IMAGES OF THE IMMORTAL IMAGES OF THE THE CULT OF LÜ DONGBIN AT THE PALACE OF ETERNAL JOY IMMORTAL Paul R. Katz University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu © 1999 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 040302010099 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Katz, Paul R., 1961– Images of the immortal: the cult of Lü Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy/Paul R. Katz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–8248–2170–X (alk. paper) 1. Yung-le kung (Temple; Jui-ch’eng, China) 2. Lü, Tung- pin, b. 798. 3. Taoism. I. Title. II. Title: Cult of Lü Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy. BL1941.5.J84K37 1999 99–31640 299’.51—dc21 CIP University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Jeanne Calabrese Printed by The Maple Vail Manufacturing Group To Shufen, Emily, and Philip Contents Preface ix Notes on Citation and Transliteration xiii Periods of Chinese History xv Abbreviations xvi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The Site—the Palace of Eternal Joy 24 Chapter 2 The Cult—the Immortal Lü Dongbin 52 Chapter 3 Text 1—Temple Inscriptions 94 Chapter 4 Text 2—the Murals 131 Chapter 5 Reception and Reinterpretation 177 Conclusion 195 Appendix A Stele Inscriptions at the Palace of Eternal Joy 203 Appendix B Hagiographic Murals in the Hall of Purified Yang 211 Notes 225 Glossary 247 Bibliography 257 Index 299 vii Preface hortly after completing the rough draft of this book, I received the summerS 1997 issue of the Asian Studies Newsletter (vol. 42, no. 3), which contained a new feature titled “Viewpoints.” That issue’s inaugural topic was “Futures of Asian Studies.” On reading the important essays by some of the leading members of our field, I was struck by their concern that so-called area studies disciplines like Asian studies might be relegated to the provision of data to test various theories. Although I concur with James Scott and Andrew Gordon that such concerns are exaggerated, the fact that they exist at all reflects a perception, however invidious, that area studies tends to focus more on reading texts or describing events than on interpreting them in the context of a broad theoretical framework. This book, which con- cerns the practice of religion in late imperial China, attempts to counter such misconceptions. Its subject, sacred sites and their cults, has been studied by historians and social scientists the world over. In researching the history of one sacred site in north China known as the Palace of Eternal Joy, I discuss issues of interest to the scholarly community both inside and outside Asian studies, particularly the arrangement of space at sacred sites as well as the ix x PREFACE production, spread, and reception of texts in and around such sites. Whether I have successfully dealt with these problems is a matter for the scholarly community to decide, but at the very least I hope that this book can help our field to, in the words of James Scott, “become more of an intellectual Melaka—an open, cosmopolitan trading port.” I began research on the Palace of Eternal Joy while a postdoctoral fellow with the Chinese Popular Culture Project at the University of California at Berkeley from 1990 to 1991. During that time, David Johnson provided invaluable support and encouragement, as did the other fellows doing research that year (Bo Songnian, Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, Martin Hala, and Liu Shufen). I continued to study the palace while serving on the faculty of the history programs of National Chung Cheng University (1991–1993) and National Central University (1995–present) and as a vis- iting fellow at the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica (1993–1995). I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the scholars and graduate students at these institutions. The research environment in Taiwan is one of the best in the world, and I hope it will continue to be used fully by sinologists in the future. Preliminary results of my research were also pre- sented at conferences, and some ended up being published in journals and conference volumes. Many thanks to the conference organizers and editors who provided their support. In attempting to study the Palace of Eternal Joy as well as its patrons and worshipers and the various texts they produced, I have benefited immense- ly from the pioneering efforts of numerous scholars in the field of Chinese religions. Indeed, without the solid groundwork laid by their research, it would have been impossible to undertake a study of this scope and depth. Susan Naquin, Yü Chün-fang, and other sinologists investigating the history of Chinese sacred sites have underscored the importance of both the spatial and textual characteristics of these places as well as their inherent diversi- ty. Isabelle