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Origin Narratives: Reading and Reverence in Late-Ming China

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Origin Narratives: Reading and Reverence in Late-Ming China Origin Narratives: Reading and Reverence in Late-Ming China Noga Ganany Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Noga Ganany All rights reserved ABSTRACT Origin Narratives: Reading and Reverence in Late Ming China Noga Ganany In this dissertation, I examine a genre of commercially-published, illustrated hagiographical books. Recounting the life stories of some of China’s most beloved cultural icons, from Confucius to Guanyin, I term these hagiographical books “origin narratives” (chushen zhuan 出身傳). Weaving a plethora of legends and ritual traditions into the new “vernacular” xiaoshuo format, origin narratives offered comprehensive portrayals of gods, sages, and immortals in narrative form, and were marketed to a general, lay readership. Their narratives were often accompanied by additional materials (or “paratexts”), such as worship manuals, advertisements for temples, and messages from the gods themselves, that reveal the intimate connection of these books to contemporaneous cultic reverence of their protagonists. The content and composition of origin narratives reflect the extensive range of possibilities of late-Ming xiaoshuo narrative writing, challenging our understanding of reading. I argue that origin narratives functioned as entertaining and informative encyclopedic sourcebooks that consolidated all knowledge about their protagonists, from their hagiographies to their ritual traditions. Origin narratives also alert us to the hagiographical substrate in late-imperial literature and religious practice, wherein widely-revered figures played multiple roles in the culture. The reverence of these cultural icons was constructed through the relationship between what I call the Three Ps: their personas (and life stories), the practices surrounding their lore, and the places associated with them (or “sacred geographies”). In this dissertation, I explore this dynamic through the prism of origin narratives by focusing on the immortal Xu Xun 許遜, the god Zhenwu 真武, and the immortal bard Lü Dongbin 呂洞賓. I conclude with a case study of a recurrent theme in origin narratives: the protagonist’s journey through hell. The main goal of this dissertation is to examine the pivotal yet overlooked genre of origin narratives and unveil its significance to Chinese literature and cultural practice. What was the reading experience of origin narratives? What spurred their rise and commercial success in late Ming? And what was their long-term impact on writing and worship in late-imperial China? To answer these questions, this dissertation attempts to transcend anachronistic disciplinary boundaries that obscure the realities of life in late Ming China, and instead explore origin narratives within the broader cultural framework that informed their production and consumption during this period. Therefore, I analyze origin narratives in conjunction with a wide range of materials that fall into the realms of literature, religion, and history. These include literary works, canonical texts, popular religious tracts (baojuan and shanshu), daily-life encyclopedias, local gazetteers, geographical compendia, pictorial hagiographies, and art works. Origin narratives reflect three concomitant trends in late-Ming book culture: a renewed interest in hagiographies, a penchant for anthologizing in commercial publishing, and the multiple roles xiaoshuo narratives played in the culture. In their hybrid composition and encyclopedic scope, origin narratives are a unique late-Ming phenomenon that opens a rare window onto the interplay between literature and religion during this transformative period in the history of Chinese culture. Contents List of Figures …………………………………………………………………………….. ii Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………….. iv Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1: Late Ming Origin Narratives ………………………………………………….. 33 Chapter 2: The Filial Immortal Xu Xun and Late Ming Print Culture …………………… 92 Chapter 3: Exorcistic Journeys: The Travels of the Warrior God Zhenwu ………………. 166 Chapter 4: The Immortal’s Voice: the “Autobiographical” Jottings of Lü Dongbin …….. 229 Chapter 5: Through the Gates of Hell: Netherworld Journeys in Origin Narratives ……... 273 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………... 320 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………. 331 Appendix: Table of Origin Narratives ……………………………………………………. 360 i List of Figures 1. Xu Xun fighting the dragon, from The Iron Tree …………………..………….. 33 2. The first page of the Origin Story of Zhenwu of the North …………………….. 35 3. The first page of the Tale of the Eight Immortals ………………………………. 35 4. A page from Shishi yuanliu …………………………………………………….. 40 5. A porcelain cup featuring the Eight Immortals from the Jiajing period (1522- 41 1566), housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 6. A seventeenth-century statuette of the Eight Immortals surrounding the god of 41 longevity, housed at the British Museum 7. The opening page of the renji men volume in the Santai wanyong zhengzong … 47 8. The opening page of the sengdao men volume in the same encyclopedia ……... 