Kan Pao (fl. 318)
Preface
Even though we examine ancient fragments in the written documents and collect bits and pieces which have come down to the present time, these things are not what has been heard or seen by one person’s own ears and eyes. How could one dare say that there are no inaccurate places? Note Wei Shuo’s 1 losing the country. The two commentaries are at odds in what they have heard. Note Lü Wang’s2 serving Chou. In the Shih chi there exist two stories.3 Things like this occur time and time again. From this standpoint we can observe that the difficulties of hearing and seeing have come down from ancient times.
Even in writing the set words of a funerary announcement or following the manuals of the official historians, one finds places where it is difficult to write accurately. How much more difficult then is looking back to narrate events of a past one thousand years ago, writing down the characteristics of distant and peculiar ways of life, stringing together word fragments between textual faults and fissures, questioning the old people about things in former times! If one must have historical events without any discrepancies, have the words in every text agree, and only then regard them as veritable, then this point will surely seem a defect of previous historians.
Nonetheless, the state does not eliminate the office charged with writing commentaries on historical documents, and scholars do not cease in their recitations of the texts. Is this not because what is lost is inconsequential and what is preserved is vital?
As for what I am putting together now, when they are items gotten from previous accounts, then the fault is not mine. In the event they are recent happenings which I have collected or found out, should there be errors or omissions, I would hope to share the ridicule and condemnation with scholars and worthies of the past.
Coming now to what these records contain, it is enough to make clear that the spirit world is not a lie. On this subject, the countless words and hundred differing schools are too much even to scan. And what one perceives with his own eyes and ears is too much to write down. So I have lumped records together that are just adequate to express the main points of the eight categories4 and provide some trivial accounts; that is all.
I will count myself fortunate if in the future curious scholars come along, note the basis of these stories, and find things within them to enlighten their hearts and fill their eyes. And I will be fortunate as well to escape reproach for this book.
Translated by James I. Crump and Kenneth DeWoskin
Treasure Recovered Through the Classic of Changes
Huai Shao was a citizen of the Hung-shou relay station settlement well versed in the Classic of Changes. As he drew near death, he presented his copy of the Changes to his wife, saying, “When I am gone, there will be a great famine. Though this be so, I enjoin you never to sell the house. In the spring of the fifth year after my passing, an emissary surnamed Hung will stop at the relay station. This man owes me a debt; take the book to him and demand payment. You must give me your word and honor it.”
After he died, there were in fact great troubles. Several times Huai’s wife was tempted to sell off the house, but she remembered her husband’s words and stopped herself. When the time came, a certain Hung did indeed stay at the relay station, whereupon Huai’s wife presented him her copy of the Changes and taxed him with the debt. He accepted the book but was puzzled by her words.
“Never in my life did I contract such a debt,” said he. “I wonder what is behind this?”
“As my husband neared death, he put his hand to his very book and saw what was to be. Truly, I would not deceive you,” insisted the woman.
The emissary pondered and muttered to himself for some time until finally he understood. He ordered milfoil stalks to be brought so that a divination might be made. A while later, he clapped his hands together and sighed.
“Most wonderful, Mr. Huai,” he exclaimed. “You have concealed your brilliance and hidden your tracks so that none of us had heard of you. But obviously you were one who could hold a mirror up to failure and success and fathom felicity and ill-fortune.”
The emissary then turned to Huai’s wife and said, “I never did incur such a debt. Your husband had the money. He knew that after his death you would temporarily find yourself in straitened circumstances so he hid the gold that it might wait upon better times. He deliberately told neither wife nor child about it for fear the money would disappear before the bad times had. He knew I was skilled in the Changes and therefore left this copy so that his intentions might become known. Now, five hundred catties of gold are buried in a black jar capped with a sheet of copper near the east wall of your house. It is exactly one rod from the wall and is buried nine feet deep.”
The wife went home and dug. She recovered the gold and all was as had been divined.
Translated by James I. Crump and Kenneth DeWoskin
The Origins of the Man1 Barbarians
In the times of Kao-hsin, an elderly woman attached to the palace had been suffering from an earache for some time. The physician treated her and removed an insect the size of a silkworm cocoon. When the woman had left, the physician placed the insect in a gourd pot (hu) and covered it with a dish (p’an). In no time it turned into a dog mottled with colorful patches. This dog was called P’an-hu and was reared by the physician.
At that time, the Wu barbarians had become numerous and strong and several times penetrated the borders. Generals were sent against them but could not gain victories. A declaration was sent throughout the kingdom: “Anyone bringing in the head of the Wu leader will be rewarded with a thousand catties of gold, an appanage of ten thousand households, and the hand of the emperor’s youngest daughter.”
Sometime later P’an-hu appeared carrying a head in its mouth and went straight to the king’s palace. The king examined the head and concluded that it belonged to the Wu leader. What was he to do?
His officers all said, “P’an-hu is a domestic animal; he cannot be allowed to join the ranks of officials and certainly cannot be given your daughter to wed! Though he has acquired merit for the deed, he cannot be given the reward.”
When his younger daughter heard of this, she addressed the king: “Since Your Majesty promised me to anyone in the world and P’an-hu brought you the head, ridding your kingdom of danger, we have here the will of Heaven. This is not something P’an-hu’s intelligence could have contrived. Kings must keep promises, rulers must be believed. You cannot repudiate your word, clearly given to the world, for the sake of my humble person; that would result in calamity for your kingdom.”
The king feared she was right and ordered her given to P’an-hu.
