2. Since the Zheng Wanqing edition of Hidden and Visible Realms is unreliable (as stated above), when occasionally using a piece from Zheng’s collection because it is more informative and complete, I have compared it against the Collected Lost Old Stories edition and other sources to make sure it is accurate.
3. Footnotes are provided on cultural and literary context, historical figures and events, as well as some important terms and variants in major sources.
4. For the convenience of readers who wish to locate the Chinese text, major sources used are given in parentheses at the end of each tale. Following the abbreviation of a book title, the first number indicates the volume while the second indicates page(s). But the first number after GXSGC is the tale number in the Collected Lost Old Stories, instead of the volume number.
5. Besides the translations of some forty tales in my Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China (Brill, 2014), other prior English renditions of selected tales from Hidden and Visible Realms are found in the following three publications: eight in Karl Kao, ed., Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985), 137–50; ten in Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s Selected Tales of the Han, Wei and Six Dynasties Periods (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 2006), which was previously published in 1958 and again in 1990 as The Man Who Sold a Ghost: Chinese Tales of the 3rd–6th Centuries; and twenty-five in Robert Campany, trans., A Garden of Marvels (University of Huwai‘i Press, 2015), 107–19. For the convenience of readers, a list of tales from this collection that have been rendered into English is included at the end of this book.
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1. Which Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936) called Shishi fujiao zhishu 釋氏輔教之書. See Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue 中國小說史略, 39–42.
2. See Li Jianguo 李劍國, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi 唐前志怪小說史, 1–85.
3. See Liu Yeqiu 劉葉秋, Wei Jin Nanbeichao xiaoshuo 魏晉南北朝小說, 21.
4. Suoyu 瑣語 [Minor sayings], for example, is considered “a book of phenomena concerning divinations, dreams, deviations and anomalies, and physiognomic techniques from various realms” 諸國卜夢妖怪相也. See Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi, 92.
5. Cf. Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi; Inglis, Hong Mai’s Record of the Listener and Its Song Dynasty Context; Zeitlin, History of the Strange; and Leo Tak-hung Chan, The Discourse on Foxes and Ghosts.
6. Important studies of Six Dynasties zhiguai include Li Jianguo, Tang qian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi; Wang Guoliang 王國良, Wei Jin nanbeichao zhiguai xiaoshuo yanjiu 魏晉南北朝志怪小説研究 and Liuchao zhiguai xiaoshuo kaolun 六朝志怪小説攷論; Campany, Strange Writing; Liu Yuanru 劉苑如, Shenti, xingbie, jieji: Liuchao zhiguai de changyi lunshu yu xiaoshuo meixue 身體、性別、階級—六朝志怪的常異論述與小說美學; Xie Mingxun 謝明勳, Liuchao zhiguai xiaoshuo yanjiu shulun: Huigu yu lunshi 六朝志怪小說研究述論 : 回顧與論釋; and Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China.
7. Two works, Liu Jingshu’s 劉敬叔 (fl. early fifth century) Yiyuan 異苑 [A garden of marvels] and Xie Fu 謝敷 (fl. mid–late fourth century) and Fu Liang’s 傅亮 (374–426) Guangshiyin yingyan ji 光世音應驗記 [Responsive manifestations of Avalokitesvara], are considered by some scholars as original texts. See Campany, Strange Writing, 78–79 and 68–69.
8. Lu Xun completed his recompilations of 36 lost works of pre-Tang literature in 1911, and one year later his preface on Guxiaoshuo gouchen was published in the first (and only) issue of Yueshe congkan 越社叢刊, but it was not until after his death that the work itself was published, as part of the first edition of Lu Xun quanji 魯迅全集 [Complete works of Lu Xun] in 1938. See Lu Xun’s preface with annotations, in Gujixuba ji 古籍序跋集, 3–5.
9. Duan Chengshi, “Self Preface,” in Youyang zazu 酉陽雜俎, 1.
10. Hu Yinglin classified xiaoshuo into six categories: 1) zhiguai, 2) chuanqi 傳奇 (transmission of marvels), 3) zalu 雜錄 (miscellaneous records), 4) congtan 叢談 (collected talks), 5) bianding 辨訂 (documented sources), and 6) zhengui 箴規 (exhortatory writings), among which only the first three are narrative in nature. See Hu Yinglin, Shaoshi shanfang bicong 少室山房筆叢, 29. 374.
11. Lu Xun, “Zhongguo xiaoshuo de lishi de bianqian” 中國小說的歷史的變遷, in his Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 274–79.
