In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record 0804725063, 9780804725064

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In Search Supernatural TH E W RITTEN RECORD

Translated by Kenneth DeW oskin &

[ALEX 6R

335 ,K3313| 199S

IN SEARCH OF THE SUPERNATURAL THE W R IT T E N R E C O R D

IN SEARCH OF THE SUPERNATURAL THE WRITTEN RECORD

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California ◎ 1996 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data are at the end of the book Stanford University Press publications are distributed exclusively by Stanford University Press within the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central America; they are distributed exclusively by Cambridge University Press throughout the rest of the world.

For our lao-shih C. T. Hsia George A. Kennedy

Acknowledgment;

Throughout the years, both translators have been beholden to many—the two earliest are recognized in the Dedication. However, a number of other scholars and institutions have played a large part and have earned an equally large measure of the translators* gratitude for their help in bring­ ing to fruition this English version of one of C hina’s oldest and most in­ fluential compilations. ^ The Council on Cultural Planning and Development (Wen-chien Hui) of the Republic of China provided generous support for the translation and general compilation work, and Michigan’s Horace Rackham School of Graduate Studies Publication Fund helped make possible the book’s publication. Additionally, we wish to thank Professor Perng Ching-Hsi of National Taiwan University for his staunch encouragement and his efforts as an in­ termediary. O ut thanks go also to Mr. Morgan Jones, who labored long and effectively on the Glossary and Finding List, to Mr. Edward Trager for the book’s charming grotesques and other artwork inspired by the Mawang Tui tomb decorations, and to our Asia Library’s W an Wei-ying and staff for their efforts in locating illustrations for our Sou-s/ien Chi’ to Pro­ fessor Stephen H. West of the Department of Oriental Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, for his sharp eye and prompt action in sending the'translators the very helpful Huang 1991. Finally, we wish to thank the late Professor Emeritus Charles 〇. Hucker not only for his long and patient labor over the Dictionary of O ffi­ cial Tides in Imperial China (which is the source for all our translated titles in Sou-sfien Chi), but also for providing the two of us with a stable, wellrun department under his chairmanship in which we worked together ef­ fectively and happily for many years. J

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Contents

Introduction

In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record Chapter 1 Shen Nung Ch'ih Sung-tzu Ch'ih-chiang Tzu-yii Ning Feng-tzu W o C h ’iian P’eng Tsu Shih-men Peach Trees of M ount Sui Ts’ui Wen-tzu and Wang Tzu-ch’iao Kuan Hsien the Fisher C h ’in Kao Riding a Carp T’ao An-kung Succeeds in Smelting The Wooden Awl Lu Shao-ch’ien Spurns the Emperor An, Prince of Huai-nan, and the Eight Immortals Liu Ken Conjures Ghosts of Parents Wang C h ’iao and the Wonderful Slippers Su-tzu Hsiin Yin-sheng the Beggar Boy Redivivus (P’ing-ch， ang sheng) Tso Tz’u Catches Fish in a Bucket

,22 ,23 ,25 26 ,27 (28 ,29 30 31

Yu C hi Brings Rain to N o Avail Chieh Yen Offends the Ruler of W u Hsu Kuang and the Smell of Blood Ko HsuanJs Transformations W u Meng Controls W ind and Water Yuan K’o and the Spirit Caterpillars Tung Yung and the Weaving Maid The Fragrant Corpse Tu Lan-hsiang and Chang Shuo Hsiian C h ’ao Visited by the Jade Lady

1 1

Chapter 2 2 3 2 3 3 2 4 3 5 6 3 3 2 2 r T 7 3 2 8 ^ 0 0 1 2 3 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 2 2 2 ^ 22 92 2

5

2

6 7

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Emperor Creates False Ghosts Fan Ying Puts O ut a Fire Hsii Teng and Chao Ping Contest Their Magic Chao Ping Makes His O w n Ferry Hsu Teng, Chao Ping, and the Gods Tung-hai C hiin Weaves a Suit Han Y u’s Premonition Huang-kung and His Red-Gold Sword Hsieh Chiu and His Banquet The Hindu Fakir in Chiang-nan Trials by Beast and Fire in Fu-nan Festive and Religious Customs in the Palace Han Wu-ti Is Shown Li fu-jen The Reunion Sun Hsiu Deceives His Wizard Two Shamans See Ghostly Clothing The Omens of Hsia-hou Hung

20 20 20

21 21 21 21

22 22 23 23 24 24 25 25 26

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,53 ,54 ,55 56 ,57 ,58 ,59 ,60

Chapter 3 Confucius’ Marvelous Message The Wonderful Salve of Tuan Yi Ominous Events at the Home of Tsang Chung-ying Ch'iao Hsuan Has Visions Kuan Lu and Three Omens from the Yi-ching Kuan Lu Shows Yen Chao How to Lengthen His Life Kuan Lu Diagnoses Headaches and Frightenings Kuan Lu and the Complaining Ghost Shun-yii C h ih Controls the Rat Shun-yii C h ih Advises Buying a Whip Shun-yu C h ih Empties a Collapsing House Shun-yii C h ih Cures Disease Using a Monkey

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7 37 39 4 94 0 3 4

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1 2 3 4 5 ^ 6 6 6 6 3 3 3 3 3 3 ,

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Kuo P’u Buys the Handmaid of His Choice Kuo P’u Revives Chao Kufs Horse Kuo P’u Explains an O ld Illness Kuo P’u Summons a White Ox Fei Hsiao-hsien’s Prophecy Treasure Recovered Through the Yi-ching Han Yu Captures Malign Influences in Leather Sacks Yen C h ’ing Manages with a Piebald Dog Hua T’o Cures an Ulcer with a Dog and Two Horses Hua T’o Treats a Sufferer with Vinegar

1 2 4 3 4 3 4 5 4 5 4 6 4 7 4 8 4 8 4 8 4 9 4 9 4 0 5 0 5 0 5 1 5 1 5

4

2 5

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68>7 8 188> 0 1» »9 8>^ 90

The Star Gods The Star Goddess with the Giant Breasts Wen-wang Dreams of the Storm Woman Hu-mu Pan and the Lord of T’ai-shan Feng Yi Becomes the Lord of Rivers The Lord of Rivers’ Son-in-Law The Message Arrives for Shilvhuang’s Death Sacrificial Offerings Returned Ts’ao C hu Rejects Lu-shan's Daughter Mistaken Sacrifice Returned* The God Borrows a Rhinoceros-Horn Comb The Strange Creature at Hsuan-ch'eng As-You-Like-It, the G od ’s Serving Maid The Temple of Huang-shih Kung Fan Tao-chi and Its Witch The Heavenly Bird The Fire Messenger The Yin Family’s Sacrifices to the Stove Origins of the Rice-Gruel Sacrifice The Stone Homunculus Origin of the Temple at Chun-shan

2 4

7W»9 1 72^ 7 3^ 4 7 ^8 7M 5 7H 6 7H7 7H0 7 0 ^18 12 8)3 4 5 . . 4 4 七 4 4m 4 4 4 4 4M 4M 4

Chapter 4

Chapter 5 2 9 3 9 4 9 5 9 6 9 7 9 8 9 9 9

The God Chiang Tzu-wen Receives Homage by Threats Liu C h ’ih-fu Offers the God a Substitute The God Demands Marriage Duke Chiang Appears to W u Wang-tzu Duke Chiang Aids a Traveler in Recovering His Wife The Spirit of Young Mrs. Ting Wang Y u and the Spirit of Death Chou Shih and the Messenger of Death

