.
The demon masters of plague also appear in the Daoist apocalyptic
118 Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
literature of the Era of Disunion. The demon masters Liu Yuanda and Zhong Shiji are mentioned as the objects of heterodox “blood sacrifice” cults in the Scripture of Divine Incantations, which suggests that they originated as local deities.68 A Tang dynasty supplement to the same text mentions not five but six demon masters. They are depicted as martial figures commanding legions of “demon-specters of the five wounds” (wushang guijing) who spread plague and disease among humankind.69
As we saw in chapter 2, Lu Xiujing, the crusading reformer who sought to purge the Celestial Masters sect of popular superstitions, listed the “demons of the five wounds” among the profane cults that commanded the allegiance of his benighted contemporaries. Lu did not elaborate on the nature of these demons, but clearly he perceived them as false gods associated with violent death. In light of the passage in the Scripture of Divine Incantations, it seems likely that the “demons of the five wounds” were dead soldiers resurrected as demon warriors in the service of the plague deities. The “five wounds” also recall Chiyou and his five weapons, which reinforces the conclusion that the term is a metaphor for plague demons.
The depictions of the Five Demon Masters as plague deities in Daoist literature of the Era of Disunion illustrate the ambiguities attending the outbreak of plague and illness. The agents of disease were seen as both deities and demons or, more precisely, as terrifying demons meting out just punishments decreed by the celestial gods. Zhao Gongming and the other demon masters probably originated as demonic figures in popular worship, but Daoist lore portrayed them as defeated adversaries of the forces of order who are conscripted into the ranks of celestial legionnaires. Most likely, though, the nuances of this conversion of wanton demons into obedient subjects of the celestial gods were lost on the public, who saw disease strictly in terms of demonic affliction, however well deserved.
The Enlarged Quest for the Divine, a religious tract that gained wide currency in Yuan and Ming times, claimed that the demon masters (identified in this text as the Five Emissaries of Plague) were worshiped on Double Fifth already in the Sui and Tang dynasties.70 The same book contains an account (probably apocryphal, since no contemporary sources corroborate it) of a dream experience of the Sui emperor Wendi (r. 581–604), in which the emperor was visited by five martial figures. After the emperor described his dream to his chief ministers, the court historian identified the apparitions as the Five Emissaries of Plague. The emperor subsequently awarded official titles to the five deities. Although we have no evidence of popular cults devoted to the Five Emissaries of
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods 119
Plague in the Sui and Tang periods, worship of the five plague deities on Double Fifth during the Song dynasty is well attested, at least for Jiangxi and Hunan in central China. The inhabitants of Lizhou in western Hu- nan, for example, organized Assemblies of the Five Plagues (Wuwenshe) that held annual festivals to ward off epidemic disease. Each cult group (she) attending these assemblies built an elaborately decorated boat in which they placed lists of their members’ names and birth dates, along with “Buddhist” religious paraphernalia. The boats were then set adrift on waterways to expel the plague deities.71 Boat exorcisms later became central features of plague cults in the coastal regions of southeastern China, such as the Wen Qiong cult in Zhejiang, the Five Emperors (Wudi) cult in Fujian, and the Lords of Pestilence (Wangye) in modern Taiwan.72
The boat exorcisms of these plague cults thus made explicit a theme fore- shadowed in the shanxiao demonology: the need to define and enforce the boundaries of community and to expel marauding demons beyond the precincts of this unified community through the intercession of pa- tron deities.
The Five Emissaries of Plague were also assimilated into the Thunder Magic rituals of the new Daoist movements of the Song dynasty such as Shenxiao (Divine Empyrean), Qingwei (Pure and Sublime), and Tianxin (Celestial Heart).73 The Thunder Magic movements arose out of local ritual traditions during the tenth and eleventh centuries, but gained na- tional exposure thanks to the zealous patronage of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100–25). Huizong sought to secure divine blessings for his rule by cre- ating a Daoist theocracy that derived its inspiration and leadership from these local sects. Rooted in the liturgical traditions of Lingbao Daoism, the Thunder Magic sects featured the use of demonifugic powers not only in healing the sick, but also to remedy a wide range of social and polit- ical problems. The primacy of Thunder Magic in Song Daoism prompted a wholesale reorientation of Daoist religious practice toward healing by means of exorcisms that took the form of judicial inquisition.74
The Thunder Magic ritual traditions of the Song departed from the firm tenet of early Daoism that illness and disease were caused by the moral transgressions of the afflicted person (or his or her ancestors). In- stead, the practitioners of Thunder rites shifted the blame for misfortune to aberrant demonic agency.75 To combat demonic attack they employed an esoteric arsenal of incantations, talismans, and seals to summon, bind, interrogate, and expel the offending spirits. From the fifth century on- ward these techniques had been closely associated with the figure of Beidi, Thearch of the North, who appears in Daoist theology as both ruler of
120 Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
the underworld and a celestial divinity. Over the course of the Tang dy- nasty various exorcistic practices associated with Beidi coalesced into a set of personal therapies and communal liturgies, which then became in- tegrated into the ritual complexes of the Tianxin and other Thunder Magic movements.76 Practitioners of Thunder Magic, who included un- lettered village healers as well as ordained Daoist priests and even gov- ernment officials, invoked one of a number of fierce demonifuge warrior gods to exorcise malevolent demons. Chief among these divine interces- sors were the Four Saints (Sisheng): Beidi (more commonly known in the Song and after by the imperially bestowed title Zhenwu, or True War- rior); Black Killer (Heisha); Heaven’s Mugwort (Tianpeng), whose cu- rious name of course alludes to the plant’s demonifugic properties; and Heavenly Benefaction (Tianyou).77 The Thunder Magic liturgies spawned a host of other demonifuge warrior-gods, one of the most important of whom was the transfigured chief of the erstwhile Five Demon Masters, Zhao Gongming.
