New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology Introduction Phần 9 pdf

that a different form was created. Late seventeenth century porcelain. Victoria and Albert Museum. his promise, was unable to save a Dragon-King who had made a mistake in distributing rain and was condemned to have his head cut off by the August Personage of Jade. The spirit of this Dragon-King held that the Emperor was responsible for his death, and every night came and created a disturbance at the palace door. In consequence the Emperor fell sick, and his two generals, Yu-ch'ih Ching-te and Ch'in Shupao, suggested that they should keep guard over the palace door. The spirit of the Dragon-King was thus driven away, but he went off and created a disturbance at the back door, a door with only one leaf, and was driven away by T'ai-tsung's Minister, Wei Cheng. The Emperor therefore had these three personages painted on all doors, and the tradition lasted until our own time, although it is rather uncommon to see a painting of Wei Cheng, but then doors with one leaf are not very numerous in China. The Door gods are painted directly on to the doors of great houses, whereas humbler houses and those in the country simply have their printed and coloured images stuck on. They are represented in military dress, holding in one hand a long-handled mace, with a bow and arrows slung at their side. They keep away evil spirits and prevent them from entering the house they are guarding, and there are quantities of legends about their good services. In spite of which absolutely nothing is done in their worship. And then it must be noted that in recent times they lost a great deal of their religious character. Except among the people, usually extremely superstitious, they had come to be considered rather as themes for decoration than as divinities, and they are on the way to disappearing completely. None are to be seen, for instance, on the doors of houses in Peking. In Buddhist Temples, the Door gods are not Ch'in Shu-pao and Yu-ch'ih Ching-te, but are represented by different persons -the Sniffing General and the Puffing General (Heng-Ha-erh- Chiang) or else by the Heavenly Kings (T'ien Wang), the four brothers Mo-li. They are all represented by colossal grimacing figures placed in the first building of the temples. At first there were only the two generals, Sniffer and Puffer, one of whom has his mouth shut while the other has his mouth open. They are so called because during their lifetime it appears that one of them had the power of emitting from his nostrils jets of white light which mortals breathed in, while the other puffed fatal gases out of his mouth. Little by little in the course of ages these two personages have been replaced by the Celestial Kings. When you enter a Buddhist temple you come into the inner hall, a kind of vestibule divided by a courtyard from the great hall, and there you see four enormous statues ranged along the walls. They represent soldiers with grimacing countenances, respectively holding a sword, an umbrella, a guitar and a striped marten - sometimes replaced by a snake. They are the Celestial Kings, guardians of the four directions. Originally these personages were Buddhist divinities, named Vaisravana, Dhrtarastra, Virudhaka and Virupaksa. In course of time their personality changed under the influence of the novel, Royal Investiture. They are now considered to be the four brothers Mo-li, who were once generals famous for their deeds. The attributes they hold in their hands are simply the talismans by means of which they conquered their enemies during their mortal life. When the first flourished his sword he raised terrific whirlwinds which swept everything before them. The second merely had to open his umbrella and the sun was obscured, plunging the earth into deepest darkness while it poured with rain. The third controlled the direction of the winds by playing on his guitar. And the last annihilated his enemies by loosing his striped marten, who ate them up. Like the Celestial Kings, the Sniffing and Puffing Generals were also once Buddhist divinities. In these same outer halls may also be seen the statue of a young soldier, clad in shining armour and holding a knotty stick in his hands. This is Wei-t'o, chief of the thirty-two heavenly generals, and also assigned to guard doors. POPULAR GODS The God of Wealth, Ts'ai-shen This god has certainly had more success than any of them. Not only do the people never fail to offer up a sacrifice to him on his birthday, but even persons who claim to be unbelievers and pay no sort of cult to other gods, salute this god with great respect on the appointed day. The God of Wealth's anniversary is on the fifth day of the first month. On New Year's Day in Peking, the day on which all the gods descend on earth to make a tour of general inspection, the children run about the streets at night, shouting: 'We come to bring you the God of Wealth!' Each person hastens to buy one, and when other sellers appear the answer is: 'We already have one,' for it would not be in good taste to say: 'We don't want any more/ After it is purchased the image is placed beside that of other gods (the Star gods, the Hearth gods, etc.) and then they wait for the fifth day of the following month. On this day they sacrifice to the god a cock and a living carp specially reserved for this occasion, and then the image is burned on a fire of pine twigs accompanied by many fire-crackers, while the master of the house and all who live in it, without distinction of age or sex, come in succession to bow before the little fire. The Taoists made the god of Wealth the head of a Ministry of Wealth with offices and a string