Myths and Legends of China Part 19

When Li Shih-min ascended the throne, in A.D. 627, he called together all the _literati_ of the Empire to take the Doctor's Examination in the capital. Our five graduates started for the metropolis, but, losing their way, were robbed by brigands, and had to beg help in order to reach the end of their journey. By good luck they all met in the temple San-i Ko, and related to each other the various hardships they had undergone. But when they eventually reached the capital the examination was over, and they were out in the streets without resources. So they took an oath of brotherhood for life and death. They p.a.w.ned some of the few clothes they possessed, and buying some musical instruments formed themselves into a band of strolling musicians.

The first bought a drum, the second a seven-stringed guitar, the third a mandolin, the fourth a clarinet, and the fifth and youngest composed songs.

Thus they went through the streets of the capital giving their concerts, and Fate decreed that Li Shih-min should hear their melodies. Charmed with the sweet sounds, he asked Hsu Mao-kung whence came this band of musicians, whose skill was certainly exceptional. Having made inquiries, the minister related their experiences to the Emperor. Li Shih-min ordered them to be brought into his presence, and after hearing them play and sing appointed them to his private suite, and henceforth they accompanied him wherever he went.

The Emperors Strategy

The Emperor bore malice toward Chang T'ien-shih, the Master of the Taoists, because he refused to pay the taxes on his property, and conceived a plan to bring about his destruction. He caused a s.p.a.cious subterranean chamber to be dug under the reception-hall of his palace. A wire pa.s.sed through the ceiling to where the Emperor sat. He could thus at will give the signal for the music to begin or stop. Having stationed the five musicians in this subterranean chamber, he summoned the Master of the Taoists to his presence and invited him to a banquet. During the course of this he pulled the wire, and a subterranean babel began.

The Emperor pretended to be terrified, and allowed himself to fall to the ground. Then, addressing himself to the T'ien-shih, he said: "I know that you can at will catch the devilish hobgoblins which molest human beings. You can hear for yourself the infernal row they make in my palace. I order you under penalty of death to put a stop to their pranks and to exterminate them."

The Musicians are Slain

Having spoken thus, the Emperor rose and left. The Master of the Taoists brought his projecting mirror, and began to seek for the evil spirits. In vain he inspected the palace and its precincts; he could discover nothing. Fearing that he was lost, he in despair threw his mirror on the floor of the reception-hall.

A minute later, sad and pensive, he stooped to pick it up; what was his joyful surprise when he saw reflected in it the subterranean room and the musicians! At once he drew five talismans on yellow paper, burned them, and ordered his celestial general, Chao Kung-ming, to take his sword and kill the five musicians. The order was promptly executed, and the T'ien-shih informed the Emperor, who received the news with ridicule, not believing it to be true. He went to his seat and pulled the wire, but all remained silent. A second and third time he gave the signal, but without response. He then ordered his Grand Officer to ascertain what had happened. The officer found the five graduates bathed in their blood, and lifeless.

The Emperor, furious, reproached the Master of the Taoists. "But,"

replied the T'ien-shih, "was it not your Majesty who ordered me under pain of death to exterminate the authors of this pandemonium?" Li Shih-min could not reply. He dismissed the Master of the Taoists and ordered the five victims to be buried.

The Emperor Tormented

After the funeral ceremonies, apparitions appeared at night in the place where they had been killed, and the palace became a babel. The spirits threw bricks and broke the tiles on the roofs.

The Emperor ordered his uncomfortable visitors to go to the T'ien-shih who had murdered them. They obeyed, and, seizing the garments of the Master of the Taoists, swore not to allow him any rest if he would not restore them to life.

To appease them the Taoist said: "I am going to give each of you a wonderful object. You are then to return and spread epidemics among wicked people, beginning in the imperial palace and with the Emperor himself, with the object of forcing him to canonize you."

One received a fan, another a gourd filled with fire, the third a metallic ring to encircle people's heads, the fourth a stick made of wolves' teeth, and the fifth a cup of l.u.s.tral water.