53 54 54 55 56 57 58 59

5.100 5.101

Miracles in the Eye of the Beholder The Well Under the Posthouse

60 61

Chapter 6 6,102

6,103 6， 104 6.105 6.106 6.107 6.108 6.109

6.110 6,111

6,112 6.113 6.114 6.115 6.116 6.117 6.118 6.119

6.120

6,121

6,122 6.123 6.124 6.125 6.126 6.127 6.128 6.129 6.130 6.131 6.132 6.133 6.134 6.135 6.136 6.137 6.138 6.139 6.140

A Discussion of Possessions and Anomalies The Loss of Sacred Mountains Hairy Tortoise and Horned Hare Horse into Fox Jade into Sand-Spitting Yii Mollusks Growth and Subsidence of the Earth Woman Gives Birth to Forty Children Serving Maid Gives Birth to Dragons The Boar’s 111 Om en Serpents Battle at the City Gates Dragons Battle in Town Mine Serpents Twine Around the Pillar Horse Gives Birth to Hum an A Woman Is Transformed into a M an Five-Legged Cow The Twelve Giants Two Dragons in Wen-ling Well ^ A Horse Sprouts Horns A Dog Sprouts Horns Men Grow Horns Dog Mates with Swine Battle of the White and Black Birds Cow with a Leg on Its Back Serpents Battle at the Temple The Rat Dances in the Palace Gate The Upraised Stone in T’ai-shan Commandery Insects Gnaw Writing in Leaves Dog Wearing Cap Runs Through Palace Gate A Hen Becomes a Cock Fan Yen-shou Renders Judgment Heaven Rains Grass Fallen Pagoda Tree Raises Itself Rats Nesting in Trees Malevolent Hounds The Kite Burns Its Nest A Rain of Fish in Hsin-tu A Tree Growth in the Shape of a Human Head A Horse Grows a H orn in the Imperial Stud Swallows Hatch Sparrows

62 62 64 64 64 64 65 65 65 65

66 66 66 66 67 67 67 67

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The Three-legged Foal The Fallen Tree Raises Itself Child Cries in the Womb Transmission of the Queen Mother of the West’s Writings A Male Becomes a Female Chao C h ’un Returns to Life The Two-Headed Infant of C h ’ang-an The Three-Legged Bird The Serpent atop Te-yang Palace Meat Rains down in Pei-ti Commandery The Strange Fashions of Liang C h i’s Wife Cow Gives Birth to Chicken wRed Troubles and Cycles of Three Seventies” Long and Short Garments Cannibalism Practiced Between Husband and Wife The Yellow M an on the Temple Wall “丁he Tree Does Not Follow Its Nature1* ■ Office of Palace Attendants，Hen Becomes a Cock Two-Headed Child Born in Lo-yang Descendant of Liang-po of Hsia Grasses in the Shape of Men and Animals The Two-Headed Child of L\\iTs’ang The Battle of the Little Birds Elegant Entertainment and Funeral Music A Song Sung in the Capital The M an Named H uan Returns to Life The 111 Om en of the Chien-an Era Children’s Songs from Ching-chou Blood Rows from Chopped Tree A Falcon Born in a Swallow’s Nest The River Horse of Baneful Portent Giant Egg in the Swallow’s Nest C h ’iao CKou Writes on the Pillar The Omen of Sun C h ’iian’s Death Sun Liang’s Baleful Om en from the Grains A Great Boulder Raises Itself Chiao’s Return to Life Sun Hsiu’s Clothing

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Writings in the Split Stone Ill-Omened Styles of the C hin Barbarian Utensils, Foreign Food

9 8

9 7

TA x1X 1 A 1 m7 m

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Chapter 7

1 1 1 1 1 A

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2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 8 8 8 8 0 0 8 8 & 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 1^. 1^.1^.1 ^ 1^, 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

7^ 7^ 7^ 7^ 7

Crabs Become Rats Two Dragons in the Arsenal Well Two-legged Tiger and Other Anomalies The 〇x， s Skull Speaks The Arsenal and the Flying Fish Sandal Styles Bound Hair Styles “Peaceful C h in ” Dance Barbarian Felt in Chinese Garments The Song “Break the Willow” A Horse Grows Horns in Liaotung Feminine Decorations The Bells Weep The Androgyne The Androgyne of An-feng The Great Serpent at Lin-tzu Blood in Lu District The High Suppliant Altar-Stone Shattered The Raven-Topped Crutch Revels Among Fashionable Youths The Floating Stone The Commoner in the Palace The Ox Speaks Worn Slippers Gather in the Road Flames from Halberd Tips Monstrous Birth in the Town of Wan-hsiang Multiple Births in Yen-ken A Dog Speaks The Chameleons from Yen-ling Ill-Omened Dogwood Trees Sow Farrows a H um an Child with Two Heads The Omen of Raw Silk Clothing Facelessness in Hat and Hair Styles Jen C h ’iao’s Siamese Twins The Unjust Death of Shun-yii Po The Two-Headed Calf Earthquake and Flood Monstrous Calves Two-Headed. Colt Anomalies in Women Wildfires at Wu-ch'ang The Rebels’ Clothing Military Standards Sprout Flowers

90 91 91 92 92 92 93 93 93 94 94 94 94 95 95 95 95 95 96 96 96 96 97 97 98 98 98 99 99 99 99

00

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7.225 7.226

Plumage Fans Made Differently The Serpent in the Hollow Tree

10 10!

Chapter 8 6

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7 7

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8 9 9

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Shun Plows on Li-shan T ’ang Sacrifices to the Heavenly Emperor Wen-wang Acquires Chiang 丁’ai-Kung Wu-wang Conquers Chou Confucius and the Unicorn Confucius Receives the Signs The Story of the Sacred Ch'en-pao Hsing-shih Predicts the Rise of the Ts， ao Family The Planet Mars Foretells the Fall of W u Tai Yang Dreams an Omen

6

8.227 8.228 8.229 8.230 8.231 8.232 8.233 8.234 8.235 8.236

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Chapter 9

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Widow Ying and Her Descendants P’eng K un’s Good Omens Seal of the Faithful and Filial Marquis Mr. Chang and the Little Gold Hook The O ld Crone Comes in from the Rain Prediction That Wei Shu Wduld Become a Duke How Chia Yi Came to Write His Fu Omen of the Geese and the Dog A Strange Object of Flesh Chu-ko Ch*ueh Murdered by Sun Chiin Omen of the Hum an Head The Visions of Chou C h ’in The Apparition in the Privy Blood in the Courtyard Chapter 10

9 0 0 0 0 1 1 1- 2 2 2 2 2 2

Empress Teng Climbs to Heaven Sun Chien’s Consort Receives the Sun and the M oon Ts’ai Mao Dreams of Grain atop a Palace Carriage Child Lends Money A n Ant-Hole Dream The Wonderful Shirt Liu Ya Dreams of a Black Lizard Chang H uan， s Wife Dreams of Death Emperor Huan Speaks to Emperor Ling in a Dream The North Dipper Sends Three Mounts for Three Men

8 8 9 11 11 11

10.251 10.252 10.253 10.254 10.255 10.256 10.257 10.258 10.259 10,260'