of subordinates, such as the Celestial and Venerable Discoverer of Treasures, the Celestial and Venerable Bringer of Treasures, the Immortal of commercial profits, etc. But the people like to simplify, and usually they take one of these gods - in Peking the best known is the god of Wealth who increases Happiness, Tseng-fu-ts'ai-shen. The novel, the Investiture of the Gods, identified him with the wise man, Pi Kan, who lived towards the end of the Yin dynasty, and was put to death by order of the Emperor who wanted to find out if it is true, as people say, that the heart of a wise man is pierced with seven openings. Elsewhere general Chao of the dark Terrace is revered as the god of Wealth. The Agent of Heaven, T'ien-Kuan, is another god who bestows happiness, and is one of a triad made up in addition to the Agent of the Earth, Ti-Kuan, who grants remission of sins and the Agent of Water, Shui-kuan, who averts evil. As M. Maspero has rightly pointed out, these three gods are the personification of the ancient Taoist ritual which insisted on a confession of sins written in triplicate, of which one was burned for Heaven, one buried for Earth, and the third sunk for Water. These three gods received twice a month an offering of cakes in the form of tortoises and chain-links, but the only one at all well known in our time is the Agent of Heaven, and that mainly thanks to the theatre, for it is the custom to begin every theatrical performance with a pantomime called 'the Agent of Heaven brings happiness', T'ien-kuan-ssu-fu. He appears in the form of a mandarin wearing ceremonial costume, with a smiling mask fringed with whiskers and a beard-tuft, does a sort of dance on the stage, carries rolled-up wishes for happiness which he unrolls as he presents them to the spectators. It is to be noted that this is one of the very rare occasions when a mask is used on the Chinese stage. The pantomime is also called 'the dance of the Agent who confers promotion', T'iao-chia-kuan; and formerly in public theatres, and still to this day in private performances given for some family rejoicing (birthday, birth of a child, etc.), the play is stopped and this pantomime is repeated as a sign of welcome to each distinguished guest as he arrives. The Emperor Kuan, Kuan-ti. The worship of this god does not date from very far back. He receives two sorts of cult, one from official religion and the other from the people. For scholars Kuan-ti is god of War, in opposition to Confucius, the god of Literature, and as such he receives two sacrifices, in the spring and autumn of each year. This tradition was maintained even by the Republic, at least until the time of the nationalist government of Nanking; and the successive presidents as well as the last dictator, Chang-Tso-lin, officially offered sacrifices to him with great pomp. For the crowd Kuan-ti is a Taoist god, governor and protector of the people, mainly playing the part of judge. So the people appeal to him every time they have something to complain of, whether it is spirits (demons, illness, etc.) or human beings (unfriendly bureaucrats, brigands, cheats, etc.) and Kuan-ti sends his equerry Shou-ts'ang to punish them, or makes an appeal to the Thunder god or some other god to do it. Kuan-ti is also famous for predicting the future. In most of the temples consecrated to him the necessary equipment may be found, consisting of eighty-one or sixty-four numbered slips, placed in a holder made from a hollow bamboo with a plug at one end. The suppliant wishing to know the future - the result of a relative's illness, success of a journey, a marriage, a birth, or anything else, bows down before the god's statue, and then taking the holder in his hand shakes it until one of the slips falls out. There is also a register where against each number of the slips stands the prediction, usually written in rude poetry of the Sybilline style, and this register is consulted under the number of the fallen slip to find out the god's opinion. In some temples the predictions are printed on separate sheets of paper, and the priest in charge hands the suppliant the sheet corresponding to his number. Needless to say all this involves the payment of a small sum of money, euphemistically called Hsiang-huo-ch'ien, 'money to keep the incense burning'. Kuan-ti was a general of the Han country in the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, renowned for his integrity and fidelity, and his real name was Kuan Yu. He died in 220, having been taken prisoner and beheaded by the rival country of Wu. He became famous mainly through the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which relates his wonderful adventures, and through the plays derived from the novel. He is always presented as he is described there - dressed in green with a face as red as a jujube fruit. Almost invariably he is accompanied by his equerry, Shou-ts'ang, and his son Kuan P'ing, who stand beside him, and very often in the Temples the statue of his horse is to be seen too. Another exorcist of demons and evil spirits is the Supreme Lord of the Dark Heaven (Hsuan-t'ien Shang-ti) who is also the Regent of Water. He appeared once to the Emperor Hui-tsung in the aspect of a man of colossal height, with loose hair, dressed in a black robe and a golden breast- plate. His naked feet rested on a turtle encircled by a snake. He is still represented with these features o-day. The Eight Immortals, Pa-hsien. The eight Immortals are not, strictly speaking, gods. They are legendary personages who became immortal through the practice of Taoist doctrine, and who have the right to be present at the banquets given by the Lady Wang, wife of the August Personage