The spirit-graduates left full of joy, and made their first experiment on Li Shih-min. The first gave him feverish chills by waving his fan, the second burned him with the fire from his gourd, the third encircled his head with the ring, causing him violent headache, the fourth struck him with his stick, and the fifth poured out his cup of l.u.s.tral water on his head.

The same night a similar tragedy took place in the palace of the Empress and the two chief imperial concubines.

T'ai-po Chin-hsing, however, informed Yu Huang what had happened, and, touched with compa.s.sion, he sent three Immortals with pills and talismans which cured the Empress and the ladies of the palace.

The Graduates Canonized

Li Shih-min, having also recovered his health, summoned the five deceased graduates and expressed his regret for the unfortunate issue of his design against the T'ien-shih. He proceeded: "To the south of the capital is the temple San-i Ko. I will change its name to Hsiang Shan Wu Yueh Shen, 'Fragrant Hill of the Five Mountain Spirits.' On the twenty-eighth day of the ninth moon betake yourselves to that temple to receive the seals of your canonization." He conferred upon them the t.i.tle of Ti, 'Emperor.'

The Ministry of Medicine

The celestial Ministry of Medicine is composed of three main divisions comprising: (1) the Ancestral G.o.ds of the Chinese race; (2) the King of Remedies, Yao w.a.n.g; and (3) the Specialists. There is a separate Ministry of Smallpox. This latter controls and cures smallpox, and the establishment of a separate celestial Ministry is significant of the prevalence and importance of the affliction. The ravages of smallpox in China, indeed, have been terrific: so much so, that, until recent years, it was considered as natural and inevitable for a child to have smallpox as for it to cut its teeth. One of the ceremonial questions addressed by a visitor to the parent of a child was always _Ch'u la hua'rh mei yu_? "Has he had the smallpox?" and a child who escaped the scourge was often, if not as a rule, regarded with disfavour and, curiously enough, as a weakling. Probably the train of thought in the Chinese mind was that, as it is the fittest who survive, those who have successfully pa.s.sed through the process of "putting out the flowers" have proved their fitness in the struggle for existence. Nowadays vaccination is general, and the number of pockmarked faces seen is much smaller than it used to be--in fact, the pockmarked are now the exception. But, as far as I have been able to ascertain, the Ministry of Smallpox has not been abolished, and possibly its members, like those of some more mundane ministries, continue to draw large salaries for doing little or no work.

The Medicine-G.o.ds

The chief G.o.ds of medicine are the mythical kings P'an Ku, Fu Hsi, Shen Nung, and Huang Ti. The first two, being by different writers regarded as the first progenitor or creator of the Chinese people, are alternatives, so that Fu Hsi, Shen Nung, and Huang Ti may be said to be a sort of ancestral triad of medicine-G.o.ds, superior to the actual G.o.d or King of Medicine, Yao w.a.n.g. Of P'an Ku we have spoken sufficiently in Chapter III, and with regard to Fu Hsi, also called T'ien Huang Shih, 'the Celestial Emperor,' the mythical sovereign and supposed inventor of cooking, musical instruments, the calendar, hunting, fishing, etc., the chief interest for our present purpose centres in his discovery of the _pa kua_, or Eight Trigrams. It is on the strength of these trigrams that Fu Hsi is regarded as the chief G.o.d of medicine, since it is by their mystical power that the Chinese physicians influence the minds and maladies of their patients. He is represented as holding in front of him a disk on which the signs are painted.