The Five Demon Masters appear (sometimes with slight variations in personal names) in the Shenxiao and Qingwei exorcism liturgies under the titles Emissaries of the Five Thearchs (Wudi shizhe) or the Five Emis- saries of Plague (Wuwen shizhe). Zhao Gongming was canonized as one of the cardinal deities of the Qingwei movement, and also ranked as one of the Four Grand Marshals (Yuanshuai), the demonifuge spirits featured in the liturgies promulgated by the thirteenth-century masters of the Shenxiao and Qingwei traditions. In this capacity Zhao no longer ap- peared exclusively as a plague deity; instead, he exercised broad domin- ion over the legions of demon warriors abroad in the world. Nonethe- less, the Five Emissaries of Plague were key subordinates of Zhao (Zhao’s place among the five was taken by a new figure; see table 1). At least one Daoist plague exorcism liturgy was exclusively devoted to Zhang Yuanbo.78 Although these plague deities were heralded in the Thunder Magic scriptures as benefactors of humanity, in the theology of apoca- lyptic sects they reprised their older role as avenging messengers of doom.79
It was during the Song dynasty, too, that the Five Emissaries of Plague acquired definitive iconographic forms. The legend about the Sui em- peror’s dream preserved in the Enlarged Quest for the Divine describes each of the five deities as possessing a distinct type of weapon: 1) ladle and urn, 2) leather bag and sword, 3) fan, 4) hammer, and 5) fire gourd. These magic weapons, though clearly different from the five weapons of Chiyou portrayed in Han art, were reputed to be highly efficacious in
Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods 121
combating plague demons; the ladle and urn and the hammer, as we have observed, appear in Han murals depicting exorcisms (figure 14).80 The Book of Transformations, a hagiography of the divinity Zitong said to have been revealed to a medium in 1181, introduces the Five Emissaries of Plague bearing feathered insignia representing their “weapons of fire and water, and axe and chisel.” This text also depicts the five emissaries as human-beast hybrids, each with a different animal head: tiger, cock, human, crow, and donkey.81 A thirteenth-century Thunder Magic liturgy devoted to Zhao Gongming likewise describes the Five Emissaries as hav- ing animal forms, though the types of animals differ somewhat (tiger, cock, pig, horse, and “demonic visage” [guixiang]).82 These iconographic motifs also are present in a section of a liturgical painting for the Bud- dhist Land-and-Water Mass believed to date from the second half of the fifteenth century. Here the plague deities, who are identified in the ac- companying cartouche as the “Five Emissaries of Plague who rule the demon kings of illness,” appear in the forms of: 1) a crow with a sword, 2) a horse holding a gourd (the horse is surrounded by flames, which suggests that the gourd is a fire-gourd), 3) a cock with mallet and awl, 4) a tiger with a fan, and 5) an anthropoid demon with a ladle and bucket (figure 16).83 The weapons shown here are identical to those mentioned in the Enlarged Quest for the Divine and probably those alluded to in The Book of Transformations as well, while the animal heads essentially correspond to both texts. Although the iconography of the Five Emis- saries of Plague was by no means exactly uniform, the generic consis- tencies suggest that a well-established iconographic repertoire had spread throughout both north and south China by the fifteenth century, and probably as early as the Song dynasty. This iconography shows that the erstwhile plague demons had become fully rehabilitated; they were no longer seen as scourges, but rather as benevolent spirits who exorcised the demons afflicting the sick.
