The Chinese Nezha and His Indian Origins. by Meir Shahar

International Journal of Chinese Studies/Revue Internationale de Sinologie T’oung Pao 103-1-3 (2017) 291-296 Book Reviews 291 Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and his Indian Origins. By Meir Shahar. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai‘i Press, 2015. xvi + 250 pages, illus. Meir Shahar’s book, Oedipal God: The Chinese Nezha and his Indian Origins, takes his familiar research skills into a completely new directions. Shahar has hitherto contributed largely to our understanding of the relationship between Buddhism and indigenous Chinese religion, exemplified by his books Crazy Ji: Chinese Reli- gion and Popular Literature (Harvard Univ. Asia Center, 1998) and The Shaolin Mon- astery: History, Religion, and the Chinese Martial Arts (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 2008), but also by his early article “The Lingyin si Monkey Disciples and the Origins of Sun Wukong” (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 52 [1992]). These works are all meticu- lously researched studies, for the greatest part textually grounded, and fine exam- ples of open-minded sinology. This new monograph, however, elevates his analysis from the level of religious relationships within China to the higher grounds of cross-cultural comparison. Oedipal God provides a history of manifestations pertaining to the famous— though poorly understood—child-god Li Nezha, paradoxical paragon of filial dis- obedience and filial piety, of youthful disorderliness and mature martial discipline, of the shapes and meanings of Chinese and Indian divinity. For those familiar with Shahar’s work it may be tempting to think that this history is a direct outgrowth of his earlier co-edited volume (with Robert Weller), Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (Univ. of Hawaii Press, 1996), which also deals with the historical circum- stances of disobedient gods. Yet if so, then only superficially: Shahar’s new study goes far beyond anything offered in the 1996 volume. Although his interest in anti- nomian and iconoclastic figures is clear from much of his earlier work, this new history of Nezha’s manifestations proudly stands at the culmination of a long pro- cess of fascination, curiosity, reflection, and, ultimately, thorough investigation. I must hasten to add that my choice for the term “history of manifestations” for this book is not to suggest that the book is written in a historical sequence, nor does it intend to explore the chronology of a historical development. Despite this, however, the book’s nine chapters each trace several micro-histories, connecting vari- ous aspects of Nezha to their historical backgrounds and relevant cultural environments. The author takes his readers through long stretches of time (from the first millennium BCE to the present day), vast geographical distances (from the Indian subcontinent through China to Japan and Taiwan), and a greatly divergent repertoire of source materials (Sanskrit sacred texts, Chinese popular literature, Japanese anime, Taiwanese cinema). This intellectual journey is in itself a dazzling cross-cultural comparison. Yet, as the title suggests, what most profoundly connects these often quite dis- parate elements is the drive to operate within a more theoretical framework, one that is specifically Freudian. Throughout the account of this multifaceted divinity, the author tests the thesis (forwarded by him and several other scholars) that Ne- zha exemplifies the fundamental traits of the Oedipus complex. As the author says ©T’oung Koninklijke Pao 103-1-3 Brill NV, (2017) Leiden, 291-296 2017 DOI: 10.1163/15685322-10313P10 ISSN 0082-5433 (print version) ISSN 1568-5322 (online version) TPAODownloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:09:39PM via free access 292 Book Reviews explicitly, the first question that underlies his study of the unruly Nezha is “wheth- er or not the Freudian hypothesis is applicable to Chinese culture” (p. xii). Here, the author should be commended for asking this question: very few students of Chi- nese culture have felt it necessary to explore the possibilities and impossibilities of the application of modern, Western “scientific” knowledge to a different culture and in different times. At a time when the intellectual achievements of modernity are hailed as the most beneficent for all of mankind, the mere acknowledgement of the need to test this hypothesis is timely. The second objective pursued by Shahar is to determine “the impact that esoteric Buddhism (also known as Tantric Buddhism) has had upon the Chinese imag- ination of divinity”. Though seemingly in line with the author’s earlier work, this inquiry deviates from the trodden paths in sinological studies of Buddhism, in that it recognizes the need to understand esoteric Buddhism not merely as a goal in itself but emphatically also in order to understand important aspects of “Chinese religion.” Indeed, Shahar’s study strongly suggests that even if the term “esoteric” itself