Ang, Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, Ma Xiaohong, Ono Shihei, Pu Jiangqing, and Richard Yang have thoroughly discussed the history and multifaceted nature of the cult of Lü Dongbin. The social and cultural his- tory of Perfect Realization Taoism has been expertly documented by Judith Boltz, Chen Yuan, Stephen Eskildsen, Sun K’o-k’uan, Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, and Zheng Suchun. In the field of Chinese art history, scholars such as Ellen Laing, Victor Mair, Julia Murray, Martin Powers, Nancy Steinhardt, Ka PREFACE xi Bo Tsang (Zeng Jiabao), and Wu Hung provided key methodological and hermeneutical guidance. I am also indebted to the Chinese archaeologists, art historians, and historians who collected and analyzed data from the Palace of Eternal Joy, particularly Chen Yuan, Su Bai, and Wang Chang’an. Finally, I have learned much from reading the exemplary works of those social scientists and historians researching the social history of Chinese religions, particularly Glen Dudbridge, David Johnson, David Jordan, Susan Naquin, Daniel Overmyer, Stephen Sangren, Meir Shahar, Donald Sutton, Stephen Teiser, Barend ter Haar, Robert Weller, and Yü Chün-fang. I also wish to thank warmly those friends and colleagues who looked at various versions of the manuscript and provided invaluable comments, espe- cially Farzeen Baldrian, Susan Naquin, Vivian-Lee Nyitray, Isabelle Robinet, Nancy Steinhardt, Robert Weller, Yü Chün-fang, and Angela Zito. A spe- cial note of thanks to Stephen Bokenkamp, Vincent Goossaert, and Robert Hymes, whose detailed corrections and suggestions helped immeasurably in improving the quality of this work. I am also deeply grateful to Patricia Crosby, Masako Ikeda, Susan Stone, and the rest of University of Hawai‘i Press staff for their expert editorial assistance and to Chao Chen-hsün, Chiang Hui-ying, and Yang Yung-pao for their help with the illustrations. I should also add a brief caveat about translation. As Stephen Bokenkamp points out in the preface to his Early Daoist Scriptures, transla- tion is in fact no different from other forms of scholarship in that it consti- tutes a process of interpretation. Thus, I cannot claim that my attempts to render hagiographical and alchemical works from late imperial China into English are free of distortions. These texts were not composed for modern sinologists, and much that we desire to learn is either left unexplored or dealt with in ways that are difficult to understand fully (Bokenkamp 1997:xiv–xvi). At the same time, however, I have not had to grope blindly in search of meaning, thanks to the ground-breaking work of previous schol- ars such as Isabelle Ang, Farzeen Baldrian-Hussein, and Vincent Goossaert. My indebtedness to their accomplishments is apparent in the pages below. I completed work on the manuscript during the summer of 1997, while staying at my family’s house in Norwich, Vermont. I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude for everyone’s love and support, and especially to my par- ents for plodding through and correcting the rough copy. A special note of thanks to the Day Care Center of Norwich for taking such wonderful care xii PREFACE of my children. Subsequent revisions were completed while I served as a vis- iting professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign during the spring semester of 1998. My family and I are deeply grateful to the faculty and staff of the Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Religious Studies Program (espe- cially Peter Gregory, Ron Toby, and George Yü) for all they did to help make our stay so enjoyable. Notes on Citation and Transliteration hinese primary sources in the bibliography are listed by title; modern ChineseC and Japanese writings in both sections of the bib- liography, however, are listed by author. When Chinese sources are cited, numbers divided by a colon indicate the juan (book, part, or chapter) and page for the edition of the work that appears in the bibliography. In cases where I have used a modern edition of a Chinese source, both juan and page number are given, divided by a period. For Hong Mai’s Yijian zhi, the volume and page numbers of the modern edi- tion are provided, divided by a colon. In numbering texts from the Taoist Canon, I first give the fascicle number based on the 1926 Hanfen Lou edition (see also Weng 1966). This is followed by the serial number of the text as indicated in Kristofer Schipper’s concordance to the Taoist Canon (Schipper 1975). The bibliography includes only items actually mentioned in the book. Not included are many standard and essential research tools, unless they are cited in the text or the notes. Chinese and Japanese characters for all xiii xiv NOTES ON CITATION AND TRANSLITERATION authors and texts cited are provided in the bibliography.