Another spirit who defended mortals against demons of illness and epidemic was the demon queller Zhong Kui. The cult of Zhong Kui com- monly is said to have begun with, or at least been popularized by, the Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–55).84 Bedridden from illness, Xuan- zong had a dream encounter with the demon afflicting him in which a fearsome spirit suddenly appeared and seized the demon, gouged out the miscreant’s eyes, and then devoured it. The emperor’s rescuer identified himself as Zhong Kui and said that in his mortal life he had committed suicide after failing to earn high honors in the civil service examinations, but he was awarded posthumous honors by the second Tang emperor
122 Plague Demons and Epidemic Gods
and thus pledged to devote himself to eradicating demons. Upon recov- ering from his illness shortly afterward, Xuanzong instructed the re- nowned artist Wu Daozi to paint an image of Zhong Kui based on the emperor’s dream vision. The emperor was greatly pleased with Wu’s ren- dering of Zhong Kui and subsequently had court painters produce copies that the emperor presented as New Year’s gifts to favored courtiers.
There is compelling evidence that the demonifuge Zhong Kui ante- dated the Tang dynasty, however. In Ma Rong’s lyric on the Great Ex- orcism of the Han court the troupe of exorcists flourishes hammers known as zhongkui in the ritual drama of expelling demons. Though writ- ten with different graphs, this zhongkui is a close homonym of the name Zhong Kui, and it is possible that the spirit’s unusual name derived from these magical hammers (which, as exorcism texts of the Han era show, were believed to be efficacious weapons against plague demons). The sixth-century millenarian tract Scripture of the Divine Incantations in- vokes the spirit warrior Zhong Kui to exterminate the demon hordes be- setting humanity, which suggests that the spirit may have already emerged as the object of a popular cult at that time.85 But in the Tang and after- ward Zhong Kui was invariably associated with the expulsion of demons on the eve of the New Year, in essence succeeding to the role of the fang- xiang exorcist in the ancient Nuo rites. New Year’s Eve spectacles in the Song period commonly featured a theatrical rite of exorcism known as the “Dance of Zhong Kui” that was performed before imperial as well as popular audiences.86 In addition, beggars, perhaps mimicking these exorcistic rites, dressed themselves as Zhong Kui and his company of demons on New Year’s Eve and marched through the streets of the cap- ital striking drums and cymbals, stopping at each gate to extort payment before moving on to the next house.87 The beggars’ processions inverted the apotropaic rites of the New Year season. Instead of summoning Zhong Kui in his role as a demon tamer, the beggars masqueraded as Zhong Kui and other spirits associated with plague and death in order to wring bribes from the cowed populace.
Hanging a painted or printed illustration of Zhong Kui above the door gate on the eve of the New Year became virtually a universal custom in Song times.88 Indeed, nearly all references to Zhong Kui in Tang-Song times pertain to these portraits.89 Zhong Kui never became an indepen- dent deity, an object of sacrifice and prayer with his own shrines. Instead, Zhong Kui’s demon-quelling powers were channeled through the talis- mans bearing his image. These mass-produced etchings and prints prob- ably descended from Wu Daozi’s famous painting of Zhong Kui, which
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had been widely copied and disseminated. Although none of Wu Daozi’s works, including his portrait of Zhong Kui, survive, a tenth-century au- thor described Wu’s painting as follows:
In Wu Daozi’s painting, Zhong Kui wears a blue robe and a leather boot on one foot. He has but one eye, with a tablet of official rank at his waist. His head is wrapped in a turban, his beard askew, and his hair hangs down unbound. He grasps a demon in his left hand, and with the second finger of his right hand he is gouging the eye of the demon.90
Zhong Kui was a popular motif in literati painting during the Song and subsequent dynasties, yet surviving literati paintings from this era bear no resemblance to this description. Instead, they typically depict Zhong Kui in scholar’s robes escorted by a procession of grotesque demons (figure 17).91 These paintings, which often evoke Zhong Kui as an alter ego of the neglected and despised scholar, probably were mod- eled after the New Year’s Eve beggars’ processions. A better likeness of Zhong Kui as Wu Daozi painted him can be found appended to Zhong Kui’s hagiography in the Yuan dynasty religious primer Enlarged Quest for the Divine (figure 18). In this illustration a ferocious Zhong Kui is portrayed in the act of gouging out the eye of the demon, and this self- contained scene was surely more suitable for door-guardian images than the elaborate processions found in the hand scrolls composed by literati artists.92
The use of images of Zhong Kui as protective talismans to guard the home against demonic invasion recalls the legend that Huangdi had por- traits made of his fearsome lieutenant Chiyou in order to intimidate crim- inals and instill a proper fear of the law. Both artistic and literary repre- sentations of Zhong Kui (again like the ancient Chiyou) emphasized his repellent ugliness, and his baleful visage no doubt is what endowed these talismans with apotropaic power. In addition to these echoes of the older
Figure 16 (opposite). Five Emissaries of Plague. This scroll is one of 136 iconic paintings, probably dating from ca. 1460, preserved at the Baoningsi Monastery, Youyu county, Shanxi. The paintings depict the great assembly of divine beings invoked in the course of the Land-and-Water Mass. This scroll depicts the Five Emissaries of Plague, each equipped with demonifuge weapons. At front right stands a human figure carrying a bucket and ladle; at front left is a tiger-headed figure with a fan. Between and behind these two is a cock-headed figure holding a mallet in its right hand and an awl in the left. Behind the human figure is a horse-headed figure, its head wreathed in flame, holding a gourd. Finally, at the center rear is a crow-headed figure with a sword and an enormous gourd slung over its back. From Shanxisheng bowuguan 1985, plate 147. Courtesy of Shanxi Museum.