12. See Kenneth DeWoskin’s entry on “Chih-kuai” in William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, 2nd ed., 280. For a more detailed discussion of the genre of zhiguai, see Campany, Strange Writing, 21–32.
13. Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 29; Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trans., A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 45.
14. See Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 29–44.
15. Cf. Ming Dong Gu, Chinese Theories of Fiction, 17–42.
16. See DeWoskin, “The Six Dynasty Chih-kuai and the Birth of Fiction,” in Andrew H. Plaks, ed., Chinese Narrative, 21–52.
17. “Anomaly accounts are predominantly, then, in their style, format, and temporal setting, historical.” See Campany, Strange Writing, 178.
18. Campany, “Introduction,” in his A Garden of Marvels, xxiv–v.
19. See Kang Xiaofei’s book review in Journal of Chinese Studies 47 (2007): 514–17.
20. Allen, Shifting Stories, 1–15.
21. Allen, Shifting Stories, 1.
22. See Nienhauser, “Origins of Chinese Fiction,” 191–219; Ma Zhenfang 馬振方, Zhongguo zaoqi xiaoshuo kaobian 中國早期小說考辨.
23. Ming Dong Gu, Chinese Theories of Fiction, 38.
24. See Daniel Hsiah’s book review of Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China, in Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews 37 (2015): 202.
25. See Zhang Zhenjun 張振軍, “Shi bai xueyuan shuolue: jianlun Zhongguo chuantong xiaoshuo de shizhuan tezheng” 史稗血緣說略：兼論中國傳統小說的史傳特徵, 93–99; also included in Chuantong xiaoshuo yu Zhongguo wenhua 傳統小說與中國文化, 3–19.
26. Plaks, “Toward a Critical Theory of Chinese Narrative,” in Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays, 311–12.
27. 考先志於載籍, 收遺逸於當時. See Gan Bao, Soushen ji, 2.
28. As Karl S. Y. Kao says, “Originating mainly in folk traditions, the CK [chih-kuai] narratives are legends and stories associated with popular culture and reflecting the belief systems of the people.” See “Introduction” in Kao, ed., Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 4.
29. Campany, Strange Writing, 178. In a footnote to this statement on the same page, he adds, “There are oral-based items, as will be seen below, but they account for only a small fraction of the total corpus.”
30. For examples of tales from prior collections, see the discussion about the resources and authorship of the Youming lu in chapter 1 of Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China, 40–54.
31. Li Jianguo, Tangqian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi, 357.
32. “Husband-Watching Stone” 望夫石 (8. 234) and “Peng E” 彭娥 (8. 235) in this collection are good examples of this. According to their authors, these stories were from folklore.
33. 子不語怪力亂神. See Lau, The Analects of Confucius, 88.
34. 發明神道之不誣. See Gan Bao, “Preface,” in Soushen ji, 2.
35. Sarah Allen claims in her study of zhiguai and chuanqi, “The exchange of information in n
arrative form was a more important motivation behind the production, reception, and reservation of most of these tales than aesthetic enjoyment of tales as ‘literature’” (Shifting Stories, 25). But this may not necessarily be true.
36. 覽周王傳，流觀山海圖。俯仰終宇宙，不樂復何如！ James Robert Hightower’s translation, “On Reading the Seas and Mountains Classic,” in Mair, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Traditional Chinese Literature, 82–83.
37. Gan Bao, “Preface,” in Soushen ji, 2. This translation is from DeWoskin and Crump Jr., In Search of the Supernatural, xxvii.
38. Cf. Cai Meghan, “The Social Life of Texts,” 32.
39. See Campany, Strange Writing, 101–59.
40. Dudbridge, Religious Experience and Lay Society in T’ang China.
41. Campany, Making Transcendents; Dudbridge, A Portrait of Five Dynasties China; and Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China.
42. Erik Zürcher depicts elite Buddhism (“Court Buddhism” and “Gentry Buddhism”) as the “Great Tradition” and popular Buddhism as the “little tradition.” See his “Perspectives in the Study of Chinese Buddhism,” 161–76.
