Hidden and Visible Realms

by Zhenjun Zhang

  I skim through the “Story of King Mu”

  and view the pictures in the Classic of Seas and Mountains.

  A glance encompasses the ends of the universe—

  where is there any joy, if not these?36

  Both the “Story of King Mu” and the Classic of Seas and Mountains he mentions in the poem are noted early zhiguai. Since Tao Qian loves zhiguai so much, the purpose of his compiling the zhiguai collection, the Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural, was most likely entertaining himself as well as his readers. Gan Bao addresses a similar idea in his preface to In Search of the Supernatural:

  I will count myself fortunate if in the future curious scholars come along, note the bases of these stories and find things within them to enlighten their hearts and fill their eyes. And I will be fortunate as well to escape reproach for this book 幸將來好事之士, 錄其根體, 有以遊心寓目, 而無尤焉.37

  Gan Bao addresses readers of his zhiguai collection as “curious gentlemen” (好事之士), indicating that curiosity, or interest, was at least one of the major reasons for the circulation of the zhiguai texts. In other words, readability (the quality to attract curiosity) of the works is essential to their survival. Gan Bao also directly talks about his motivation for collecting and reading zhiguai—“youxin yumu” 遊心寓目, rendered by DeWoskin and Crump as “enlighten their hearts and fill their eyes.” It may also be rendered as “set their minds wandering by filling their eyes,”38 referring to the free and relaxed state of mind in the process of enjoying literary works, instead of observing historical events or obtaining information.

  Additionally, in ancient China collecting and reporting anomalies to the authorities was considered essential to governance,39 undoubtedly another reason for the circulation of zhiguai.

  In recent years, “historical” reading of zhiguai has become popular. An indication is the appearance of a model of reading local religious culture through medieval zhiguai. The pioneering work is Glen Dudbridge’s Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China: A Reading of Tai Fu’s Kuang-i chi,40 and the most recent works include Campany’s Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China, Dudbridge’s A Portrait of Five Dynasties China: From the Memoirs of Wang Renyu (880–956), and probably my own Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China: A Study of Liu Yiqing’s Youming lu.41

  In the preface to his selected zhiguai collection, A Garden of Marvels, Campany lists four reasons to read the zhiguai texts in view of history: 1) these texts offer unparalleled material for the history of Chinese religion, as well as evidence that there was religion beyond the great tradition (elite religion) and their specialists;42 2) these texts—especially the ones in narrative form—provide many glimpses of aspects of ordinary social life and material culture that can be hard to discern from other surviving evidence; 3) zhiguai texts preserve anecdotes about individuals and events known from more formal histories and often throw new light on them; 4) they are worth reading precisely because they were not inventions of a few individuals but instead artifacts of many people’s exchange of stories and representations.43

  It is clear that Campany highlights the value of zhiguai as unofficial writings in the study of religions and history, but he neglects their literary value because he does not consider them literary works. While agreeing with Campany’s insightful arguments, I would like to add two more reasons to augment his list: the zhiguai texts provide samples of early fictional works for the study of Chinese fiction; and the zhiguai texts—especially those possessing a complete plot—are enjoyable to read.

  Traditional Anomalies in Zhiguai: Toward a Classification

  Strictly speaking, zhiguai differ from the supernatural and fantastic literature in the Western tradition in many ways,44 but they share at least one commonality: an “otherness” in contrast to this human world and the general, mundane ways we perceive it. This is also the most prominent feature of the anomalies (guai) in zhiguai.

  Anomalies in zhiguai can be classified into numerous types, and all are rooted deeply in ancient Chinese culture. Below are some of the important ones found in the zhiguai collections of the Wei and Jin periods,45 with examples from Hidden and Visible Realms.

  1. Other Species (Yilei 異類): The Supernatural Beings

  a. Deities (shen 神): rooted in ancient Chinese religion and developed in Daoism. In the Daoist deity system, the highest gods include The Most High Lord Lao (Taishang laojun 太上老君), The Grand Jade Emperor (Yuhuang dadi 玉皇大帝), and the Heavenly Sovereign of Original Beginning (Yuanshi tianzun 元始天尊; after the Six Dynasties). At the lower level, there are local deities everywhere. There are also netherworld deities. The head of the netherworld was originally the Emperor of Heaven. Beginning in the late Warring States period this figure was replaced by the Lord of the Underworld (Dixia zhu 地下主), which was replaced by the Governor of Mount Tai (Taishan fujun 泰山府君) during the Eastern Han dynasty.46

