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The Making of the Mysterious Woman in Daoism and Water Margin

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The Making of the Mysterious Woman in Daoism and Water Margin Ming Studies, 74, 48–71, November 2016 “CONCEAL MY BODY SO THAT I CAN PROTECT THE STATE”: THE MAKING OF THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN IN DAOISM AND WATER MARGIN PENG LIU Columbia University, New York, USA Protecting fictional heroes against misfortune and helping them defeat demonic enemies, the Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens proves to be a crucial figure in the Ming novel Water Margin. Her divine power and military wisdom pique our interest, inviting us to discover her true identity and investigate the process of her creation. This article shows how a set of related Daoist texts strengthens her role as a warrior protectress by giving prominence to her magic of concealing the body 隱身 (yinshen) and to magic concerning the worship of the Northern Dipper. The association of these two types of magic with the Mysterious Woman indicates the nature of this deity as a mixture of Daoist ideas that are in turn assimi- lated into the novel to serve narrative functions. In this process, the novel codes reli- gious ideas into its own language and portrays the Mysterious Woman as an internal author who controls the knowledge of the characters’ destinies. Her intervention in human affairs is restaged in a novel setting. The novel functions as part of a cultural mechanism that creates new stories about this ancient goddess. KEYWORDS: the Mysterious Woman, Daoism, Water Margin, Ming Dynasty, invisi- bility, the Northern Dipper In the Ming novel Water Margin 水滸傳 (Shuihu zhuan), Song Jiang 宋江 is under the aegis of a divine woman named the Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens 九天玄女 (Jiutian Xuannü, hereafter the Mysterious Woman).1 The mastermind behind the Mount Liang bandits’ cause, she admonishes Song Jiang to be rid of demonic nature so that he can lead his band to serve the imperial court. Not only does she magically rescue Song Jiang from official troops, she also appears in his dream to transmit military strategies. Whenever encountering problems, Song Jiang invokes this deity without exception. All of these details pique our interest in this divine woman. Why did the author(s) of Water Margin install such a female figure to play a pervasively crucial role in a novel that features rebellion and masculinized demonic force? What is the origin of this deity? And how does her story find a way into this vernacular novel? Based on archaeological and textual findings, current scholarship has revealed the multifaceted role of the Mysterious Woman in Chinese religion. She assumes the © The Society for Ming Studies 2016 DOI 10.1080/0147037X.2016.1228876 THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN 49 roles of a divine messenger, warrior protectress, goddess of geomancy, Daoist master who specializes in the arts of the bedchamber, and deity who protects the deceased in the underworld.2 Fascinatingly, she also figures prominently in the late imperial fic- tional discourse of rebellion and dynastic crisis. Novels, such as San Sui pingyao zhuan 三遂平妖傳 (The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt) and Water Margin, complicate her image by having her associated with demonic rebels. For example, she plays a double role in Water Margin: in a contradictory manner, she protects 108 demonic astral spirits who are reincarnated as human rebels on the one hand, and maintains the imperial court’s authority by persuading the rebels to serve the government on the other. She is a protectress of the state who is in collaboration with demons. Her ambiguous identity immediately calls into question the novel’s intention of recasting her image. The following questions are thus inevitable: How does Water Margin portray her differently in contrast to sources earlier than the novel? Does the making of the Mysterious Woman’s image in the novel reinforce or undercut her moral and political implications in other works? In answering these questions, I argue that Water Margin draws upon Daoist and literary sources to recreate her image, which popularizes Daoist ideas associated with her; instead of undermining her moral and political authority, the novel echoes a Ming imperial member’s act of worshipping this divine woman and strengthens her power through narrative. Working from the existing research, this article focuses on the Mysterious Woman’s role as a warrior protectress and examines the series of textual transform- ations that she undergoes. By analyzing multiple textual sources, from a politically related divinatory “weft text” 緯書 (weishu) and her canonical hagiography to pre- scriptive ritual texts and finally to the novel Water Margin, I demonstrate that the Daoist ritual texts and the novel attribute new magical skills to this divine woman, skills that had not been mentioned before the Song dynasty (960–1279). These new elements help remove the erotic connotation attached