43. Campany, A Garden of Marvels, xxxviii–xli.
44. Based on Karl Kao’s observations, tales of the supernatural and fantastic in Chinese tradition differ from their Western counterparts in three ways: 1) in the Chinese tradition, the distinction between the supernatural and fantastic is mainly based on the nature of the “facts” recorded, instead of the author’s creative perception; 2) in the West the fantastic is distinctly a later product than the supernatural in literary history and was a product of an uneasy, “pulverized” consciousness resulting from the loss of faith in the unity of man and nature; 3) the Chinese supernatural and fantastic never engage in the experience of alienation from nature and rarely inspire horror, nor are they tormented by any indeterminacy in the character’s or the reader’s attitude toward the supernatural manifestation in the human world that characterizes the Western fantastic. See “Introduction” in his Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 1–4.
45. For a typology of the guai phenomena, cf. Kao, Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 4–16.
46. Yu Yingshi 余英時, “Zhongguo gudai sihou Shijieguan de yanbian” 中國古代死後世界觀的演變, 123–43; Xiao Dengfu 蕭登福, XianQin LiangHan mingjie he shenxian sixiang tanyuan 先秦兩漢冥界和神仙思想探源, 168–75; and Pu Muzhou 蒲慕洲, “Muzang yu shengsi—Zhongguo gudai zongjiao zhi xingsi” 墓葬與生死—中國古代宗教之省思, 206–12.
47. Karl Kao calls it “necromantic communion.” See his Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 7–8.
48. Liji zhengyi, in Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849), ed., Shisanjing zhushu 十三經註疏, 46. 1588.
49. Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908), Mozi xiangu 墨子閒詁, 12. 275.
50. Zuo zhuan zhushu 左傳註疏, 764; Sibi beiyao version (Zhonghua shuju, n.d.), 44. 8a.
51. One is about King Xuan 宣 of Zhou 周 (r. 827–780 BCE), who unjustly killed his vassal, Du Bo 杜伯, whose spirit later shot and killed King Xuan. The other is about Duke Jian 簡 of Yan 燕 (414–370 BCE), who unjustly killed his vassal, Zhuang Zi Yi 莊子儀; later (the spirit of) Zhuang killed Duke Jian with a red stick. See Sun Yirang, Mozi xiangu, 8. 139–43.
52. See Lu Xun, ed., GXSGC, 255–56. For an English translation, see Ding Wangdao, ed., 100 Chinese Myths and Fantasies, 87–89.
53. Cf. Karl Kao, Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 8–9.
54. 萬物之老者, 其精悉能假託人形, 以眩惑人目. See Wang Ming 王明, ed., Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi 抱朴子内篇校釋 [The master who embraces simplicity with collations and explanations], 300.
55. Yu Yingshi, “Zhongguo gudai sihou Shi jieguan de yanbian,” in his “Zhongguo sixiang chuantong de xiandai quanshi,” 123–43; Yu Yingshi, “O Soul, Come Back! A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China,” 363–95.
56. “[Emperor Yao] ordered Heshu to dwell in the North, [a place] called youdu (Dark Headquarters)” 申命和叔，宅朔方，曰幽都. See “Tang Kao” 湯誥 of Shangshu. See Shangshu zhengyi 尚書正義, 8. 21b, in Ruan Yuan, Shisanjing zhushu, vol. 1.
57. See Maeno Naoaki 前野直彬, “Meikai yugyo” 冥界遊行, 38–57; Yu Yingshi, “Zhongguo gudai sihou Shi jieguan de yanbian,”123–43; Yu Yingshi, “O Soul, Come Back!”
58. See Luan Baoqun 栾保群 and Lü Zongli吕宗力, eds., Rizhilu jishi 日知錄集釋, 30.
59. See Hawkes, trans., The Songs of the South), 224.
60. For a study of the other world in zhiguai, see Ye Qingbing’s 葉慶炳 “Liuchao zhi Tang de tajie jiegou xiaoshuo” 六朝至唐的他界結構小説, 7–28.
61. “Xici 繫辭, A,” see Li Daoping 李道平, Zhouyi jijie zuanshu 周易集解纂疏, 606.
62. See Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, Zhongguo zhexueshi 中國哲學史, 497–573.
63. See Karl Kao, Classical Chinese Tales of the Supernatural and the Fantastic, 9; and Wang Yao 王瑤, Xiaoshuo yu fangshu 小說與方術, 85–110.
64. Cf. Yue Hengjun 樂衡軍. “Zhongguo yuanshi bianxing shenhua chutan 中國原始變形神話初探, 159–72.
65. For a study, see Zhang Zhenjun, Chuantong xiaoshuo yu Zhongguo wenhua, 87–107.
66. For the origins of this motif, see Zhang Chang 張萇, “Luelun Gudai xiaoshuo zhong de renshenlian gushi” 略論古代小說中的人神恋故事, 94–99.