  b. Ghosts (gui 鬼):47 derived from the belief that a person becomes a ghost after death 人死曰鬼 (“Jifa” 祭法 of Liji).48 “Gongmeng” 公夢 (Master Gongmeng) of Mozi 墨子 says, “The old sage kings all took ghosts and spirits as numinous gods, who bring calamities or good fortune.” 49 An entry from the seventh year of Duke Zhao 昭公 (534 BCE) in the Zuo zhuan 左傳 says, “When an ordinary man or woman dies a violent death, the hun 魂 and the po 魄 are still able to attach to people and thereby act as an evil apparition.”50 In the “Ming gui” 明鬼 (Illustration of ghosts) chapter (B), Mozi gives two examples.51

  While in early texts the ghosts always seem to have supernatural powers and therefore inspire awe in people, the portrayal of ghosts in the Six Dynasties zhiguai is quite different: the ghosts are shown not only in their divine aspect but also in those aspects that resemble human beings. In the noted story “Zong Dingbo” 宗定伯 from Arrayed Marvels,52 the ghost is not horrible at all and is even inferior to human beings. In some ghost stories, ghosts are full of human emotions. Hidden and Visible Realms includes most kindly ghost mothers (#125, 128, and 154), extremely caring ghost fathers (#115 and 124), a most filial ghost child (#9), and a very caring ghost friend (#7).

  c. Monsters (yao 妖) and goblins (jing 精): animistic phenomena.53 The original meaning of yao was anomaly, resembling the guai. After the Qin and Han, however, its meaning changed to demon, spirit, or goblin. Ge Hong’s 葛洪 (283–343) The Master Who Embraces Simplicity (Baopu zi 抱朴子) says, “As for all the old creatures, their spirits can change into the form of a person, so as to dazzle and delude man’s eyes.”54 Demons and goblins in earlier texts are generally hideous and evil, yet in the zhiguai some of them become beautiful girls to seduce men. Many love stories between spirits and men are included in volume 1 of this collection, “The Wonder of Love.”

  d. Immortals (xian 仙): derived from the Daoist classics, Laozi 老子 and Zhuangzi 莊子, and from the theory of immortals of the Qin and Han. Exclusive/specialized collections include Liu Xiang’s Biographies of the Exemplary Immortals and Ge Hong’s Biographies of the Divine Immortals (Shenxian zhuan 神仙傳).

  2. Other Spheres (Tajie 他界): The Realms Beyond the Human World

  a. Heavens (tiancao 天曹): the realm of gods and deities, as well as the dead. Those found in Hidden and Visible Realms are the Northern Dipper (#68) and the heaven for the dead (#162).

  b. Underworld (difu 地府): the realm of the dead. The indigenous Chinese netherworld includes both the heavens and the underground. Those realms located under earth include Yellow Springs (Huangquan 黃泉), the Land of Darkness (Youdu 幽都), and Mount Tai (Taishan 泰山). From about the eighth century BCE, the term “Yellow Springs” began to be used in historical and literary writings to denote the home of the dead.55 The term “Land of Darkness” first appears in the “Yaodian” 堯典 chapter of the Book of Documents (Shangshu 尚書).56 Around the end of the first century BCE the belief in Mount Tai as the location of the netherw
orld arose.57 It was also in the Eastern Han period that the ghost state of Fengdu 酆都 appeared in Daoist scripture.58 The motif of the “netherworld adventure”—in which the soul departs from the body in a temporary death—is an important one that appears in more than ten stories in Hidden and Visible Realms (see chapter 5).

  c. Immortal Land (xianjing 仙境): the realm of immortals. The idea that there are immortal lands overseas appeared in the late Warring States period, when the belief in immortality was in vogue. Depictions of immortal lands, including the Three Islands, Ten River Islets, Ten Grand Caves, Thirty-six Small Caves, and Seventy-two Daoist Paradises, became a fascinating part of zhiguai collections, such as the Records of the Ten River Islets (Shizhou ji 十洲記), Records of Penetration Into the Mysteries (Dongming ji 洞冥記), Biographies of Exemplary Immortals, and Biographies of the Divine Immortals. The first story featuring the “immortal land adventure” motif is “The Tale of Hanzi” 邗子 in the Biographies of Exemplary Immortals. In the tales of “Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao” 劉晨、阮肇 (#1) and “Huang Yuan 黃原 Encounters Miaoyin 妙音” (#14) from Hidden and Visible Realms, the element of encountering fairy maidens is added. The tale of Liu and Ruan became the most influential one, and allusions to it appear in numerous literary works of later times. Another tale, “Dragon Pearl” (#64), is also an immortal land adventure, in which the protagonist obtains immortal ambrosia instead of love.

