Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch
RASHKB and author
Vol. 1 (1961)
ISSN 1991-7295
71
novel. After this treatment, Vaisravana and Nata became completely Sinicized, and few, if any, Chinese readers ever suspect that they are "alien" in origin. This is typical of the way in which Chinese Buddhists took stories or ideas of foreign origin and gradually turned them into something totally Chinese.
Apart from its influence on religious practice, the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i is also of considerable importance from a literary point of view. It superseded previous stories from which it took some of its material, so much so that but for the efforts of scholars in the past thirty years these previous stories contained in prompt-books would have been unknown. Even now, only a handful of experts have read the prompt-books, while most readers are not aware that the Fêng-shên is not entirely the original creation of one man. This goes to show the success of the author as an imaginative writer.
In the following pages I shall attempt to describe how the stories about Vaisravana and Nata became integral parts of the novel, as an example of the Sinicization of Buddhist stories and figures and their assimilation into the mainly Taoist pantheon of China. I shall also try to show how the author, Lu Hsi-hsing, made use of the material derived from miscellaneous sources and turned it into a fascinating tale.
1. VAISRAVANA AND NATA
When we come to a discussion of some of the prominent figures in the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i, the most striking fact we shall find is that the author described these figures vividly and did not rely on previous legends for literary effect. Rather, he chose from miscellaneous and discordant materials and put them into a unified system which enlarged and modified the Chinese pantheon. The story of Li Ching and his three sons, especially the third one, No-cha, in this novel may serve as an outstanding illustration.
In this novel Li Ching was first a commander of the Ch'ên-t'ang Pass in the court of the ruthless King Chou (Ch.12), but he was also a Taoist, and for a period of years he had learnt the process of Taoist cultivation from the Immortal Tu O of the K'un-lun Mountain though he was unable to reach the final attainment. He had three sons: the eldest, Chin-cha, was a disciple of Wên-shu (Mañjusri), the second, Mu-cha, was a disciple of P'u-hsien (Samantabhadra) and the third one, No-cha, a disciple of the Immortal Tai-I. Both the father and his three sons joined the side of King Wu in the expedition against King Chou. Though they all knew some magic feats and possessed magic weapons, they are described as human beings. Unless we study the Tantric sutras and compare them with the Chinese
Page 75
Page 76