67. “The Pearl of Marquis Sui” is frequently mentioned in pre-Qin texts, such as “Rangwang” 讓王 of Zhuang zi 莊子 and “Jie Lao” 解老 of Hanfei zi 韓非子. The detailed story is recorded in later works. It is said that the Marquis of Sui, a nobleman of the Warring States Period, saved a wounded snake, and in return the numinous snake found a large bright pearl from the river and gave it to the marquis. See Gan Bao, Soushen ji, 20.238.
68. Traditionally, the human-animal difference was portrayed in China thusly: animals possess physical power, while humans are endowed with a sense of morality and ritual propriety. Those who failed to reciprocate propriety were considered by Mencius as not being different from birds and beasts. For a detailed study on this topic, see Sterckx, The Animal and the Daemon in Early China, 88–92.
69. See Zhenjun Zhang, “From Demonic to Karmic Retribution,” 267–287; also included in Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China, 82–106.
70. 死者不可復生, 斷者不可復屬. Ban Gu 班固 (32–92). Han shu 漢書, 51. 2369.
71. 人居天地間，人人得一生，不得重生也。” “人人各一生，不得再生也。” See Wang Ming, Taiping jing hejiao 太平經合校, 72. 298 & 90. 340.
72. For the depiction of such court trials in Buddhist sutras, see Zhu Tanwulan 竺曇無蘭 (Dharmarājan), trans., Fo shuo tiecheng nili jing 佛說鐵城泥犁經 [Buddha Preached Sutra on Iron City Hells]; Zhong Ahan jing 中阿含經 [Mādhyamāgama; Medium Length Āgama-sutra], juan 12.
73. Cf. Daigan Matsunaga, The Buddhist Concept of Hell.
74. See “Gao xin” in Wang Jia, Shiyi ji, in Wang Genlin 王根林, Wei Jin Liuchao biji xiaoshuo daguan 漢魏六朝筆記小説大觀, 497–98.
75. In the mythology of India, yaksa, or yaksha, is “a class of generally benevolent nature spirits who are the custodians of treasures that are hidden in the earth and in the roots of trees.… Yakshas were often given homage as tutelary deities of a city, district, lake, or well. Their worship, tog
ether with popular belief in nagas (serpent deities), feminine fertility deities, and mother goddesses, probably had its origin among the early Dravidian peoples of India. The yaksha cult coexisted with the priest-conducted sacrifices of the Vedic period, and continued to flourish during the Kusana period.” See Encyclopedia Britannica, 12: 806.
76. Li Jianguo said that this is perhaps the first time that a Buddhist demon appeared in Chinese literature (Tangqian zhiguai xiaoshuo shi, 362), but he missed the yaksas in Shiyi ji, which he himself considers to be prior to the Youming lu.
77. Wang Ming 王明, Taiping jing hejiao, 22–23.
78. Cf. Zhenjun Zhang, Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China, 96.
79. See Wei Zheng 魏征 et al., Sui shu, 33. 980.
80. Wei Zheng added a lot of entries concerning books already lost in his own lifetime, but still extant in 523 CE when Ruan Xiaoxu 阮孝緒 (479–536) finished his catalogue of the palace library of the Liang dynasty, Qi lu 七錄 [Seven records], a book still extant in Tang times. Cf. Liu Xu 劉昫 (877–946), Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書, 46.2011, and Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007–1072) and Song Qi 宋祁 (998–1061), Xin Tang shu 新唐書, 58.1498. Thus, for many books written between the Han and Tang dynasties the bibliographical treatise of Sui shu has become the only record of their very existence.
81. Liu Xu, Jiu Tang shu, 46. 2005; Ouyang Xiu and Song Qi, Xin Tang shu, 59. 1540.
82. Lu Xun, Zhongguo xiaoshuo shilue, 67.
83. See Xiao Hong 蕭紅, “Shishuo xinyu zuozhe wenti shangque” 《世說新語》作者問題商榷, 9.
84. Shen Yue, Song shu 宋書, 51. 1475–80. His biography in the Nan shi 南史 [History of the southern empires] is a simplified version. For a detailed account of Liu Yiqing’s life and works, see Zhenjun Zhang, “Observations on the Life and Works of Liu Yiqing,” 83–104; see also Buddhism and Tales of the Supernatural in Early Medieval China, 20–43.
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