1 X I X

A Dream of Death Is Too Accurate Messengers of Death Find a Substitute

4 2 4 2

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The Arrow in the Boulder The Archers Yu-chi and Keng-lei Ku Yeh-tzu Beheads the Mighty Sea Turtle Kan-chiang Mo-yeh, the Wonderful Swordsmith The Headless Horseman Returning Gifts After Death Blood Turned to Jade Tung-fang Shuo Dissolves Trouble Liang Fu Offers His Life for Rain Ho C h ’ang Refuses Honors Honest Management Drives Away Locusts Wang Yeh, the Honest Inspector The Raft of 111 Omen The Filial Tseng Shen The Filial Piety of C hou C h ’ang Wang Hsiang’s Filial Behavior Toward His Stepmother Wang Yen Catches a Fish by Filial Piety C h ’u Liao’s Filial Acts Save His Mother’s Life A Spiteful Dish of Maggots Cures Blindness Snake Gall for Blindness A Filial Father W ould Sacrifice His Son Filial Action U ntil Death by Husband and Wife Squire Yang Plants Seeds of Stone and Grows Jade Heng Nung’s Dream of a Tiger Biting His Foot Lo Wei Warms the M at for His Mother Wang P’ou Comforts His Dead Mother The White Dove Gentleman Attendant Unjust Execution of the Filial Girl Hsiung, the Filial Daughter Faithful Wife Saves Her Mother-in-law Yii Kun Avoids the Plague Han P’ing The Water Baby Husband-Watcher’s Ridge 11.297 Teng Yuan-yi’s Wife Remarries 11.298 Yen Tsun and the Dissembling Mourner 11.299 The Two Friends

3 2

Chapter 11 11.263 11.264 11.265 11.266 11.267 11.268 11.269 11.270 11.271 11.272 11.273 11.274 11.275 11.276 11 >277 11.278 11.279 11.280 11,281 11,282 11.283 11.284 11.285 11.286 11.287 11.288 11.289 11.290 11.291 11.292 11.293 11.294 11.295 11.296

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10,261 10,262

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Chapter 12 2 2

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Chapter 13 3 5

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The Wonderful Li Spring How the River God Split M ount Hua in Two The Cauldrons of M ount Huo Setting M ount Fan Afire The Waters of K ’ung-ch’eng Cave Using a Cave to Bring Rain Giant Turtle Helps Build a City Wall Blood Seen on the City Gate How Horsetown G ot Its Name Omen from the Excavation of K ’urvming Pool The Well of Longevity The King of W u’s Leftovers The “Chief Minister” Crabs Water-Beetle Coins The Carpenter Bee Wood Weevils The Hedgehog The Fire-Wash Cloth Y in and Yang Mirrors

3 5

1 1

13.319 13.320 13.321 13.322 13.323 13.324 13.325 13.326 13.327 13.328 13.329 13.330 13.331 13.332 13.333 13.334 13.335 13.336 13.337

The Theory of Five Energies Confucius Lists the Supernatural Beasts The Hsi Dog Puppies and Other Buried Things Chu-ko K ’o and the Valley Genie The Shadows of C h ， ih-yang Killing a Pi-li The Tribe with Flying Heads Men into Tigers; Tigers into Men The Great Gibbons of Shu The Poisonous Tao-lao and Other Matters The Yeh-bird of Yiieh The Mermen Beyond the Southern Sea The Sound of Weeping Heard in the Land The SKan-tu Demons The Huo Creature in the Yangtze The Poisonous River Treatment for Ku Infestation The Forms of Ku Infestation The Ku Serpent Raised by the Liao Family

1 A 1 X

Ts， ai Yung’s Pawlonia Lute Ts， ai Yung’s Flute Made from a Rafter

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The Hermaphrodite Origins of the M an Barbarians Tung-ming Is Born in the Country of Kao-li O ld White-Hair Saves the Miraculous -Egg Tzu-wen Abandoned in the Mountains Duke C h ’ing Suckled by a Wildcat Tiger Apparition Shelters Yuarvjih The Child W u’s Serpent Twin The Origin of Golden Dragon Pool Jen Ku and the Feather-Robed Being Horse into Silkworm C h ’ang Ngo Steals the Elixir The Strange Plant and Its Effects The White Cranes of M ount Lan-yen The Bird Maidens Madam Huang Becomes a Turtle Sung Shilvtsung， s Mother Becomes a Turtle Hsuan C h ’ien’s Mother Becomes a Turtle The Poltergeist

0 6

Chapter 14 14,34( 14,34： 14,34； 14,34： 14,3+ 14,34: 14， 34( 14,34: 14,34； 14,外 14,35C 14,35： 14,35； 14,35」 14,35: 14， 35: 14,35( 14,3514,35!

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13.338 13.339

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15.359 Wang Tao-p'ing's Wife Restored to Life 15.360 Young Girl Restored to Life 15.361 Wen-ho Meets the Shade of His Wife-to-be 15.362 Li Ngo Returns from the Dead and Other Matters 15.363 Swift Traveler, Shih Hsii 15,634 Ho Yii Returns from the Dead 15.365 Tai Yang Remembers His Life After Death 15.366 Dead Liu Jung Dreams of Chang T， i’s Death 15.367 The Wife of M a Shih 15.368 Yen C h i’s Coffin Opened Too Late 15.369 The Dead Son’s Ring 15.370 The Han Palace W oman Resurrected 15.371 Woman Alive in a Tomb 15.372 Maid Servant Revived 15.373 Lady P’eng’s Corpse Is Violated 15.374 A Wealthy M an’s Burial Trappings 15.375 Supernatural Punishment for Grave-Robbing

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Chapter 15

Chapter 16 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

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Demonic Beings Origins of Memorial Songs Juan Chan and His Visitor The Debater Offers a Substitute to Death A Better Post in the Underworld The Coffin Floating on the Liao River Wen Hsii Appears to His Son in a Dream A Spirit Complains of a Wet Coffin Revenge for the Ghost of Su Ngo Ghostly Music from the Sunken Ship Hsia-Kou K'ai Resented Death C hu Chung-wu and the Ink Spot Demon Battles Stopped by Hum an Arrows Yang Tu and the Demon P’i-p’a Player Grandfather and Two Demons Three Drunken Ghosts ChHen Hsiao-hsiao and the Wooden Horses The M an W ho Sold a Ghost King Fu-ch'ai's Daughter The Ghostly Wedding Nights The Princess of Sui-yang and Scholar T an Lu C h ’ung and His Son by a Ghost The Ghost at Westgate Station Chung Yao Kills a Beautiful Ghost

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16.376 16.377 [6,378 [6,379 .6,380 .6,381 ■6,382 .6,383 .6,384 .6,385 6.386 6.387 6.388 6.389 6.390 6.391 6.392 6.393

Chapter 17 2

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The Spirit Plays Pranks Mister Virtue of the Ch'en-liu District Gold Hairpins on the Lintel The Spirit Lover Impersonates Yii Ting-kuo A Spirit Steals the Grand Protector's Salve The Blackmailing Demon in Ni Yervssu’s House Spirit Monster Tracks a Rider The Rise and Fall of Lord Tu-shuo Guardian Fang-hsiang Takes His Leave The C h ’ens Defeat the Troops of Death The Strange Fu-liu Bird The Fruit Trees of M ount Tung-wang The Serpent in C h ’in C han’s Head