of Jade. These eight characters have nothing in common, and it is hard to say how the Taoists came to make them into an almost inseparable group. Their name does not appear in folklore until the Yuan dynasty, also called the Mongol dynasty, about the 13th or 14th century, and it was spread, we believe, thanks to the stage. The eight Immortals often accompany the effigy of the god of Long Life. They are: Han Chung-li, usually represented as a man of ripe age with a slight corporation and a careless air. His name is supposed to have been Chung-li and he was believed to have lived in the time of the Han dynasty. His present name is made up of these different elements. Chang-kuo Lao, an old man, known only by his miraculous donkey which could travel several dozens of thousands of leagues in a day, and when at rest could be folded up like a piece of paper. Lan Ts'ai-ho, a street-singer, who, dressed in rags, with one foot bare and the other shod, goes round the streets singing. One day he was carried up to heaven by a stork. T'ieh-kuai Li (Li with the Iron Crutch) was an ascetic instructed by Lao-tzu and another immortal, Master Wang-kiu. One day when he should have gone to Lao-tzu, only his soul went, after he had warned his disciple to watch over his body for seven days, and then to burn it if he did not return. *>/n the sixth day the disciple's mother fell ill, and in his haste to go to her the disciple burnt his master's body. When Li's soul returned there was no longer a body for it to dwell in, so it entered the body of a beggar who had died of hunger. The God is represented as a beggar carrying a large calabash on his back and leaning on an iron crutch. Han Hsiang-tzu was initiated into the doctrine by Lu Tung-pin who is mentioned below. Ts'ao Kuo-chiu converted by Han Chung-li and Lu Tung-pin, Ho Hsien-ku the Immortal Damsel Ho, who went to heaven in full daylight, are represented respectively as a young man in rich clothes with the little headdress of young lords, a man in the costume of a mandarin, and a girl wearing a lotus flower on her shoulder. The last of the eight Immortals, Lu Tung-pin has the greatest number of legends attached to him. They say he likes to walk about among men looking like some ordinary person, and takes the opportunity to punish the wicked and reward the good. Among legends about him the best- known is that of his conversion. Huang-liangmeng, meaning the Dream of the Yellow Sorghum, which also furnished the plot for a play. When he was still only a student Lu Tung-pin stopped at an inn and met an Immortal in disguise with whom he talked for a moment. Then he went to sleep and saw the whole of his future life in a dream. At first he had numerous successes and was loaded with honours, but in the end he endured the worst misfortunes and perished miserably, killed by a brigand. When he awoke Lu Tung-pin decided to renounce the world. Another equally well-known legend tells how he converted the girl-singer, White Peony, after three successive attempts in each of which he came to her in a different form. This Immortal is represented in the dress of a man of letters, carrying a fly-chaser and a sword, the Flying Sword, used by him to kill the Yellow Dragon which he carries on his back. GODS OF THE PROFESSIONS In addition to the gods we have been studying which are the objects of general worship, the Chinese pantheon also included a large number of divinities peculiar to each social class and to each profession. They are innumerable, and it is impossible to mention them all. Following M. Maspero, let us limit ourselves to mentioning a few. Divinities of artisans. Artisans usually choose as their patrons those who are supposed to have been inventors in the different industries. Thus, general Sun Pin, who lived in the fourth century B.C., had his toes cut off, and to hide this deformity hid his feet in sheaths of leather, and thereby became the god of cobblers. Ts'ai Lun, who is supposed to have invented paper in the first century of our era is the god of stationers. A similar honour fell to I-ti who was the first maker of wine, to general Meng T'ien who invented the paint-brush, and to Ts'ang Chieh, who invented writing and is therefore adopted by the public tale-tellers. Others are chosen because they distinguished themselves in their profession, or simply because they practised it. Thus Fan K'uei, who practised the humble occupation of a dog-skinner before he became the right arm of the founder of the Han dynasty, was adopted as their patron by the butchers. The carpenters have a cult for Lu Pan who, so they say, made a marvellous falcon which was able to fly. The thieves chose Sung Chiang, a famous brigand of the twelfth century. Even the prostitutes took it into their heads to look for a patron. And in some parts of China they found one in the person of P'an Chin-lien, a dissipated widow whose father-in-law murdered her in order to end her disorderly behaviour. And then very often artisans content themselves with an anonymous deity, such as the god of the Shuttle for weavers, and the god of Garden Trees for gardeners. Sea gods. Like the rest of the universe, the sea is subject to the supreme authority of the August Personage of Jade, but the Chinese did not make it a divinity, any more than the other elements of Nature. However, they do recognise tutelary gods who protect navigators. The most popular as well as the highest in dignity is the Empress of Heaven, T'ien Hou, who must not be confused with the Queen-Mother Wang, wife of the August Personage of Jade. Before she was promoted to her immortal destiny T'ien Hou was a girl in the island of Mei-chou which was famous for its piety. She had four