The Ministry of Exorcism

The Ministry of Exorcism is a Taoist invention and is composed of seven chief ministers, whose duty is to expel evil spirits from dwellings and generally to counteract the annoyances of infernal demons. The two G.o.ds usually referred to in the popular legends are P'an Kuan and Chung K'uei. The first is really the Guardian of the Living and the Dead in the Otherworld, Feng-tu P'an Kuan (Feng-tu or Feng-tu Ch'eng being the region beyond the tomb). He was originally a scholar named Ts'ui Chio, who became Magistrate of Tz'u Chou, and later Minister of Ceremonies. After his death he was appointed to the spiritual post above mentioned. His best-known achievement is his prolongation of the life of the Emperor T'ai Tsung of the T'ang dynasty by twenty years by changing _i_, 'one,' into _san_, 'three,' in the life-register kept by the G.o.ds. The term P'an Kuan is, however, more generally used as the designation of an officer or civil or military attendant upon a G.o.d than of any special individual, and the original P'an Kuan, 'the Decider of Life in Hades,' has been gradually supplanted in popular favour by Chung K'uei, 'the Protector against Evil Spirits.'

The Exorcism of 'Emptiness and Devastation'

The Emperor Ming Huang of the T'ang dynasty, also known as T'ang Hsuan Tsung, in the reign-period K'ai Yuan (A.D. 712-742), after an expedition to Mount Li in Shensi, was attacked by fever. During a nightmare he saw a small demon fantastically dressed in red trousers, with a shoe on one foot but none on the other, and a shoe hanging from his girdle. Having broken through a bamboo gate, he took possession of an embroidered box and a jade flute, and then began to make a tour of the palace, sporting and gambolling. The Emperor grew angry and questioned him. "Your humble servant," replied the little demon, "is named Hsu Hao, 'Emptiness and Devastation,'" "I have never heard of such a person," said the Emperor. The demon rejoined, "Hsu means to desire Emptiness, because in Emptiness one can fly just as one wishes; Hao, 'Devastation,' changes people's joy to sadness. "The Emperor, irritated by this flippancy, was about to call his guard, when suddenly a great devil appeared, wearing a tattered head-covering and a blue robe, a horn clasp on his belt, and official boots on his feet. He went up to the sprite, tore out one of his eyes, crushed it up, and ate it. The Emperor asked the newcomer who he was. "Your humble servant,"

he replied, "is Chung K'uei, Physician of Tung-nan Shan in Shensi. In the reign-period Wu Te (A.D. 618-627) of the Emperor Kao Tsu of the T'ang dynasty I was ignominiously rejected and unjustly defrauded of a first cla.s.s in the public examinations. Overwhelmed with shame, I committed suicide on the steps of the imperial palace. The Emperor ordered me to be buried in a green robe [reserved for members of the imperial clan], and out of grat.i.tude for that favour I swore to protect the sovereign in any part of the Empire against the evil machinations of the demon Hsu Hao." At these words the Emperor awoke and found that the fever had left him. His Majesty called for Wu Tao-tzu (one of the most celebrated Chinese artists) to paint the portrait of the person he had seen in his dream. The work was so well done that the Emperor recognized it as the actual demon he had seen in his sleep, and rewarded the artist with a hundred taels of gold. The portrait is said to have been still in the imperial palace during the Sung dynasty.

Another version of the legend says that Chung K'uefs essay was recognized by the examiners as equal to the work of the best authors of antiquity, but that the Emperor rejected him on account of his extremely ugly features, whereupon he committed suicide in his presence, was honoured by the Emperor and accorded a funeral as if he had been the successful first candidate, and canonized with the t.i.tle of Great Spiritual Chaser of Demons for the Whole Empire.

CHAPTER X

The G.o.ddess of Mercy

The Guardian Angel of Buddhism

As Mary is the guiding spirit of Rome, so is Kuan Yin of the Buddhist faith.

According to a beautiful Chinese legend, Kuan Yin. when about to enter Heaven, heard a cry of anguish rising from the earth beneath her, and, moved by pity, paused as her feet touched the glorious threshold. Hence her name 'Kuan (Shih) Yin' (one who notices or hears the cry, or prayer, of the world).

Kuan Yin was at one time always represented as a man; but in the T'ang dynasty and Five Dynasties we find him represented as a woman, and he has been generally, though not invariably, so represented since that time.

In old Buddhism Shakyamuni was the chief G.o.d, and in many temples he still nominally occupies the seat of honour, but he is completely eclipsed by the G.o.d or G.o.ddess of Mercy.