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Chapter 18 4 1 5 1

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The Noisy Dippers A-wen and the Night Visitors Origins of the Oxtail Banner The Goddess of the G iant Tree Appears to Li Hsien The Little Creatures in the Giant Tree The P*eng-hou in the Camphor Tree Giant Catalpa Drowns Thirty Children Tung Chung-sKu's Visitor The Fox and the Tomb Pillar Two Sons, Their Father, and a Fox Huang Shen and the Tailless Vixen The Spirit Above the Ceiling Cloth The Deserter and the Fox Ah-tzu Sung Ta-hsien Wrestles a Demon Tao Po-yi and the Station House Fox Spirit Doctor H u and the Student Foxes Hsieh K ’un Captures a Deer Spirit Spending the Night with a Sow Spirit Liang Wen and Lord Kao-shan T'ien Yen Kills a Dog Spirit The O ld Tavern Dog Spirit Wang H u and the Knocks in the Night Li Shu-chien and the Upright Dog The Woman in Black with a Black Umbrella Wang Chou-nan and the Ordinary Rat The Three Murderous Spirits at An-yang Station T ’ang Ying Slays Civil and Military Demons

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Chapter 19

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Li C h i Slays the Great Serpent The Great Snake in Wei Shu’s Offices Chang K'uan and the Elderly Litigants Chang Fu and the Turtle Spirit Hsieh Fei and the Temple Visitors Confucius Explains the wFive Y u” The Mouse Cortege Ti Hsi’s Thousand-Day Wine Huang N u Dies at Age Fifteen

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Sun Teng and the Sick Dragon The Midwife and the Tiger K*uai Shen Cares for a Crane Chang Pao and the Oriole Envoy A Serpent’s Gift of the Moonlight Pearl K'ung Yu and the Left-Gazing Turtle The O ld Lady and the Stone Turtle’s Eyes The King of the Ants Rescues Tung Chao-chih Black Dragon, the Faithful Dog The Dog Ti-wei Kills a Boa Constrictor The Mole Cricket and the P’ang Clan Mother G ibbon Grieves for Her Baby Y u Tang and His Talking Deer Serpent’s Revenge Delayed Three Years Spirit Serpent Sinks a City The Silkworm Cyst

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Chapter 20

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Reference Matter Appendix: Observations on YiAven (Unredacted Texts) for the Sou-shen C h i

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Sou-shen C h i Editions Used

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Glossary and Finding List

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The Text and Its Background In 220 A.D., when C hina’s first great dynasty collapsed for the last time, four centuries of division would intervene before the Chinese Empire was unified again. This period spawned In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record (Sou-shen Chi) and a whole genre of similar works. O f course, the phrase “period of division” (the label given it by historical studies) focuses on the diverse political competition, warfare, and ethnic rivalries which kept numerous states small, weak, and short-lived over a great land mass and a span of many centuries. 丁he cultures of Medieval China emerging after the fall of the Han/Liu clan, which had ruled for nearly four hundred years, were the natural consequence of earlier Han expansionism and Han pretensions to cultural diversity. A t the zenith of that powerful dynasty, rulers like the emperor W u brought inhabitants, creatures, and goods representative of the mighty and cosmopolitan Han empire to his capital and confined them in his palaces and parks: after the collapse it was as though all these rarities and oddities had escaped from the emperor’s great amusement parks and suddenly become factors in Chinese Recilpolitik. So long as they remained in royal parks, control of strong regional cultures that surrounded the Han heartland bespoke the prestige of Han rulers. But by the third cen­ tury, regional cultures and their ethnically different peoples in fact squeezed the secure regions of China with increasingly strong states which，having learned new and powerful administrative techniques from the Han, then turned them against the originators. Literati, once pampered, cloistered and patronized during the strong­ est Han reigns, were now confronted with a less secure picture of their world, which piqued their curiosity even as it raised their anxiety. For the

next three centuries, Han Chinese dynasties are to be weak and in retreat: a shifting balance of small states is to mark a period of cultural diversity and flux that had not been seen since the late Warring States period be­ fore the first empire was established. As with the Warring States, this pe­ riod of political disunion was to become an era of great intellectual fer­ ment and growth. Chroniclers of the era were products of Han literatus culture; they were also products of a cataclysmic collapse of the stable society which produced it and pressures from the rise of a new and more diverse politi­ cal, social and cultural world, the likes of which had never been described before. Early Han courtiers collected curiosities and, in the comfort of their own studios, cultivated reputations for “broad learning” through un­ disclosed methods. Informal histories of and brief notes about non-Han people and places issued from the desks of Han scholars before the decline of the empire, but those worthies reveal by their omissions and vague fancies how truly remote from the historian’s gaze were such subjects. W ith the Han collapse, some literatus families moved from the old centers around Loyang to the Szechuan basin or the eastern reaches of the Yangtze River valley. There they found themselves actually located among and living with some of the very curiosities recounted in earlier texts.1These migrations required a new kind of historian for the Period of Division, a new historiography created from pressures for change in the established court historical format and a burgeoning of new forms within the narrative tradition to treat new material. W ith the founding of the Wei (first successor dynasty to the Han) by its elite Ts， ao family, the Chien-an (A.D. 196-220) poets and critics define in their poetry and pronouncements on writing what has been widely called the earliest concept of literary art in China—that is, to write for and about something distinct from engulfing preoccupations with state bureaucratic functions or reactive discourses on politics and society by the state's critics. Although critical attention to Chien-an literary theory typically fo­ cuses on lyric poetry as a private and personal art form for self-expression, the impact of changing times extended to prose writing as well. Those with a flare for narrative created private histories of their worlds. These resembled in some respects genuine court histories, which their authors knew well from Ssu-ma C h ’ien’s Shih-chi, but they were radically different in others. Instead of collecting the acts and lives of eminent courtiers, or being chronographers for each year of an emperor’s reign with his Pen-chi (Basic Annals), or working out the orthodox technologies of time, ritual, music and law, they collected experiences in and reports of a new world— many were real, many were imagined. The present volume represents just such a mixture: 464 extraordinary, fantastic, or bizarre items，from sober reports of drought and misrule to

accounts of foxes transformed into human form, a tribe whose heads could take independent flight at night, and encounters with the dead. The chih-kuai (志 1圣）genre, of which the present work is the definitive example, was the result, in narrative form, of the decline of Han ortho­ doxy, which had until then shackled both prose and poetry to the State and its concept of literacy as service to the government. Sott-sfien Chi rep­ resents a conspicuous break with the service tradition and such biblio­ graphic lore as surrounds its compilation clearly hints at the evolving cul­ ture of writing and narrative that conditioned its appearance.