brothers, all sailors, who sailed on different ships. One day when they were absent at sea the girl fainted and remained a long time unconscious. It was thought she was dead. With the aid of powerful stimulants she was brought back to life, but as soon as she emerged from her lethargy she complained that she had been awakened too soon. A little later three of her brothers returned, and related that they had been attacked by a violent storm during their voyage, and had been saved by their sister who appeared to them during the tempest and saved them from the danger. Only the fourth brother never came home - the girl had been revived before she had time to go to his aid. After her death, which occurred very soon after this miracle, the girl of Mei-chou frequently showed the value of her intervention, either by helping sailors in peril or by helping to capture pirates or even by ending dangerous droughts. For which reason her cult continued to spread. She was first promoted to the title of Princess of Supernatural Favour, then in the sixteenth century was raised to the dignity of Queen, and in the eighteenth century received her definite title of Empress of Heaven. She is represented as a woman sometimes seated on a lotus and sometimes on a throne. She wears the Imperial head dress, and holds either a sceptre or a tablet. Country gods. According to the rites of Confucius, the Chinese recognise a god of the Soil, with whom they associate a god of Ploughing and a god of Harvests. They are impersonal deities, and have no mythic character. Formerly they were solemnly invoked at different periods of the year. The sacrifice which the Emperor offered up to the god of the Soil in spring and autumn was marked by the same pomp as that devoted to the god of Heaven. During the festival of the god of Ploughing the Emperor himself set his hand to the plough, and drew the first furrow. Side by side with these official gods, the peasants venerate other deities of a more popular kind. Prince Millet, Hou Chi, the old god of cereals, has been supplanted by the Celestial Prince Liu, appointed to the functions of superintendent of the Five Cereals. The god Hu-shen is invoked as a protection against hail, since as he wishes he can send or withhold the disaster. Against locusts they call on the Great General Pa-cha, who is represented as a man with a bird's beak and feet, while his hands are tipped with claws and he wears a petticoat. Cattle are under the protection of the god of Cattle-breeding, aided by the King-of-Oxen and the Transcendent Pig. During their lifetime they were both dangerous giants. The King-of-Oxen, who terrified his enemies by his enormous horns and buffalo ears, was yet tamed by the lady Nu-kua, who threaded a miraculous rope through his nose. Equally ferocious and hideous, with his black face, the Transcendent Pig had the impudence to swallow Erh-lang, the nephew of the August Personage of Jade himself, but he regretted it, for Erh-lang slew him. The breeding of silk-worms is under the protection of Lady Horse-head about whom there is a curious legend. Her father was kidnapped by pirates, which grieved her so much she refused to eat. Seeing the girl was in a decline, her mother vowed to marry her to the man who would bring back her husband. She spoke the vow aloud, and it was heard by the horse who was in love with his young mistress. The horse thereupon went off to look for the missing man, found him at last, and brought him home on his back. When he demanded his reward, the father flew into a violent rage, slew the poor animal, skinned him and put the skin to dry in the sun. A few days later as the girl passed it the skin leaped at her and carried her off. But the August Personage of Jade was on the watch. He changed the girl into a silk-worm and soon after took her up to Heaven. Since then the Lady Horse-head ranks among the Sovereign god's concubines. HELL Like all Chinese mythology, Hell is due to a mixture of Taoism and Buddhism, with a special preponderance given to the peculiarities of the Buddhist Hell. The notion of Hell as it exists to-day among the people was, we believe, mainly disseminated by certain passages in novels, among them the Travels in the West, and the Life of Yueh Fei, a general of the Sung epoch, who was assassinated by order of the prime minister, Ch'in Kuei. In the first of these books, the Emperor T'ai-tsung of the T'ang dynasty was wrongly accused of killing the Dragon-King, descended into Hell, and before returning to life on earth passed through certain parts of the dark empire. In the other book a young scholar addresses a complaint to the gods, accusing them of lacking justice because of the death of Yueh Fei. He was summoned before the King of Hell, who showed him round his dominions to prove that there the wicked are punished and the good rewarded. The Yama-Kings, Yen-wang. According to the most wide-spread version there are eighteen Hells, distributed among ten law-courts to which they are attached. These courts are presided over by the Shih-tien Yen-wang, the Kings of the Ten Law-Courts (the word Yen comes from Yama, the Indo-Iranian god of Death), while each Hell is reserved for the tortures which punish well-defined crimes. The first of the Yama-Kings is the supreme master of the world of Hell as well as head of the first Law-Court. He is directly under the August Personage of Jade and the Great Emperor of the Southern Peak. He is popularly known as Yen-wang-yeh (the Lord Yama-King) although in reality the real Yama-King was dismissed by the August Personage of Jade for being too charitable and merciful, and was sent down to head the Fifth Law-Court. The first Yama-King receives the