Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch
RASHKB and author
Vol. 1 (1961)
ISSN 1991-7295
81
and strong and victorious in fighting. Now the king sent them to invade their own country, and the father was much worried.
24
This kind of Buddhist story would not pass without leaving some traces in the prompt-books, sources of which are predominantly Buddhist ballads. For instance, in the prompt-book Hsin-pien Wu-tai Liang-shih P'ing-hua (“Popular Tales of the Five Dynasties, Period of Liang”), chüan 1, we read,
The wife of Huang Tsung-tan was pregnant for fourteen months. One day she gave birth to a substance which looked like a lump of flesh, but inside it was a piece of purple silk gauze in which was wrapped a baby. When the wrapper was opened, purple mist of dazzling brilliance filled the room.
25
Thus his mother gave birth to Huang Ch'ao. Again in the Ch'ien Han-shu P'ing-hua (“Han Hsin's Death at the Hands of Empress Lü”), chüan 3, when "Madam Po (a concubine of the first emperor of the Former Han dynasty) was in labour, Empress Lü went to see her. She was glad to find that the baby was a freak without eyes or eyebrows, like a lump of flesh."
In the anonymous Yüan play, Chin-shui-ch'iao Ch'ên-lin Pao Chuang-ho, in Act 2, when Empress Liu ordered the palace maid K'ou Ch'êng-yü to stab the baby prince and throw him into the river from the bridge, the latter hesitated for she saw "red light and purple mist enshrouding the body of the prince."
We may now admit that the novel Fêng-shên Yen-i has a closer relation with the "Four Travels" than with other prompt-books. In Ch.8 of the Nan-yu-chi, the Buddha of Light told the Flowery Light “to be re-incarnated in the shape of a lump of flesh.” Consequently the Flowery Light, floating about in the air, arrived at the village Hsiao-chia Chuang of Wu-yüan, Anhwei, and darted into the womb of Madam Hsiao who had been pregnant for twenty months. "Now the maid came out to report to the elder, 'Madam has given birth.' 'A boy or a girl?' the elder asked. 'It is neither a boy nor a girl. It is just like the belly of an ox.' The elder was very much frightened. When they decided to throw the lump away into the river, it...
24 Fu-kuo Chi, translated by James Legge as "A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms", Oxford, 1886, Ch. 25, p. 73.
25 Hsin-pien Wu-tai Shih P'ing-hua, photolithographed edition, published by Prof. Tung K'ang, Wu-chin Tung-shih Sung-fên-shih (AAS), 1911. There are also several popular editions available.