Authorship Kan Pao，native of southern Honan and mid-level official in the Eastern C hin (A.D. 217-419) court, is widely acknowledged to be the compiler of Sou-shen Chi, His relative obscurity is made clear by the lack of detail in his own C?iin-5?iu (晉 書 ) biography. Two short paragraphs offer stereo­ typed comments on his diligent study and childhood mastery of the clas­ sics. These are followed by a longer memorial by the influential minister Wang Tao, embodying a successful appeal to have Kan Pao head the O f­ fice of History for the Eastern C h in emperor Yuan (A.D. 317-322).2 In Wang’s memorial we discover that Kan Pao had already compiled the Chin-chi (some sort of record of earlier C hin court activity, we presume) and Wang felt this constituted an excellent qualification for the recom­ mended post. After the biography reviews Kan Pao’s appointment as Historian and his subsequent rise to other official positions, there follows the remarkable story of how he became committed to compilation of the Sou-shen Chi: By nature Kan Pao was fond of yin-yang theory and the divinational arts. He gave

studied thought to the biographies of Ching Fang,3Hsia-hou Sheng, and others. Kan Pao’s father had a maid on whom he doted, and of whom Pao’s mother was bitterly jealous. When his father died, his mother forced the maid, still alive, into the tomb, unbeknownst to Pao and his brothers. More than ten years later, Pao’s mother died and the sons opened the tomb for her interment. They discov­ ered the maid lying on the coffin, apparently alive, so they carried her back to the house, and in a few days she indeed regained her life. She reported that their father often brought her food and drink and in death showed the same tender­ ness for her he did in life. Their father had also kept her abreast of the vicissi­ tudes of family fortunes, and all these things were confirmed as having actually happened. She did not suffer from having been in the tomb, and in time married and bore children.4 This incident is proposed by Chm-shu as the proximate cause for Kan Pao’s undertaking compilation of his Search for the Supernatural: The Writ­ ten Record:

Because of these events, Pao collected and edited ancient and contemporary sto­ ries of deities, spirit anomalies, unusual people, and metamorphoses. He called it

the Sou-shen Chi in thirty chapters. Pao showed the manuscript to Liu T’an (劉埃） who opined,, “You should be called the Tung Hu of ghosts.” Liu T’an was a C h in literatus and physiognomer of greater renown than Kan Pao and had distinguished himself as a brilliant scholar and critic—just the kind of person who would be called upon to rate the qual­ ity of court literati. The Tung H u to whom Liu compares Kan was praised by Confucius for solving the mystery of the murder of Prince Ling Kung, as it is recorded in the Tso-chuan ( Duke Hsiian 2). Details are sparse in the Chin-sKu account of Kan Pao; it was, after all, written ca. A.D. 635，some three centuries after the death of Kan Pao, from such records as survived this era of political instability. The biogra­ phy was written at a time when a general attitude toward historical rec­ ords had engendered the first great critique of historiography, Liu Chihchi’s Shih七ung (史 通 ) . We know from that book that in Liu’s eyes histori­ ans of the Eastern C h in were lacking in scholarship, narrow of back­ ground, and infatuated with strange tales. There is little doubt he had Kan Pao in mind when he expressed regret chat accounts recorded by Eastern C h in historians were assumed to be veracious by later Six Dy­ nasty historians.5 The Chin-shu does not reflect views on history prevalent during the composition of Sow-s/ien Chi: on the contrary, the irony with which the biographers recount the story of the interred, family maid as the impetus for Pao’s compilation is obvious. They make no claim for the his­ toricity of the tale nor its connection to the Sow-sfien Cfii, they merely as­ sociate Kan Pao’s compilation with a story then circulating about his fam­ ily maid's remarkable return. The C/ifn-s/m historians may have taken that tale from any number of sources; it very likely could have originated many years after Kan Pao， s death and only became attached to his name after he was widely known as the premier compiler of our chih-kuai collection, Soushen Chi. Chin-shu also preserves what it reports to have been the original pref­ ace to Sou-shen Chi’ written by Kan Pao as he completed the manuscript. It is kin to several other chih-kuai prefaces supposed to date from the early Six Dynasties; such attributions are in every case uncertain since there are no redundant versions or references to them. The problem of authentica­ tion notwithstanding，including it in the Chin-shu biography implies that Kan Pao was primarily identified with the compilation of Sou-shen Chi bycarriers of China’s literary heritage in early T’ang tifnes: Even though we examine ancient fragments in the written documents and collect bits and pieces which have come to the present time, these things are not what has been heard or seen by one person's own ears and eyes. How could one dare say there are no inaccuracies? Note the account of Wei Shuo*s losing the country. The two commentaries are at odds in the information they obtained. Note the

account of Lu Wang’s service to Chou. In the SfiiK-c/ii alone there are two differ­ ent versions. Examples of this type occur again and again. From this evidence we can see that problems in the witnessing of events have existed since ancient times. Even in writing the words of a funerary announcement or following the manuals of the official historians, one finds places where it is difficult to write ac­ curately. How much more difficult, then, is looking back to narrate events of a past one thousand years ago, writing down the characteristics of distant and pe­ culiar ways of life, stringing together word fragments between textual faults and fissures, questioning the elderly about events in former times! If one must have historical events without any discrepancies, have words in every text agree and only then regard them as veritable, then this point will surely seem a defect of previous historians. Nevertheless, the state does not eliminate the office charged with writing commentaries on historical documents, and scholars do not cease jn their recita­ tions of the texts. Is this not because what is lost is inconsequential and what is preserved is vital? As for what I am putting together now, when they are items gotten from previous accounts, the fault is not mine. In the event they are from recent hap­ penings which I have collected or discovered, should there be errors or omissions, I would hope to share the ridicule and condemnation with scholars and worthies of the past. Coming now to what these records contain, it is enough to make clear that the spirit world is not a lie. On this subject, the countless words and the hundred differing schools are too much even to scan. And what one perceives with one's own eyes and ears is too much to write down. So I have lumped together records that are just adequate to express the main points of the “eight categories,” provide some trivial accounts. That is all. 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.6 The preface may be taken at face value: it recites a typical problem for historians, one that derives from statements on text traditions which be­ gin in the early Han. We know, from Pan Ku's "I-wen chih,t (Treatise on Bibliography) in the Han-shuj that the court and its ministers were preoc­ cupied with confusion over canonical texts: for each major tradition, there were too many versions. Not a paucity of accounts but rather a surfeit that brought about uncertainty over which was definitive. Since authen­ ticity of a text and its value as truth derived from the authority of its originator, it presented a profound problem for an elite culture that framed its debates over contemporary issues by relying on authorities from the past. Kan Pao， s preface shows a similar concern about historical ac­ counts from all eras and extends that concern to include the witnessing of events in general. The preface says the work is concerned with the spirit world and is de­ voted to using as proof of its reality, events the veracity of which was

clearly doubted by many at the time. The Hsin 丁’ang-s/m classifies the SousKen Chi as well as other narratives and chih-kuai of the era as hsiao-shuo; Chinese discussion of them, then and in more recent centuries, focuses on whether the compilers of these old works thought they were writing genuine history. Presently, we regard that question as neither answerable nor relevant to understanding Sou-shen Chi. Contemporary understanding of narrative writing, historical or nonhistorical, focuses on the constructive nature of the process, the cultural imperatives that shape accounts，and the function of a narrative in its contemporary social and political context. This approach should be ap­ plied to Chinese narrative generally to avoid a sweeping conclusion that even the most esteemed Chinese classics are simply faulty history, despite their venerated status in traditional Chinese views of the past. Underlying most contemporary theories of historiography in the West—from Nietzsche, Hegel and Croce through Collingwood and Frye and more re­ cent refinements by Hayden White and Louis M ink—is the assumption that all historical narratives are largely imagined and claims of scientific and positivist connection between events and written histories of them are baseless.7This attitude must influence our views of the present text.