souls of the dead, investigates their actions during their past life, and if necessary sends them to other Kings to be punished. As to the nine others, eight of them are commissioned to punish criminal souls - thus the second King punishes dishonest male and female intermediaries and ignorant doctors, the third punishes bad mandarins, forgers, and back-biters, the fourth punishes misers, coiners, dishonest tradesmen and blasphemers, the fifth punishes murderers, unbelievers and the lustful, the sixth punishes sacrilege, the seventh is reserved for those who violated graves and sold or ate human flesh, the eighth punishes those who were lacking in filial piety, the ninth punishes arson and has for an annexe the Town of those Dying in Accidents, and finally the tenth King is entrusted with the Wheel of Transmigration, and takes care that the soul about to be reincarnated fits properly into the body assigned. Another version says that each of the kings in turn judges the souls which go before each Law- Court, while the King of the Wheel of Transmigration decides on the form in which the soul just judged shall be re-born. Naturally the tortures used in Hell are many and varied, so that each crime has its appropriate punishment, sometimes in a very logical way. Thus, blasphemers have their tongues torn out; misers and lying mandarins are compelled to swallow melted gold and silver, while still more guilty souls are flung on to mountains bristling with swords or plunged into boiling oil, or bound to a large red-hot hollow iron beam, or ground in mills or sawed in halves or cut into little pieces, etc. The Kings of Hell have crowds of satellites to carry out their orders. These satellites are represented as stripped to the waist, with two lumps on their foreheads (which lumps are really meant for horns) and armed with a mace bearing iron spikes or with a trident. The Yama-Kings are represented in the dress of the Emperors, just like the August Personage of Jade and the Emperor of the Eastern Peak. On the images in books of piety they can only be distinguished by the inscription under each of them. The Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha: Ti-tsang Wang-p'u-sa. In this Hell which is peopled by implacable ministers of justice, is there room for mercy? Yes, for the various regions of hell are continually visited by a compassionate and merciful deity, the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha (in Chinese, Ti-tsang Wang-p'u-sa) whose occupation is to save the souls which come to him. In his human life Ti-tsang was a young Brahman who made a vow to save all souls engulfed in sin. To this end he devoted his successive existences, which were innumerable, and acquired such merit by his spirit of self- sacrifice that in the end Buddha entrusted to him the masses of gods and men 'so that he would not allow them for one day or one night to fall into evil birth'. In China this god is always invoked when somebody dies, so that he can come to the help of the dead person. His name Ti-tsang is a translation of the Sanskrit Ksitigarbha. The images of him show him as a bonze, sometimes with a shaved head like the Hindu bonzes, and sometimes wearing a ceremonial wreath such as is worn by Chinese bonzes. He holds in his right hand the metal wand hung with musical rings such as Chinese monks carry, and his left hand holds the precious pearl which lights the paths of Hell with its glow. Life of the dead in Hell. When the registers of Death and Life kept by the Yama-King show that a man has reached the end of his earthly existence, the Yama-King sends two of his satellites to seize the man's soul and bring it before the infernal Law Courts. These satellites are named Ox-Head and Horse-Face, Niu-t'ou and Ma-mien, and they are represented with the head of the animal whose name they bear. They make their way to the man's house and take him off. And here comes out the value of the Door gods, for it is their duty to see that the warrant of arrest is authentic, and not until that is done will they allow Ox-Head and Horse-Face to enter. They also say that these two satellites are not sent by the Yama-King but by the god of Walls and Ditches, who keeps a register of all the inhabitants in his area. And then again they say, for all the mythology of Hell is rather confused, that the persons charged to bring in the dead are the two Without-Duration, Wu-ch'ang, one of whom is white and the other black, who are called 'the Messengers who seize souls', Kou-hun-shih-che. Their statues are MYTHOLOGY — 399 sometimes to be seen in the temples, and these two personages are represented wearing a long black or white robe which reaches to their feet, a tall pointed hat, a rope round their necks, and their tongues hanging out. But whoever comes for them the souls (which retain their appearance for some time after leaving their robe of flesh) are taken first before the god of Walls and Ditches who puts them through a first series of questions and holds them for forty-nine days, either at liberty, or punishing them with the pillory or beating, according to what the dead person did in his lifetime. Sometimes it happens that owing to a similarity of name or some other error, the wrong soul is brought along; in which case the god allows it to return to earth and to re-enter the body in which it lived. This is perhaps the reason why the Chinese keep the bodies of the dead for several days before they are buried - at least seven, with a maximum of forty-nine. After forty-nine days the god of Walls and Ditches hands over the soul to the Yama-King. He acts as judge, by consulting the register which records all the good or evil actions of this soul, and