47 9. Xu Xun fights the Sinful Dragon of Poyang Lake, from The Iron Tree ……….. 86 10. Xu Xun and his disciples erect the Iron Tree, from The Iron Tree …………….. 90 11. Xu Xun erects the Iron Tree, from Xu taishi zhenjun tuzhuan …………………. 122 12. The birth of Xu Xun; plate 8 in Zhenxian shiji ……………………………….. 123 13. Xu Xun and his acolytes fight the dragon; plate 68 in Zhenxian shiji ………… 124 14. Xu Xun oversees the erection of the Iron Tree; plate 92 in Zhenxian shiji …… 124 15. Xu Xun ascends to heaven; plate 110 in Zhenxian shiji ………………………. 125 16. A portrait of Xu Xun in The Iron Tree ………………………………………… 128 17. An eighteenth-century statue of Zhenwu, held at the Metropolitan Museum of 138 Art, New York 18. A worship timetable, the appendix of Origin Narrative of Zhenwu of the North 148 ii 19. A list of offerings, the appendix of Origin Narrative of Zhenwu of the North 148 20. Illustration and description of Mount Wudang in Sancai tuhui ………………... 174 21. Illustration and description of Mount Wudang in Hainei qiguan ……………… 176 22. A “Mount Wudang” temple altar at the Beiji dian 北極殿, Tainan, Taiwan ….. 181 23. Pages from Guanyin’s journey through hell in The Origin and Cultivation 251 Narrative of the Bodhisattva Guanshiyin of the Southern Sea 24. Dai Jin, “Zhong Kui Travels Far” ……………………………………………… 255 25. Pages from the Origin Narrative of Zhong Kui ………………………………… 259 26. Huaguang meets King Yama in hell, from Tale of Huaguang ………………… 277 27-28. The fifth court of hell, from the Vidor Collection ……………………………… 280 29. A netherworld court and tortures in hell, from Origin Narrative of Zhong Kui… 282 iii Acknowledgements This project would not have come to fruition without the help and support of my teachers and classmates, family and friends. I am profoundly grateful to my advisor at Columbia University, Shang Wei, for his invaluable advice and support; your thoughts and ideas continue to inspire me. I am also deeply indebted to my mentor at Tel Aviv University, Meir Shahar, for his guidance and unfailing encouragement throughout the last decade. The insights and suggestions of Dorothy Ko, who dedicated many hours of careful reading and intellectually- uplifting conversations to my project, were invaluable. I am grateful to Bernard Faure for his wonderful advice and for introducing me to a host of useful sources for this project. Lydia Liu’s incisive notes and suggestions were vital for the theoretical framework of this project, for which I am profoundly thankful. During my doctoral studies at Columbia University, I also benefitted from the wonderful teaching and guidance of Li Feng, Bob Hymes, and Yu Chun-fang, who introduced me to new avenues of research and scholarship of China. Much of the research for this project was conducted at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, where I was incredibly fortunate to benefit from the guidance of Hu Siao-chen and Liu Chiung-yun. I completed this project while residing in Cambridge, MA, where I was warmly welcomed by Wai-yee Li, James Robson, Michael Szonyi, and Tian Xiaofei at Harvard University, who offered valuable advice and many useful references for this dissertation. I also thank several scholars of China who contributed ideas, references, and feedback, particularly Hsu Hui-lin, Wilt Idema, Paul R. Katz, Mark Meulenbeld, Julia Murray, Andrew H. Plaks, Gil Raz, Richard G. Wang, Rob Weller, and Wu I-Hsien. iv My friends and classmates at Columbia and Harvard were an unfailing source of support and delight throughout my graduate studies. I am forever indebted to my “academic sister” Yuan Ye for her friendship as well as for her generous help and feedback. I am also honored to have enjoyed the friendship and support of my “academic sister” Allison Bernard. Many thanks to my friends at Columbia for making the past few years an unforgettable experience: Kyoungjin Bae, Glenda Chao, Chen Kaijun, Jae-Won Chung, Clay Eaton, Matt Felt, Tom Gaubatz, Arunabh Ghosh, Gal Gvili, Tracy Howard, Jon Kief, S.E. Kile, Ulug Kuzuoglu, Brian Lander, Lei Lei, Lin Hsin-Yi, Carolyn Pang, Greg Patterson, Nataly Shahaf, Chelsea Zi Wang, Wang Sixiang, Wang Yijun, Wu Lan, Yan Zi, Yang Chung-Wei, Zhang Jing, Zheng Yiren, and Zhong Yurou. I am also grateful to my friends at Harvard who welcomed me into the EALC family during the last two years of my dissertation writing: Graham Chamness, Du Feiran, Du Heng, Ted Hui, Einor Keinan-Segev, Kou Lu, Mai Huijun, and Zhang Chen. This project was supported by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University and by generous grants from the Weatherhead Institute in New York and the Borg Foundation. Many thanks are also due to the librarians of the C.V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University, the Harvard-Yenching Library at Harvard University, and the Academia Sinica in Taipei. The greatest thanks are reserved to my family: my parents Nili and Ron Ganany, my sisters Ayelet Padowicz and Limor Vatavu, and my parents-in-law Mina and Dan Graur. No words can express my gratitude to my husband and partner in life Or Graur.
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