Contents Chinese narrative writings exist as much because of their place in a stream of tradition as they do by being unified and discreet texts. Scholars of later narrative novels—Shui-hu Chuan (Water Margin) t for example—have worked for decades to identify steps in the evolution of the work, its mul­ tiple sources of key episodes and characters, as well as the multiplicity of versions, editions, and generations of the fully developed novel. These la­ bors suggest, among other things, that identifying the final form of a tra­ ditional Chinese novel may be bootless, since each recension of the work is only a milestone along the road of continuing development. A recent study of the mass of narrative material devoted to episodes in the life of the Han emperor W u (which material comes mainly from the medieval, not the early period) demonstrates that it, too, is a series of downstream developments from many sources with deep historical roots.8 Every significant piece of narrative from earlier times positions itself within a tradition, or is so positioned by later commentators and critics, or both. This involves speculations about intellectual antecedents, the uthors, prior texts, and the nature of historical evidence found in it. The Sou-sfien Chi of today represents accounts with wide circulation during the Six Dynasties. Whether what we have now resembles the original is debatable, but with few exceptions the items translated in the present volume present Han and Six Dynasties material. The contents are

not easily assigned to one or another school of thought or cosmology, but they include many views having common currency during the four or five centuries spanning time between the Han and the end of the Six Dynas­ ties. Its omen material (see esp. Chs. 6-7) is basically yin-yang and \m-hsing ontology usually associated with pre-Han cosmologists such as 丁sou Yen (fl. ca. 290 B.C.), which found fullest expression in Tung Chung-shu's massive Ch'un-ch'iu Fan4u. That work was a monument of the Former Han dynasty New Text School, a complex amalgam of Confucian moral philosophy and several divination and prognostication traditions that saw unusual natural phenomena and anomalies as information from the un­ seen world which, if read aright, constituted predictions of things to come or warnings of past mistakes in the highest places. Chapters 6 and 7 in the present-day 20-chapter version of SoM-5/ien Chi are taken largely verbatim from dynastic history text found in the Han-shu and Hsu Han-shu (the socalled wu-hsing chih)t which was collected for and by these omen interpre­ ters and constituted the very heart of this practice. Hagiographic notices involving immortals and near-immortals can be found concentrated in the first chapter, but also scattered throughout the work, where they range from stories of marvelous conjury and prediction (e.g., 8,234-35; 9,242; 10,260) to hygiene and medicine (e.g., 3,67-71) re­ flecting topics and perspectives in Taoist writings from Chuang-tzu to the hstlan-hsueh (Abstruse Learning) cliques of the early Six Dynasties. Standing apart from the more saint-like figures are the fang-shih— montebanks who practice exorcism and a whole range of other marvelous arts. They seem often to be from northeast China—particularly the Shan­ tung area (see ch. 3 for Kuan Lu, Shun-yu Chih, Kuo P， u，and Hua T’o). Additionally there is ethnographic material about non-Han people—even one report (2,41) of a Hindu fakir doing his magic tricks before an en­ thralled audience_ and a number of tales include descriptive geography which would appeal to the strong curiosity of the times about what lay beyond C hina.9 Finally, whatever the collector(s) of our Sou-sfien Chi anecdotes imag­ ined they were doing, it was inevitable that folk stories, folktale motifs, and scraps of myths would be stumbled upon in the course of ingathering. Scholarship is no longer so sanguine as it was in the early decades of the twentieth century about how much might be discovered concerning the unspoiled human animal and his culture by collecting and examining the fascinating distribution and persistence of songs and stories which are apparently as old as mankind itself. Nevertheless we owe the dedicated early labors of those who then had so much faith in “the folk” a tremen­ dous debt; contemporary scholars still find their thorough classification systems extremely useful. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our forerunners, listening to and recording artless people telling themselves stories and

singing their own songs, few of us can remain unimpressed by the remark­ able similarity of folk themes (whether found in China, Europe, among Native Americans or elsewhere) nor fail to feel, perhaps, a heartening sense that human beings everywhere are more alike than different. Numerous and ingenious theories have been proposed to explain the almost global distribution of some folk themes, but certainly Thompson’s sensible observations on p. 385 of The Folktale are most widely subscribed to at present: “Any careful student . . • soon learns that . . • identical simple ideas arise over and over. . . . It is not necessary to strain for an explanation either by proposing dubious routes of diffusion or by asserting a mystical theory. . . . If men tell tales at all they must sometimes hit upon the same motifs.” To do at least partial justice to the folktale riches in Sou-5/ien Chi we draw the readers' attention here to the book’s incorporation of a number of stories and motifs known all over the world.10 First, the theme Western readers might most readily identify with “loaves and fishes” （ Mat. 14:17). This is Thompson's M otif D1652.1, “The inexhaustible food supply.” Though the motif is nowhere the primary element in any of our units, it does appear as one of the accomplishments of several of the fang-shih: see Sow-shen Chi 1,18; 1,21 (in which Tso Tzu feeds many from little, not once but twice), and 1,24 in which Hsu Kuang generates an abundance of melons by a kind of legerdemain. Also note in 11， 279 the fish gotten by an act of filial piety which cannot be consumed. O n p. 9 of The' Folktale where he classifies general types of folk tales, Thompson writes, “The etiological tale . . . [ is when ] local legend . . . explains the existence of some hill or cliff. . . Compare Sou-shen Chi 13,320 for a perfect example, and further note 20,457, which concludes with the observation that "to this day there stands the Tumulus to the Faithful Dog.” Additionally, of course, two of the most famous of all Soushen Chi stories (“Kan-chiang Mo-hsieh,” 11,266 and “Han P’ing” 11,294) conclude as though they were etiological tales—which is in fact the least interesting aspect of them both.11 Observe in the former story that the Tomb of the Three Kings is said “presently to be found in the Pei Yi-ch’un district of Ju-nan.” The latter declares that “The people of Sung mourned for the lovers’ loss and called the trees 'Trees of Love’ (hsiang-sm 5/iu), which is how we get our name for them.” The association of any tradi­ tional narrative with supposed or existing objects or sites’ even though tacked on at the end, strengthens its validity as an explanatory tale, which type is often called in the West Natursage or pourquoi story. Further, with regard to the Han P’eng story, note Thompson’s statement (p. 256) while discussing "stories of resuscitation” ： . definitely in the ballad tradition appear the twining branches which grow together from the graves of lov­ ers (Motif E631.0.1).”