to her in earlier Daoist contexts3 and instead perpetuate her role as a goddess of martial arts. My research also uses visual evidence to verify the worship of the Mysterious Woman by the Ming court. During this period she officially became a celestial protectress of the state and protected an imperial female patron, in contrast to the Dark Warrior who protected Ming emperors.4 Against this historical background, Water Margin conveys her story by using vernacular language and literary devices, exemplifying the novel’s strategy of staging this divine woman’s story. This strategy equips the novel with the unique potential to spread Daoist ideas, thereby bridging the gap between esoteric Daoist knowledge and common readership. THE CANONIZATION OF THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN BEFORE THE MING DYNASTY The Mysterious Woman’s connection to warfare is derived from the legend of the Yellow Emperor in a “weft text” entitled Longyu hetu 龍魚河圖 (Chart of the River of the Dragon-Fish), which was presumably produced during the Xin dynasty (9–23). This text describes how she manifests herself in front of the Yellow Emperor 黃帝 (Huangdi) when he asks for heavenly help during a battle against the demonic Chiyou 蚩尤. Heaven dispatches her to deliver martial skills, which enable the Yellow Emperor to subjugate the demon: 50 PENG LIU The Yellow Emperor came into power. Chiyou and his brothers, a total of 80 people, all had the bodies of beasts and spoke like human beings; they had bronze heads and iron foreheads. They ate sand and rocks, built military weapons, and intimidated the world. They killed at will and without principle, showing no mercy. The Yellow Emperor governed the state, and he looked at the sky and sighed. Heaven dispatched the Mysterious Woman down to earth to deliver military messages and sacred talismans to the Yellow Emperor, enabling him to subjugate Chiyou. The returning statesman (the Yellow Emperor) therefore used them to suppress the enemy and seized control of the eight directions.5 黃帝攝政。蚩尤兄弟八十人，並獸身人語，銅頭鐵額。食沙石，造兵杖， 威震天下。 誅殺無道，不仁不慈。黃帝行天下，仰事天而歎。天遣玄女下， 授黃帝兵信神符， 而令制伏蚩尤，歸臣因使鎮兵以制八方. The Chinese historian Ding Shan 丁山 has suggested that the Yellow Emperor rep- resents Wang Mang 王莽 (45 BCE–23 CE), the ruler of the Xin dynasty, who usurped the Western Han (202 BCE–9 CE) emperor’s throne and claimed to have received the Mandate of Heaven.6 In this discourse, the Mysterious Woman becomes an auspi- cious sign of righteousness that legitimizes Wang Mang’s dubious political authority as perceived by the Han imperial court. The fact that she was used to justify a ruler of controversial legitimacy calls into question her own legitimacy as a righteous deity. Nevertheless, various historical texts increasingly emphasize the Mysterious Woman’s role as a righteous goddess. Her intervention in warfare becomes a trope in Daoist texts, including hagiographies and a set of scriptures belonging to the Zhongshu bu 眾術部 (The Section of Miscellaneous Magic) in the Daoist Canon 道藏 (Daozang).7 Placed at the beginning of each text, her story shows origin of a body of sacred knowledge transmitted to human heroes in order to convey a sense of orthodoxy. In most cases, she bestows the sacred knowledge upon the Yellow Emperor; however, other occasions exist when the receiver becomes an ordinary human being. Among these sources, the late Tang Daoist Du Guangting’s 杜光庭 (850–933) detailed hagiography for the Mysterious Woman in Yongcheng jixian lu 墉城集仙錄 (Records of the Assembled Transcendents of the Fortified Walled City) plays a significant role in perpetuating her role as a warrior protectress in Daoism. Du invented the title of “the Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens” for the deity and composed a more elaborate account of her life than previous texts did. His hagiography associates her with the following eso- teric items of martial arts: The Talismans of the Martial Tokens of the Six Jia Cyclicals and the Six Ren Cyclicals 六甲六壬兵信之符 The Book by which the Five Emperors of the Numinous Treasure Force Ghosts and Spirits into Service 靈寶五帝策使鬼神之書 The Seal of the Five Bright-Shiners for Regulating Demons and Communicat- ing with Spirits 制妖通靈五明之印 The Formula of the Five Yin and Five Yang for Concealing the Jia Cyclicals 五陰五陽遁[甲]之式 THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN 51 Charts for Grabbing the Mechanism of Victory and Defeat of the Grand Unity from the Ten Essences and Four Spirits 太一十精四神勝負握機之圖 Charts of the Five Marchmounts and the Four Holy Rivers五[嶽]河圖 Instructions in the Essentials of Divining Slips 策精之訣 8 Du explained neither the details of these items nor their functions on the battlefield. Without creating new magical skills for her, his hagiography appears derivative of the ideas contained in the earlier “weft text.” In fact, Du’s writing has its own agenda, which aims to “purify” the image of the Mysterious Woman as an erotic goddess who, together with her divine sister the Immaculate Woman 素女 (Sunü), sexually empowers the Yellow Emperor in earlier sources.
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