The dog took the girl into the southern hills where the undergrowth was so dense that the feet of men never trod. There she discarded her court robes, donned those of a common freeman, and bound herself to P’an-hu as his servant. He then led her over mountains and through valleys until they reached a cave in the rocks.
Now, the king sorely missed his daughter and he often sent men forth to search for her. However, the heavens would always rain, the mountain peaks would shake, and clouds would so darken the sky that they could not reach where she was.
Nearly three years passed. The princess had given birth to six boys and six girls when P’an-hu died. Their offspring married one another; they wove cloth from the bark of trees dyed with the juices of berries and fruits—for they loved colorful garments—and they cut the cloth to fit their tails.
Later, their mother returned to the palace and the king sent envoys to welcome the children—this time the heavens did not rain. But their clothes were outlandish, their speech barbaric; they squatted on their haunches to eat and drink, and preferred mountain wilds to cities. The king acceded to their wishes and gave them famed mountains and broad swamps for their home. They were called Man barbarians.
The Man barbarians appear stupid but are in fact crafty. They are contented in the lands they inhabit and set store by their old ways. They believe they were given strange capacities by the will of Heaven and therefore they act under laws not common to others. They farm and they trade but have no documents to show at borders, no identifications or tallies, nor do they have rents or taxes of any sort. They live in small villages where the headmen are given tallies and wear crowns of otter-skin, for the Man secure their food from the waters.
Presently the commanderies of Liang, Han, Pa, Shu, Wu-ling, Ch’ang-sha, and Lu-chiang are all inhabited by Man barbarians. They eat rice-gruel mixed with the flesh of various fish; they pound on containers and howl to honor P’an-hu with sacrifices of gourds. This custom has lasted until the present day. These are the reasons for the saying:
Red buttocks, yellow trousers do
Reveal descendants of P’an-hu.
Translated by James I. Crump and Kenneth DeWoskin
Liang Wen and Lord Kao-shan
During the Han, Liang Wen from the Ch’i area was given to Taoist practices. He added a room three or four beams wide onto his house as an offertory. His altar was covered with a large, dark drape and he spent much time in there.
This is how things went for more than a decade. Then, because of the numerous sacrifices directed to the shrine, one day the sound of a voice suddenly issued from beneath the altar cloth.
“I am the Lord Kao-shan,” 1 it said. The god had quite an appetite for food and drink and was efficacious in curing illness. Liang Wen was very attentive and respectful toward it.
And so things went for several more years until one day the god invited Liang Wen to come under the altar drapes. There Wen found the god very drunk, but he respectfully asked if he could reverently look upon the sacred countenance.
“Stretch thy hand forth,” said Kao-shan, and Liang Wen did as the god bade him. He was then allowed to finger the god’s chin. His hand came in contact with quite a long beard. Gradually and carefully Wen wrapped the beard around his fingers—and suddenly gave a great tug!
There was the sound of a loud goat bleat. Wen’s congregation all jumped to their feet in surprise and helped him drag the god forth. It was a goat belonging to the house of Yüan Shu! Seven or eight years before, the family goat had disappeared and the Yüan family had no idea where it had gone.
They slaughtered the goat and there were no manifestations after that.
Translated by James I. Crump and Kenneth DeWoskin
Search for the Supernatural (Sou-shen chi) is a collection of over four hundred stories gathered by the Eastern Chin court historian Kan Pao. It is the best example of a genre of literary tale that contemporaries called “leftover history” and later scholars identified as the beginnings of Chinese fiction. The tales borrow an austere documentary style of official history writing, but their subjects reach beyond that range. Mixed together in the collection are tales of avenging ghosts, fox spirits, Taoist adepts, diviners and doctors, dreams and transformations, strange creatures of distant places, and odd customs of non-Han peoples. They demonstrate the profound interest of medieval literati in matters that were curious, bizarre, and remote.
The influence of Kan Pao’s collection on later fiction and drama is tremendous. Many of the characters introduced so briefly here reappear as the protagonists of complete plays and short stories in later dynasties. And the genre of collecting brief tales of the supernatural continues as well, culminating in huge collections of thousands of stories, many in later times highly crafted and literary.
1. This refers to Duke Hui of Wei, a noble of the Spring and Autumn period. Kan Pao’s point is that historical works are often at odds with each other about the interpretation of events.
2. I.e., Lü Shang, a minister to King Wen of the Chou dynasty.
3. The Shih chi is the Records of the Grand Historian by Ssu-ma Ch’ien (see selection 160, unnumbered note, and selection 173, note 10). In addition to better known historical records about Lü Shang, the Shih chi includes a hearsay story about his chance meeting with the king. Kan Pao’s point here is that even the classic histories like the Shih chi saw fit to include information that was suspect but conveniently ready at hand.
4. The precise meaning of “categories” is not known. One possibility is that it refers to the addition of chih-kuai (tales of anomalies), such as those in the Search for the Supernatural, to the traditional seven categories of Liu Hsin’s (?–23 C.E., son of Liu Hsiang, on whom see selection 203) seminal bibliographical scheme. In this case, it would imply “satisfying the needs of this [maverick] genre.” Alternatively, and perhaps more likely, it refers to the classes of spiritual phenomena, meaning roughly “satisfying my purpose of displaying all eight types of spiritual phenomena.”
1. The tribal name “Man” is completely unrelated to the English word designating a human being. The Man people lived in the southeast reaches of the Chinese empire.
1. Meaning “high hill,” where goats are most often pastured.