“Animals play a large role in all popular tales， ” Thompson remarks (p. 9) while describing the appearance of animals in myths. “The Culture Hero often has animal form though he may be conceived of as acting . . . like a man.” Note how precisely this describes P'an-hu in 14,341, “The Origins of the M an Barbarians.” Animals more often than not save the infant king in the hero’s birth motif or as part of what is sometimes called the "divine child” syndrome. Since that type of story is more myth than folktale, the reader should probably compare O tto Rank’s The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (esp. p. 61)： 12 The hero is a child of most distinguished parents; usually the son of a king.. . . During the pregnancy, or antedating the same, there is a prophecy in the form of a dream or an oracle, cautioning against his birth and usually threatening danger

to the father or his representative. . . . he is then saved by animals or lowly peo­ ple ( shepherds) and is suckled by a female animal or by a humble woman. After he has grown up he finds his distinguished parents.. . . In Rank’s list of heroes only Romulus, Remus, and Gilgamesh (by an ea­ gle) are sheltered by animals; Sou-shen Chi heroes all have animal saviors. The hero in 14,342 is succored by animals twice, while 14,344; 14,345; and 14,346 feature the culture hero suckled or protected by a tiger, a wild­ cat and a falcon.13 See also Thompson, p. 267 (Motif M 371, etc.)，which describes the salvation of the hero in a slightly different manner. “The grateful animals” (Aarne-Thompson Folktale Type 554), though not represented in its most elaborate form, appears in several closely re­ lated versions in Sow-sfien Chi. Thompson remarks (p. 56), “Most fre­ quently the [grateful] animals are ants . • . and the animals, called upon in [the hero’s] hour of need, perform his tasks for him and bring him suc­ cess.wThis describes with precision the gratitude shown by ants in 20,456 where the ant-king not only tells our prisoner-hero where he must seek asylum, but sends his minions to nibble away his prison bonds. The molecricket in 20,459 performs much the same task, but the frame for that story is the P’ang clan’s curious custom of yearly sacrifice to that lowly in­ sect. The reader should also consider the tiger's midwife in Sou^Ken Chi 20,450; though there the tiger's later gifts appear to be a kind of simple repayment. In treating the marvelous qualities ascribed to animals by folk tales, Thompson observes (p. 245) that “very widespread is the idea that the ac­ tions of an animal may properly determine some great decision . . . [e.g.,] where a building or a city should be founded. . . In Sou-sfien Chi the advice given to Chang Y i to “Build the wall following the turtle’s course” (13,325) and the horse’s strange behavior in 13,327 demonstrate that such beliefs were also part of the folklore of ancient China. Sou-shen Chi lacks a

true “parliament of animals” as described in Thompson, p. 245，but there is a rather complete funeral cortege of mice in 19,446. Finally, there is even a perfect far-eastern counterpart for AarneThompson M otif A2126, “Creation of flounder from Virgin Mary's half­ eaten fish." Consult Sou-shen Chi 13,330 “The King of W u’s Leftovers•” There, certain minnows in The River were so slim they resembled shred­ ded raw fish—a popular delicacy in China for centuries—and they become part of a pourquoi story featuring remnants of King Ho-lii of W u’s meal as he crossed The River.14

Versions and Transmission There are three works named Sou-shen Chi which survive:15 the twentychapter Sou-sKen Chi (hereafter 20C SCC) upon which the present trans­ lation is based; the eight-chapter (8C SCC), and the single chapter found among the Tun-huang manuscripts (TH SCC). The last mentioned claims to have been composed by one C h ii Taohsing (句 道 興 )，not Kan Pao. Eight of its items resemble those in the 20C S C C in some fashion, and another 14 resemble those in the 8C SSC. The TH SC C narratives are quite fully developed and include several stories which later became well-known T’ang cWuan-ch1^ viz. T， ien K ’un-lun, Fan Liao, and Wang Tao-p'ing. For the last, see 15,359 in the present volume. The general tone of T H S C C stories is less Buddhistic than the 8C SC C, but still more so than we would expect from our court Confucianist, Kan Pao. Five of them name their sources, and these include Shih-chit Yi-wu (異 物 ）and Yu-ming Lu. Its language is more colloquial than 20C SC C , its narrative detail more dense as a rule; it shows no interest in wu-hsing or yin-yang prognostics, nor does it contain material from Kan Pao’s preface. In general TH SC C is more influenced by than related to the Sou-shen Chi translated in the present volume. The 8C SC C appeared in mid-Ming times published in Shang Weichiin's (商 維 濱 ) Pai-hai (稗 海 ) , and later scholars, both Chinese and Japanese, have pointed out anachronistic place-names and official titles in its stories. The most serious charge brought against this version and its at­ tribution to Kan Pao, however, is the heavily Buddhistic choice of themes16 and the single type of Buddhist yin-kuo (因 果 ）retribution. This contrasts greatly with the 20C SSC interest in a wide variety of requitals and vengeance.17 Additionally, there is only one form of 8C SSC which contains Kan Pao’s preface as we have it from the C/u'n-shw.18 In every respect, then, we may as well conclude (as the Ssu-k,u editors cautiously did some time ago) that the 20C SSC is the closest we can come to Kan Pao's compilation. The focus of its tales is historical rather

than moral, its language and its tone appear consistently to have a certain elegance, which we should expect of Kan Pao, and the angle of vision we should expect from Eastern Chin. The 20C SSC appeared as a complete book no later than the Ming Warvli (1573-1620) era—oddly enough, the period during which the 8C SSC also became available. The earliest form of the 20C SSC is presently to be found in the Pi-ts’e Hui-han (秘 册 彙 函 ) collectanea, carved in the year 1603. It was compiled by H u Chen-heng (胡 震 亨 ）of Hai-yen (海 鹽 〉 —where Kan Pao’s family is said to have originated—-and Shen Shih-lung (沈 士 龍 ) of Hsiu-shui (|§7ic). A certain Yao Shu-hsiang (姚 叔 祥 ) is also mentioned as having “corrected” the contents and added a postscript. It is by way of his other personal writings that we gain an important bit of in­ formation: Among those in Chien-nan who collect books, Hu Yuan-tuan (胡 元 端 ) [Ying-lin] (應 麟 ) has the most extensive library. . . . He owned the Sou-s/ien Chi; I was de­ lighted and insisted on seeing it . . . [he said] "I would not dare trick someone as knowledgeable as you. . . . Frankly, it was copied out of Fa-yuan ChuMn and sev­ eral other Zei-shw.’’19

This and other similar comments from the period seem to be all but con­ clusive: the book was quite well known then, and there was interest in it. It was known to have been lost and had there been a genuine copy of it discovered or recovered somehow, mention of this fact would certainly have been made in the Pi-ts'e Hui-han^ preface if nowhere else. However, no mention of such a publication is made by its editors or by any of the enthusiastic late-Ming bibliophiles who knew of the work. By the same token, those collectors and editors who had something to do with the Pi-ts’e Hui-han and its preface, seem to imply that despite a number of what they considered to be anachronisms, the edition to which they were lending their names was as near to the Sow-sfien Chi of Kan Pao as could be gotten. As DeWoskin points out in his dissertation, these men might merely have been protecting the monetary value of their edition when they argued its antiquity, but there were many bibliophiles at hand who would have been quick to dispute any improbable claims. Therefore, the very fact no such serious objections have survived to our day is a type of backhanded indication that the scholarly community of the era were largely in agreement that the ZOC SSC was the best reconstruction .to be had.20 About 180 years after the publication of the Pi-ts'e edition, one of the most thorough pieces of literary examination (the Ssu-k'u Ch'uan-shuy T’iyao) turned its attention to the Sou-shen Chi as represented in the 1603 woodcut. The Ssu-kfu editors examined the citations “in ancient times to certify this text” and then list a number of early works which include quo­

tations from Sou-shen Chi. Their conclusion is that “The contents are all much the same, so this is Kan Pao’s original book.” Getting to the sixth and seventh chapters, these completely quote the Five Phases (uiw-Ksing) sections of the Han-shu and the Hsti Han-shu. Although Ssu-ma Piao lived before Kan Pao, and Pao ought to have seen the Hsii Han-shu, there seems absolutely no reason for him to copy two chapters together without changing so much as a single character. . . . Nonetheless, the narratives in the book have an antique elegance, and its discourses could not have been written by anyone but a Six Dynasties person.