  d. Exotic Territories (shufang yiyu 殊方異域): Mythical exotic territories appeared in The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing 山海經). Qu Yuan’s 屈原 (c. 340–c. 278 BCE) “Summons of the Soul” (“Zhaohun” 招魂) also depicts exotic territories, for example, “O soul, come back! In the east you cannot abide. There are giants there a thousand fathoms tall, who seek only for souls to catch, and ten suns that come together, melting metal, dissolving stone.”59 In the Records of Penetration Into the Mysteries, various exotic territories are described as Daoist paradises.60

  3. Cross-Boundary Oddities

  a. Omens (zhao 兆)—messages from other species. The Classic of Changes says, “Heaven sent down patterns, from which things auspicious and inauspicious are seen” 天垂象,见吉凶.61 This theory was enhanced during the Han dynasty in Dong Zhongshu’s 董仲舒 (c. 179–c. 104 BCE) theory of “mutual correspondence between heaven and man” (tian ren ganying 天人感應) and the prognosticatory apocrypha (chen wei 讖緯) that came into vogue during the reign of Emperor Cheng (32–7 BCE) and Emperor Ai of Han (6–1 BCE).62 In Hidden and Visible Realms, omens are numerous, including strange items (#37, #50), air (#206, #208), creatures (#42, #55), comets (#47), illusions (#33, #48), and dreams (#29; #211, #219, #232, #233).

  b. Thaumaturgy (shushu 術數)—the quest into the other spheres. As indigenous Chinese magic arts, the activities gathered under thaumaturgy originated in the Warring States period (465–221 BCE) and included astrology, divination, necromancy, geomancy, alchemy, and communication with the dead and transcendent beings.63 Some of them can be seen in Hidden and Visible Realms (#69, #221, #230–231).

  c. Metamorphoses—the demonstration of supernatural power. Metamorphoses are found in Chinese myth.64 The most famous one is the jingwei 精衛 bird, carrying twigs and stones from the west mountain to fill up the East Sea. In zhiguai collections there are a lot of metamorphosis stories, such as those in Hidden and Visible Realms: #51, #56, #70, #72, and #76.

  d. Trafficking between humans and supernatural beings. The most popular theme is affairs between men and goddesses and spirit girls.65 It is found in the “Nine Songs” (Jiuge 九歌) in the Songs of the South (Chuci 楚辭) and appeared in zhiguai after the Warring States period, when belief in immortals became popular.66 Quite a few tales featuring this motif can be found in chapter 1 of this book (#1, 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, and 24).

  e. Interactions of humans with humanized beasts: including animals understanding human words or speaking in human words (#199–200), animals’ revenge for being killed by human beings, and animals’ repayments of debts of gratitude to human beings (see chapter 6). The earliest story about an animal’s repayment of a debt of gratitude to a human is found in pre-Qin China: the famous “Pearl of Marquis Sui” (Suishi zhizhu 隋氏之珠).67 As a narrative motif, however, it did not become popular until the Six Dynasties period, when Buddhism had been transmitted and widely spread in China. Thus the flourishing of stories about animal retribution in Chinese tales was most likely stimulated by Buddhist culture. Besides similar stories from Buddhist sutras, which should be considered the originating source for the motif in China, many ideas evident in the tales—such as animal release and the prohibition against killing creatures—come from Buddhist beliefs. Traditional non-Buddhist Chinese views on animals support a human exceptionalist worldview, in direct opposition to the doctrine of Buddhism, and are definitely not a supportive factor for the flourishing of stories illustrating interactions on the same moral footing between human beings and animals.68

  4. Human World Oddities

  a. Legendary figures: including those possessing extraordinary courage, virtue, or skills. Examples include heroic men (#59, #137, #213) and Taoist magicians (#227–228, #230–231).

  b. Strange creatures: including those with odd shapes, features (#177–178), or feelings (#192–93).

  c. Natural wonders: including legendary mountains (#236) and stones (#75, #235, #237), strange springs (#240–241), and marvelous trees (#260–261), etc.

  d. Other marvels: such as flying cash (#35) and becoming pregnant through a dream (#28).

