What Yuan Mei Spoke of

Journal of Chinese Religions 36 (2008) 84 What Yuan Mei Spoke of CHARLES E. HAMMOND Southern Illinois University Introduction Underlying many of the stories of Yuan Mei 袁枚 (1716-1798) in his Zi bu yu 子不語 (What the Master Would Not Speak of)1 is an “occult cosmology,” where the usually invisible yin realm occasionally produces visible outcomes.2 The title of Yuan’s book refers to a canonical characterization of Confucius: “The Master would not speak of anomalies, feats of strength, disorder, or gods,”3 and in fact, a number of the stories concern gods (shen 神), in which Yuan Mei had an ambivalent faith. On the whole, the stories are representative of eighteenth century elite anecdote culture, but Yuan Mei emphasizes the limits to the imperial government’s control over local conditions. The stories discuss the behavior of many gods, some that are famous members of the Chinese pantheon, but others that are more obscure. In many cases, we see how the yin bureaucracy recruits from among those living in the yang realm. Finally, many stories demonstrate how the gods of the yin realm rule over humans in the yang world. What is typically understood as religion in English involves ritual devotion to a god in accord with divine commands as promulgated by authoritative sacred texts or teachers, and is typically exclusive. Accordingly, Western readers may be inclined to dismiss the content of these classical xiaoshuo as mere superstition. The behavior in many stories seems to have little reference to any authority or ritual, and a few spirits in the Chinese pantheon may be referred to either as ghosts (gui 鬼) or as gods (shen), and indeed, some ghosts become gods. On the one hand, one could label the religious element in these stories as “popular religion,” which includes common rituals such as the offering of sacrifices, practices such as divination, and interactions with spirits via spirit mediums or other means, including dreams.4 On the other hand, Paul R. Katz has argued that elements involving the yin world that such stories portray, including conceiving of the yin world as a prison, and procedures such as accusations, investigations, and interrogations, are Taoist influences.5 In either case, these popular or Taoist 1 Yuan completed the final version by 1792 and retitled it Xin qi xie 新齊諧 with its sequel Xu xin qi xie 續新齊諧. See Yuan Mei, Xin qi xie / Xu xin qi xie 新齊諧/續新齊諧. 2 Sanders et al., “Power Revealed and Concealed in the New World Order,” 1–37. 3 Analects 7.20. 4 Teiser, “The Spirits of Chinese Religion,” 21-25. 5 Katz, Divine Justice, 21. What Yuan Mei Spoke of 85 elements are hardly reflective of the orthodoxy represented by Confucius, and indeed the very title of Yuan Mei’s book indicates the topics in his stories smacked of the unorthodox. In contrast to vernacular fiction, whose role in the transmission of religion was secondary to its nature as entertainment written for profit, classical xiaoshuo6 not only often promoted certain religious beliefs, they were the products of individual spiritual experience, sometimes written with a religious purpose. However, in contrast to the vernacular stories, which generally portray deities as having occupied marginal positions in society, while celebrating their martial accomplishments, often in a humorous vein,7 the classical xiaoshuo generally present deities as having been promoted from among members of the elite in society, and responding to appeals for justice or otherwise rationalizing yang existence. In his preface to Zi bu yu, Yuan Mei claims that although he was himself was not “deluded” (huo 惑) by the stories, he collected them in a process of “casual talk and casual listening” (wang yan wang ting 妄言妄聽),8 and presents many individual stories as having been told to him by his acquaintances. Aside from a couple of well-documented cases where he changed elements in the stories,9 he borrowed several more from other works without substantially changing the plots. These include one item that concerns his contemporary Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724-1805), who responded by issuing a minor correction about it in his own collection of stories, Yuewei caotang biji 閱微草堂筆記 (Jottings from the Thatch Hut of Close Observations).10 Yuan also records at least four items that...