Whether or not we accept their final conclusion, the editors’ complaint about the Five Phases chapters is a curious one: in the Pi-tsle preface it had early on been pointed out that Somfien Chi makes changes and omissions in the Five Phases items as they are found in the Han-shu and the HsU Han-shut and all the events of the seventh chapter postdate the Han, con­ trary to the Ssu-kVs conclusion. The Ssu-k’u editors were the first to state explicitly that the present text is a recompilation from fragments transmitted in other works (and that it includes some tales which were not in the original). They cite the size of Sou-s/ien Chi as listed in several early bibliographies and conclude that the decrease in the number of chapters (from 30 to 20) is due to the gradual disappearance of items as each recompilation was attempted. But the Ssu-k*u editors and the present translators are satisfied that the twenty-chapter edition, first cut in 1603, is still the most satisfactory ver­ sion of this famous old book to work with and to read.

Notes 1. Note the number of Sou-shen Cfii items with riverine features characteristic of life on the lower Yangtze, viz. 3,68; 4,78; 5,99; 19,443; 19,446. Note also in 20,462 that a “one-ton grain boat” is mentioned as a common object with which any reader might reckon the size of a monstrosity. 2. Kan Pao’s biography is in Cfiin-sh-u ch. 100, Wang Tao’s is ch. 65. For complete translation of this and other primary documents dealing with Kan Pao*s

life, see Kenneth J. DeWoskin, “The Sow-shen Chi and the Chih-kuai Tradition: A Bibliographic and Generic Study” (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1974), ch. 2. 3. See below 3,52；3,67; 6,103.

4. This story is also translated in J.J.M De Groot, The Religious System of China (1892, Taiwan reprint 1969), 4：126. The story with slight variations is in­ cluded in the Sow-shen Hou-chi (ch. 4), SKiK-shuo Hsin Yu (世 說 新 語 ）(25: 5a-b) and in KVng-sKiK Chih-kuai (Ku Hsiao-shuo Kou-chlen 古小說勾沈，p. 84) Ching Fang and Hsia-hou Sheng were two Han era technocrats specializing in divina­ tion. See Han-shu ch. 75 and 88. 5. Liu’s remarks are found in the Shih.-t,ung,s (雜說）"miscellaneous conversations,” chs. 17-19. For detailed discussion, see Kenneth J. DeWoskin, “The Six

Dynasties Chih-kuai and the Birth of Fiction， ” in Andrew H. Plaks, ed. Chinese Narrative: Critical and Theoretical Essays (Princeton University Press, 1977), 36, 48fF. 6. Wei Shuo is Duke Hui of Wei during the Ch’un-ch’iu era. Lu Wang (usual­ ly known as T'ai-kung) was the legendary minister to King Wen of the Chou. In S/u7i-c/u. Ssu-ma Ch’ien includes both a hearsay version of Lu*s meeting King Wen and the more established account: see below 8,229. The exact meaning of "eight categories” is uncertain; it probably refers to some grouping of spiritual phenom­ ena, each of which Kan Pao sought to represent in his collection. See below 12,300 for one attempt by the author to classify by reviewing old documents. 7. For a discussion of this see Kenneth J. DeWoskin, “On Narrative Revolu­ tions,win CLEAR: Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, and Reviews 1&-2 (1983): 2945. 8. See Thomas Smith “Ritual in the Shaping of Narrative: The Legend of the Han Emperor Wuw(Ph.D. Diss. University of Michigan, 1992). Sow-sKen Chi was an early contributor to the Wu-ti tradition; see below 2,32; 2,44; 4,72. 9. The whole cluster—14,341 through 346—demonstrates the abiding interest our text has in exotic lands and peoples. 14,343 appears at first blush not to be­ long in this group, but Anhui (with its Ta-pieh (大另[|山）mountains and near-

jungle vegetation) made the country of Hsii nearly as inaccessible as places be­ yond the borders of what is now China. See also 12,310-11; 13,336. 10. Those interested in pursuing the subject thoroughly will address them­ selves to Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson’s giant (six-volume) Motiflndex of Folk-Literature; but for the purposes of this introduction, Thompson's 丁he Folktale (University of California Press, 1977) with its compendious Index of Tale Types and Motifs serves very well indeed. 11. As Thompson says, "Frequently the [etiological] explanation seems to be the entire reason for the existence of the story . . . but more often than is usually

recognized . . . these may be attached to almost any narrative form,” For just such an attachment see 5,97» below on the supposed origin of “The Ninth of the Ninth” as a women’s day of rest. 12. Though he should discount the worshipful deference to Freud and Freu­ dian interpretation of myth which was so popular with Rank and many other folklorists of the time. 13. Old Whitehair in 14,343 retrieves the wonderful egg which is to hatch into the heir-successor to the country of Hsii, so in a sense, the dog is also a hero’s animal guardian. 14. O r the King of Yiieh in one source; see Wang 1979nl. 15. Or four, if we include six-chapter version found in Hiu Tao-tsang. How­ ever, it speaks of the Three Great Schools of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Tao­ ism. Since Buddhism did not emerge as a force in China until centuries after Kan

Pao's death, there is little need to treat the Tao-tsang version as though it were related to Kan Pao’s compilation in any way except by title. 16. In contrast, today’s 20-chapter version contains only one truly Buddhistsounding entry, and that is a kind of addendum to 11,277. 17. E.g., 9,249，where unfulfilled promise of sacrifice causes disaster; 11,27984, where filial action brings its own reward; in 4,78 and 5»94, frivolity toward

gods or their images results in deaths, and 11,277 describes drought ending in re­ sponse to the local governor’s charitable burial of strangers and travelers. 18. For detailed information on these and other differences (including com­ parisons of certain stories which appear in both), see K. J. DeWoskin, Disserta­ tion. 19. See ibid., pp. 73-76. 20. Of course, bookworms began almost immediately discovering in other works items attributed to Sou-shen Chi but not included in the Pi-tsfe edition; DeWoskin has a list of 49 of these yi-wen (逸文）but some of the most useful edi­ tions published in this century seem to agree on a group of 34. See Appendix.

IN SEARCH OF THE SUPERNATURAL THE W R IT T E N R E C O R D

CHAPTER ONE

SKen N ung (1,1) Shen Nung* used his ochre flail to thresh the hundred plants. It was thus that he knew their natures entire—whether normal, venomous, generating warmth or chill. Then, according to the class of their odor and taste, he sowed the hundred grains; this is why the world calls him the Farmer God. * “Legend has it that he had the body of a human and the head of an ox” (Huang 1991).

C h ,ih Sung-tzu ( l y2) C h ’ih Sung-tzu was Rainmaster during the time of Shen Nung. He swal­ lowed ice and scattered jade,* thereby to teach Shen Nung. He could go through fire and not be burned.t When he reached the K'un-lun Range, he frequented the stone caves of the Queen Mother of the West. He could rise and sink with the rains and winds. The youngest daughter of Shen Nung followed him and also became transcerfdent. They departed [the world] together. A t the time of Emperor Kao-hsin he again became Rainmaster and dwelt in the world of men. The Rainmaster of today began with him. ♦One version, probably correct, has “swallowed water mixed with the essence of jade.” tT he older version has Himmolated himself in foe.”

Chrih