if necessary sends it before whichever of the Yama-Kings is appointed to punish the crime of which the soul is guilty. As to those souls which have done good deeds, such as those of good sons, of good subjects, believers, and charitable persons etc., they either go to Buddha in the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West, or to the Mountain K'un-lun, the dwelling-place of the Immortals, or else they go straight to the tenth Yama-King to be re-born to another existence. But let us return to the souls of sinners. They go before each of the Yama-Kings in turn, who punishes them for the crime under his jurisdiction. The people believe that persons who have committed very great crimes find that their souls must endure all the tortures of hell without distinction. Such, they say, was the case with the Minister Ch'in Kuei, already mentioned, and doubtless in this way the people work off the hatred they feel for some especially detested personage. After each torture the soul returns to its original form to undergo another. Thus, if it has been cut into little pieces, the pieces all join up again; and if it has been thrown in a cauldron of boiling oil, it becomes living as soon as it is taken out. When the soul has suffered all the punishments due for its sins, it finally goes before the tenth Yama-King who decides in what form, human or animal, it shall be re-born. The Buddhists believe there are six ways of re-birth - three of them are good, birth as a god, as a human being, or as an asura (a kind of demon); and three are bad, birth in hell, birth as a starving demon, birth as an animal. But people believe that birth as a human being is not necessarily a reward, for a man's soul may be condemned to re-birth in the body of a woman (in ancient times women were considered less honourable than men) or in the body of an invalid or a beggar, etc., while at other times a soul may be re-born an animal without having sinned. There are numerous tales on this theme. One of them relates that a man who had borrowed money from someone, died before he could pay his debt. After his death he asked permission of the Yama-King to be re-born as a colt in his creditor's family. Soon after his birth his master sold him for exactly the sum which was owing. The colt died soon after he was sold, and the soul which occupied it returned again to the Law-Courts of Hell to be judged. Another tale, which resembles the 'Dream of the Yellow Sorghum' mentioned in connection with the Immortal Lu Tung-pin, relates that a scholar who had just passed the Imperial examinations was walking in a Temple, and went into the room of a bonze to rest. There he fell asleep, and dreamed that he became a high dignitary and grew rich through telling lies. He then dreamed that he died, and was condemned to drink a quantity of molten gold equivalent to that which he had got unjustly. After this he dreamed that he was re-born in a family of beggars as a girl, and as she grew up was sold to be a scholar's concubine. He did not awake until he had dreamed that he had died a second time. Realising the vanity of this world's honours he retired to the mountain to seek the Path. Souls re-incarnated in an animal do not thereby lose their human feelings. Whether born in the form of a cock or a pig, the soul will feel with human sensibilities all the suffering the animal feels when its throat is cut, and will even suffer from every slice of the knife which cuts it up. But it cannot express its anguish in human language, of which it has lost the use thanks to the Broth of Oblivion, Mi-hun-t'ang. This broth is compounded by the Lady Meng, who lives in a house built just inside the exit from Hell. All souls which pass her door on their way to the Wheel of Transmigration have to drink it willy-nilly. Under its influence the souls forget their former life, their existence in Hell and even their speech. There are legends relating to miraculous births - a child is able to speak as soon as born because the soul inhabiting its body had been successful in escaping the vigilance of the guardians of Hell, and had avoided drinking the Broth of Oblivion. If after drinking this broth a soul is to be re-born in the form of an animal, the satellites of the Law Courts throw on his shoulders 402 — CHINESE MYTHOLOGY the skin of the species of animal to which he will belong, and he is then taken to the Bridge of Pain, K'u-ch'u-ch'iao, which crosses a river of red water. He is thrown off the bridge into the water, and it carries him to his new destiny. They say also that the soul climbs on to the Wheel of Life and Death, which as it turns sends him down to earth. The tale just mentioned says: 'After walking a few paces he saw on a stand a beam of iron several feet in circumference, supporting a great wheel whose dimensions were an unknown number of leagues. Flames of five colours sprang from it, and their glow lit up heaven. He was struck by demons who compelled him to get on the wheel. He had scarcely jumped on it with his eyes shut when the wheel turned under his feet and he felt as if he were falling; he felt coolness all over his body, and opening his eyes he saw that he already had the body of a baby. Another tale, translated by Father Wieger, mentions another case: 'Everything was a confusion to him. His body was buffeted by the wind. Suddenly as he crossed a red bridge he dropped into a lake ten thousand fathoms deep. He felt no pain, but his body became narrow and small and was no longer the same. When he stopped falling his eyes were closed and would not open, and in his ears he heard what seemed to be the sound of the voices of his father and mother. He seemed to be the plaything of