"The men love her, the children adore her, and the women chant her prayers. Whatever the temple may be, there is nearly always a chapel for Kuan Yin within its precincts; she lives in many homes, and in many, many hearts she sits enshrined. She is the patron G.o.ddess of mothers, and when we remember the relative value of a son in Chinese estimation we can appreciate the heartiness of the worship. She protects in sorrow, and so millions of times the prayer is offered, 'Great mercy, great pity, save from sorrow, save from suffering,' or, as it is in the books, 'Great mercy, great pity, save from misery, save from evil, broad, great, efficacious, responsive Kuan Yin Buddha,'

She saves the tempest-tossed sailor, and so has eclipsed the Empress of Heaven, who, as the female Neptune, is the patroness of seamen; in drought the mandarins worship the Dragon and the Pearly Emperor, but if they fail the bronze G.o.ddess of Mercy from the hills brings rain. Other G.o.ds are feared, she is loved; others have black, scornful faces, her countenance is radiant as gold, and gentle as the moon-beam; she draws near to the people and the people draw near to her. Her throne is upon the Isle of Pootoo [P'u T'o], to which she came floating upon a water-lily. She is the model of Chinese beauty, and to say a lady or a little girl is a 'Kuan Yin' is the highest compliment that can be paid to grace and loveliness. She is fortunate in having three birthdays, the nineteenth of the second, sixth, and ninth moons." There are many metamorphoses of this G.o.ddess.

The Buddhist Saviour

"She is called Kuan Yin because at any cry of misery she 'hears the voice and removes the sorrow.' Her appellation is 'Taking-away-fear Buddha,' If in the midst of the fire the name of Kuan Yin is called, the fire cannot burn; if tossed by mountain billows, call her name, and shallow waters will be reached. If merchants go across the sea seeking gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, and a storm comes up and threatens to carry the crew to the evil devil's kingdom, if one on board calls on the name of Kuan Yin, the ship will be saved. If one goes into a conflict and calls on the name of Kuan Yin, the sword and spear of the enemy fall harmless. If the three thousand great kingdoms are visited by demons, call on her name, and these demons cannot with an evil eye look on a man. If, within, you have evil thoughts, only call on Kuan Yin, and your heart will be purified, Anger and wrath may be dispelled by calling on the name of Kuan Yin. A lunatic who prays to Kuan Yin will become sane. Kuan Yin gives sons to mothers, and if the mother asks for a daughter she will be beautiful. Two men--one chanting the names of the 6,200,000 Buddhas, in number like the sands of the Ganges, and the other simply calling on Kuan Yin--have equal merit. Kuan Yin may take the form of a Buddha, a prince, a priest, a nun, a scholar, any form or shape, go to any kingdom, and preach the law throughout the earth."

Miao Chuang desires an Heir

In the twenty-first year of the reign of Ta Hao, the Great Great One, of the Golden Heavenly Dynasty, a man named P'o Chia, whose first name was Lo Yu, an enterprising kinglet of Hsi Yii, seized the throne for twenty years, after carrying on a war for a s.p.a.ce of three years. His kingdom was known as Hsing Lin, and the t.i.tle of his reign as Miao Chuang.

The kingdom of Hsing Lin was, so says the Chinese writer, situated between India on the west, the kingdom of T'ien Cheng on the south, and the kingdom of Siam on the north, and was 3000 _li_ in length. The boundaries differ according to different authors. Of this kingdom the two pillars of State were the Grand Minister Chao Chen and the General Ch'u Chieh. The Queen Pao Te, whose maiden name was Po Ya, and the King Miao Chuang had lived nearly half a century without having any male issue to succeed to the throne. This was a source of great grief to them. Po Ya suggested to the King that the G.o.d of Hua Shan, the sacred mountain in the west, had the reputation of being always willing to help; and that if he prayed to him and asked his pardon for having shed so much blood during the wars which preceded his accession to the throne he might obtain an heir.