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Figure 18. Zhong Kui vanquishes a demon. This illustration from the Yuan religious tract Enlarged Quest for the Divine shows Zhong Kui engaged in combat with a demon. Zhong Kui is gouging the demon’s eye with his right hand, an iconographic detail said to have originated with the Tang painter Wu Daozi. From SSGJ, xia.123–24. Courtesy of Beijing Library.
Chiyou cult, the semantic similarity between Zhong Kui’s name and the plague-exorcising magical hammer and Zhong Kui’s habit of vanquish- ing demons by devouring them also resonate with motifs found in other plague cults. As his popularity grew Zhong Kui evolved into a generic demonifuge, but on the evidence of early accounts, most famously Em- peror Xuanzong’s dream, the Zhong Kui cult in its initial form was specifically dedicated to exorcising demons of plague and illness.
The Song dynasty also witnessed the development of specialized plague cults centered on local deities. One who achieved lasting fame as a pro- tector against epidemic disease was Wen Qiong, whose cult originated in the eponymous town of Wenzhou, on the coast of southern Zhejiang province.93 Wenzhou also was the birthplace of the Shenxiao movement, which became the foundation of Emperor Huizong’s theocracy in the early twelfth century, and the Shenxiao priesthood seems to have played a prominent role in the propagation of Wen Qiong’s cult. A Shenxiao hagiography of Wen Qiong written in 1274 portrays Wen as an ordinary mortal renowned for his martial prowess who upon his death was in- ducted into the ranks of officials in the underworld government of the Lord of Mount Tai. Although the apotheosized Wen Qiong was said to have refused temples dedicated to him personally, in Huizong’s day local Daoist priests in Wenzhou repeatedly invoked Wen’s aid to repel noxious demons afflicting the local community. The emphasis on Wen Qiong’s humility and orthodox credentials (the author of the hagiography at- tributed the founding of Wen Qiong’s cult to the contemporary patri- arch of the Celestial Masters tradition, the official Daoist church) belies Wen Qiong’s true origins as a popular deity who lacked the sanction of organized religion. In all of the Wen Qiong myths Wen dies young and by violent means, which of course conforms to the archetype of the venge- ful ghost. The Wen Qiong mythology also bears traces of an older in- carnation of Wen as a serpent deity, very possibly a demon who spread pestilence among the people. Paul Katz suggests that Wen Qiong, like other demonic figures, probably originated as a vengeful ghost turned into a plague demon, only to be rehabilitated and converted into a proper god by the priests of the Shenxiao sect.94 Local lore in Wenzhou por- trayed Wen Qiong as a heroic martyr who disobeyed a divine com- mandment to poison sinful mortals and instead swallowed the poison himself, causing him to metamorphose into a fierce demon figure. The supreme deity, moved by Wen’s self-sacrifice, assigned him to the retinue of the great demon-quelling god Zhenwu, who employed Wen to root out and expel plague demons.
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The development of the Wen Qiong cult thus sprang from the inter- section of a local ritual tradition with the kind of popular god cult Daoists usually spurned as vulgar superstition. Katz argues that the case of Wen Qiong attests to a process of “reverberation” whereby a cult is created through reciprocal interaction between popular worship on one hand and appropriation and codification of such cults by religious specialists on the other.95 The production of a corpus of ritual, myth, and iconogra- phy paved the way for inclusion of such popular cults in canonical reli- gion, which in turn conferred legitimacy on the cult. Such was the power of canonization and bureaucratic rank, which erased the ambiguous iden- tity of nefarious spirits and recuperated them into the phalanx of impe- rial order.96 A similar process of incorporation and reverberation occurred in the transformation of Wutong from malicious demon to benevolent deity. In its earliest incarnation, Wutong became a tutelary deity who pro- tected local communities from plague. Yet the ambivalence surrounding the god’s true nature was never resolved. In many parts of south China during the late imperial period plague cults emerged that featured sets of five spirits, local variations on the archetype of the Five Emissaries of Plague. Several of these groups bore the distinct imprint of the Wutong legacy. Indeed, the Wutong spirits were cast in the opposing roles of both the agent of, and deliverer from, plague.
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