a dream.' In this case, as in the tale before, the soul is being born in the body of a child; but of course the impression is quite different and much more unpleasant if it is the body of an animal. Some details of Hell. Hell is a world on its own, with its own towns and country-side. The chief town is Feng-tu, which is entered by the souls of the dead through a big gate called the Gate of Demons, Kuei-men-kuan. The town contains the palaces of the Yama-Kings, the Law Courts, the places set aside for torture as well as the dwellings of the functionaries, the infernal satellites, and the souls waiting to be re-born. On the side opposite the Gate of Demons the town abuts on a river called the River How Nai-ho, crossed by three bridges. One bridge is in gold for the gods, one in silver for the souls of virtuous men, and the last for undeserving or criminal souls. This bridge is several leagues long, but has only three spans, and no rails. Criminal souls of certain categories, such as those who during their life-time profaned clothes of a purple colour, or women who lived dissipated lives, on trying to cross the bridge inevitably fall into the water rushing beneath. They then are preyed upon by bronze snakes and iron dogs who bite them and tear them to pieces. The souls of the dead are not only responsible for their actions in the life they have just left, but also for those of their life before that, if for some reason they have not received punishment for them. Since these souls cannot remember their actions, owing to the Broth of Oblivion which they all drink on passing through Hell, they are when necessary placed in front of a huge mirror, the Mirror of the Wicked, Nieh-ching-t'ai, set up in the Court of the first Yama-King. In this mirror the souls see themselves with the appearance they had in their former life, and so perceive the crime they committed. The Yama-King bases the judgment he gives on this appearance. Not far from the town of Feng-tu is the town of Those who Died in Accidents, Wang-ssu-ch'eng. It is under the ninth Yama-King. Everyone is sent there who dies before the date set down in the Registers of Life and Death, no matter whether they committed suicide or died by accident. The souls of these dead are condemned to live here like starving demons, with no hope of being re-born unless they can find someone to replace them. Thus the soul of a hanged man must bring the soul of another hanged man, and so with a drowned man. To allow them to find a replacement, these souls after three years in Hell are allowed to return freely to earth, to the place where they left their mortal bodies, and there they do all they can to arrange that men passing near the place shall die in the same way. For this reason the Chinese carefully avoid places where there has been a murder, a suicide, or an accident causing a human death, for fear of being made use of by the soul of the dead person. The Chinese Paradise. As we have seen, when the souls of the just are not sent back immediately to a new life by the tenth Yama-King, they go either to the K'un-lun Mountain, the dwelling place of the Immortals, or to the Amitabha Buddha in the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West. The K'un-lun Mountain has a close resemblance to the Olympus of the Greeks, but while the latter situated the dwelling place of their gods in a mountain of their own country, the Chinese placed theirs on a fabulous mountain far away from their land and at the earth's centre. The ruler of this region is no other than the Lady Queen of the West, the Queen-Mother Wang, wife of the August Personage of Jade. The palace is built on the top of the mountain, it has nine storeys and is built entirely of jade. Around the palace are magnificent gardens in which grows the Peach-tree of Immortality. The Immortals live there, in an endless series of amusements and banquets. The only human beings allowed there are those permitted by the gods, as a reward for their virtues, to eat the marvellous fruit of the Peach-tree of Immortality during their earthly life. The other just men admitted to the felicities of eternal life go to the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West. This land, which lies in the fathest west portion of the universe is separated from us by an infinity of worlds like our own. It is a place of all delights, closed in on all sides and embellished by seven rows of terraces with seven rows of trees whose branches are formed of precious stones sounding musically when the wind stirs them. There may be found lakes flowering with lotuses, with a floor of gold sand and banks paved with seven precious stones. Birds with many-coloured plumage and divine voices praise in their songs the five Virtues and the excellent Doctrines. Showers of blossom fall on the ground. In this Eden the righteous pass a life which is piously ordered: 'Every morning at dawn they go to offer flowers to all the Buddhas of other worlds, and they return to their world for meals.' Everything they hear - the song of the birds, the music of the wind in the trees of precious stones - makes them think of Buddha, the Law, and the Community. Their perilous transmigrations are over. Happy are they, who in their life-time fervently called upon Amitabha. At the hour of their death their hearts will not be troubled, for Buddha himself will appear to them. He will receive their souls and place them in the lotuses of the lakes, in which they will remain enclosed until the day comes when, being cleansed from all impurities, they will escape from the opening flower and will go to mingle with the just who inhabit the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West. JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY INTRODUCTION Sources of Japanese Mythology When the ancestors of the Japanese, coming probably from Korea, settled in Japan, they met and made war upon the Ainus whom they drove into the north, while in the southern islands, especially Kyushu, they came upon various tribes whom they subdued and assimilated. They lived in tribes, each one of which had a chief, who, as we shall see later, was often a woman—a characteristic which struck the Chinese when they came into contact with the Japanese, probably about the beginning of our era. Besides China, Japan was also in touch with Korea, and these ancient relations with the Asiatic continent had their influence on the minds of the Japanese people. They also left distinct traces in their mythological tales. The southern tribes, living their seafaring life, also had a share in building up Japanese mythology, and so had the local traditions peculiar to each of the different regions. Oral traditions [...]... Izanagi ordered his elder daughter Amaterasu to rule the plain of Heaven, giving her his necklace of jewels To the god of the Moon he entrusted the kingdom of night, and to the god Susanoo the plain of the seas The goddess of the Sun and the god of the Moon obeyed the order of their father Izanagi, and took possession of Heaven and of the kingdom of night Susanoo alone did not leave, and stayed where he... it a volume of over four hundred pages, Hompo Seishi no Kenkyu, with an appendix in English: Shinto worship of living human gods in the religious history of Japan, 193 2, Tokyo, as well as several articles in the Transactions of the Meiji Japan Society He mentions the case of Honda Tadakazu (vol XL, 193 3), and that of Matsudaira Sadanobu (1758—18 29) chief Minister of the Tokugawa and man of letters (vol... XXXIII, 193 0) We will limit ourselves to these two examples BUDDHISM IN JAPAN INTRODUCTION Japanese Buddhist sects It is probable that about the fourth century of our era certain elements of Buddhism (following the doctrines of the Mahayana, the Great Vehicle) entered Japan from China by way of Korea However, it has been agreed to accept the year 522 as the official date of the introduction of Buddhism... whence the large number of different aspects in which he appears, fhere are six Jizo protectors of the six Paths or good and bad conditions which souls must undergo after judgment: that of Hell, that of the starving Demons, that of the world of animals, that of the demon Asuras, that of Men, that of the Devas There are many tales displaying his infinite kindness —he saves the life of the warrior foshihira,... discipline of monasteries and the good conduct of the monks Ida-ten (General Wei) appeared in a dream to the Chinese monk Tao Hsuan ( 596 — 667) 'He is the first of the thirty-four generals of the four devaraja, placed directly under the orders of Him of the A'false face' mask of painted wood with human hair These masks were worn by the Iroquois tribes of the east during rituals which celebrated the spirits of. .. Europe under the name of Pusa MYTHOLOGY OF THE TWO AMERICAS INTRODUCTION Although American mythology is extremely varied, there are analogies from one end of the continent to the other which allow of its being considered as a whole At the base of all American religions we find totemism; and the totem is an object, a being, a force of Nature, which is generally looked on as the ancestor of a group or clan... kingdom of Paikche sent the Emperor of Japan a gilded bronze statue of Buddha and some volumes of Buddhist Sutras The Emperor was not converted, but he allowed the great Soga family to adopt the new religion After violent conflicts between the Buddhists and the old nationalist families, the new religion was proclaimed the religion of the state by the Prince Regent Shotoku in 592 During the whole of the... are often to be found in the small domestic altars in courtesans' houses Near forked trees in the mountains, little chapels containing a phallus are often found Mr G Kato has devoted a study of Japanese forms of phallic cult (A Study of the development of Religious Ideas among the Japanese People as illustrated by Japanese Phallicism Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, vol I, suppl 192 4)... the-Divine-Lord -of- the-middleheavens, the supreme heavenly deity (G Kato, op cit p 23 — 24) The legend of the annual meeting of the star of the Cowherd and the star of the Spinning Maiden over the Milky Way was brought to Japan during the reign of the Empress Koken (7 49 7 59) and utilised to found the festival of Tanabata, celebrated on the seventh evening of the seventh moon-whence the name Tanabata, which means seventh evening... special ceremony of purification, and when the well is finished a little salt is thrown in as purification offering Sea gods The sea has several gods The greatest is O-Wata-Tsu-Mi, also known as the Old Man of the Tide, Shio-Zuchi When Izanagi washed off the impurities of Hell in the waters of the sea, he made several gods—the god of the sea bottom, god of the middle waters, and god of the surface In . god of Wealth the head of a Ministry of Wealth with offices and a string of subordinates, such as the Celestial and Venerable Discoverer of Treasures, the Celestial and Venerable Bringer of. plain of Heaven, giving her his necklace of jewels. To the god of the Moon he entrusted the kingdom of night, and to the god Susanoo the plain of the seas. The goddess of the Sun and the god of. with the just who inhabit the Land of Extreme Felicity in the West. JAPANESE MYTHOLOGY INTRODUCTION Sources of Japanese Mythology When the ancestors of the Japanese, coming probably from