  New Anomalies Evident in Hidden and Visible Realms

  Besides traditional anomalies seen in prior zhiguai collections, many new anomalies appear in Hidden and Visible Realms.

  1. Karmic retribution. The concept of retribution, or bao 報, is deeply rooted in Chinese culture. As a moral concept, it is found in the Lao zi and The Classic of Odes (Shi jing 詩經). As a religious concept, heavenly retribution, it can be traced back to the Shang and the Western Zhou. Demonic retribution, a combination of heavenly and ethical retribution, appeared as early as the Zuo zhuan. As it continuously spread in orthodox historical writings, it became a popular theme in the zhiguai. In Hidden and Visible Realms, this theme in many stories becomes blurred because the demonic figure is not directly evident, showing a tendency of intermingling with the Buddhist notion of retribution, xianshi bao 現世報 or “retribution in this life” (#121–122). Most importantly, stories with explicit Buddhist flavor, such as those featuring the themes of retribution for killing creatures and animals’ repaying debts of gratitude (#184, 187, 189–190) as well as those featuring Buddhist karmic retribution (#215), appear in the collection in large numbers.69

  2. Reincarnation. “Biography of Lu Wenshu” (Lu Wenshu zhuan 路溫舒傳) in History of the Han says, “The dead cannot be revived, while the disconnected cannot be reattached.”70 Early Daoists insisted that everyone has only one life and cannot be reborn after death.71 But rebirth is at the core of Buddhist teachings. “A Ghost Nurtures a Child” (#153) is about a ghost who has already been punished in hell and temporarily lives in the realm of ghosts, but later is reborn into the world of human beings. “Prince of Anxi’s 安息 Three Lives” (#215) provides a vivid picture of karmic retribution through transmigration: a man must repay what he owed in his previous life. The three lives of the hero are retold in this story, and the hero himself knows what he did in his previous lives.

  3. Buddhist concepts of hell. The most striking difference between Chinese indigenous concepts of a netherworld and the Buddhist hell is that the latter is a place for the dead to be judged through court trials.72 “Zhao Tai 趙泰 Travels in Hells” (#175) is among the earliest examples of netherworld trials in Chinese literature: there everyone receives a trial after death, and, according to what they did when they were alive, each receives different treatment. Another striking feature of the Buddhist hell that differentiates it from Chinese indigenous concepts of a netherworld is that it involves
physical torture. The earliest literary depictions of the multitude of physical tortures in Buddhist sutras are seen in Hidden and Visible Realms (“The Shaman Shu Li” 舒禮, #170).73 New images of the afterlife were also created. In “Zhao Tai Travels in Hells,” for example, a passage describes the “city of receiving transformation” (shou bianxing cheng 受變形城) where punishments are mainly based on the Five Precepts, showing a distinct Buddhist origin.

  4. Buddha as a savior. The traditional savior of China is heaven. In Hidden and Visible Realms, Buddha appears as a new savior in “Zhao Tai Travels in Hells” and “Raksasas” (#98).

  5. Buddhist ghosts: Ox-headed and raksasas. Among these Buddhist demons, the yecha (yaksa or yaksha, Japanese yasha) was probably the first to appear in Chinese literature.74 This demon was originally part of a class of nature ghosts or demons in Hindu mythology.75 In Hidden and Visible Realms, the creature with the head of an ox and the body of man in “Shu Li” is an image from Buddhist sutras. Another Buddhist ghost, a raksasa (male), or raksasi (female), first appears in this collection (#98, “Raksasas”).76

  6. Buddhist magical arts: seen in self-mutilation (#223, “The Buddhist Nun”) and predicting events in the future (#216, “Futu Cheng 佛圖澄, the Western Monk”).

  7. Lord of the Northern Dipper (Beidou 北斗) as a Daoist savior (#107, “Northern Dipper Saves Mr. Gu 顧 from Demons”).

  8. Chengfu 承負, or “the transmission of burdens.” In “He Bigan” 何比干 (#203) the offspring of the He family became rich and honorable not because of their own good deeds, but because of those of their ancestors. The main idea in this story may have an indigenous Chinese origin. In the Scripture on Great Peace (Taiping jing 太平經), the concept of chengfu maintains that the evil deeds of a man may bring calamities to his offspring, while his good deeds may bring them good fortune.77 However, Tang Yongtong 湯用彤 (1893–1964) and others suspect that this is a mixture of indigenous Chinese and Buddhist retribution.78