suggests something obscure and marginal, the impact of esoteric Buddhism was clearly visible throughout the Chinese mainstream. Closely related to the complexity of the subject matter, the book is endowed with an extremely complex narrative structure, for one thing because, as the author warns, “the book is written backwards in time,” which he readily admits “might be confusing” (p. x). Indeed, the reverse chronological order in combination with an extremely multi-faceted research agenda asks a lot from the reader, but the re- wards are generous: Shahar has produced an outstanding study of an important deity that the reader can now finally see in a constantly changing web of implica- tions, interpretations, and innovations. This is a major feat. Chapter 1, “Sons and Fathers,” provides a useful summary of the Nezha legend that received its most widespread form in the seventeenth-century vernacular narrative Canonization of the Gods (Fengshen yanyi). This book, alongside The Journey to the West (Xiyouji), one of what Shahar calls “the two largest and most influential novels” of the late Ming, forms the starting point of much of the monograph’s analysis. The story told in Canonization of the Gods treats the historical conflict between the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600-1066 BCE) and the much-lauded Zhou dynasty (ca. 1066-221 BCE). This conflict lends itself perfectly for an investigation into the theme of patricide and regicide, and, more pointedly, filial piety and political loy- alty—an area of analysis that plays an important role throughout Shahar’s study. Indeed, Shahar pays detailed attention to the (apocryphal) story that lies at the heart of how Canonization of the Gods sets the tone for its narrative about Nezha, namely that of the supposedly sagely King Wen, spiritual founder of the great Zhou dynasty and “paragon of virtue” (p. 7) knowingly consuming his own child’s flesh. This tale serves as the basis for an extended—and delicious—treatment of the theme of cannibalism and its multifarious antecedents within Chinese culture. Wonderfully fitting within Shahar’s broad approach is his discovery of temple mu- rals in Henan that depict exactly this theme of King Wen eating his own son’s meat (and later vomiting it out again). T’oung Pao 103-1-3 (2017) 291-296 Downloaded from Brill.com09/29/2021 06:09:39PM via free access Book Reviews 293 Chapter 2, “Patricide and Suicide,” takes the themes from the first chapter and elaborates them in different ways. Though filial piety was a predominant value in the “hegemonic Confucian discourse” (p. 22), this could never guarantee universal following or even avoid tensions. Shahar zooms in on one aspect that was crucially relevant within the Oedipus complex, namely patricide. This “gravest of all crimes” (p. 25) was an important aspect of the Nezha legend—despite the fact Nezha ultimately failed to kill his father. As Nezha in Canonization of the Gods ends up killing himself by cutting the flesh off his own bones and returning it to his parents as an act of cutting the ties between himself and his patrilineal family line, Shahar takes up a reverse perspective, namely filial suicide. In particular the author relates Ne- zha’s self-maiming to the late Ming practice of “cutting the thigh” (gegu; pp. 29-33). Where Nezha’s suicide was meant to exonerate his parents from culpability for his assassination of a dragon prince, an act of extreme filial piety, the historical practice of cutting a piece of flesh from one’s own thighs and feeding it to a sick parent had become a prominently visible way of curing illness of senior family members. Shahar takes interest in the fact that such extreme filial piety paradoxically “vio- lated a cardinal aspect of filial piety: the preservation of the body. Confucianism considered the body a gift from one’s parents, which it was forbidden to mutilate” (p. 29). Needless to say, this same form of filial piety also sheds a different light on filial cannibalism. Indeed, as Shahar concludes, “the Nezha legend expressed griev- ances with the social order while at the same time succumbing to its hegemonic discourse” (p. 37). The third chapter, “The Chinese Oedipus,” asks questions about the universality of the Oedipus complex. It does so by offering a basic introduction to Freud’s ideas, using authorities like Melford Spiro and Peter Gay to support the universality of the Freudian hypothesis (pp. 38-39). My biggest critique of Shahar’s book lies in this chapter, because it does not quite fulfill its promise of testing the theory; instead, the author seems favorably predisposed and sympathetic toward an Oedipal read- ing. While this need not be a problem in itself, I would suggest some critical notes. First, it leads the author to seek willfully to fit the Freudian theory into Chinese traditional culture. This outcome-oriented approach likely obscures some interest- ing discrepancies between these two angles, and potentially forecloses some ven- ues of analysis.

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