Japsang or Chapsang (Kor: 잡상; Ch: zaxiang, 雜像, “miscellaneous figurines”) are effigies of dark gray fired clay adorning the roof-hips of royal palaces in Korea. The first four (of up to eleven) figures are traditionally associated with the main characters of Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592) (fig. 1 & 2). Tripitaka is connected to the first figure, which wears a suit of armor and sits in a kingly fashion with hands on splayed knees (fig. 3). Sun Wukong is connected to the second, an ape-like figure with a pointed hat, long arms, and small legs. Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing are respectively connected to the third and fourth figures, which are portrayed as scaled beasts with their heads turned in different directions.
Wall (2019) reveals the earliest reference to our our heroes’ association with the japsang appears in Eou yadam (어우야담, “Eou’s Unofficial Histories”), a collection of stories by the scholar-official Yu Mongin (유몽인, 1559-1623). Yu frames knowing the names of the figures as a test for a new official:
When newly appointed officials meet their predecessors for the first time, they have to be able to tell the names of the ten divine figures on top of the palace gates for ten times. . . . The names are Master of Great Tang (Taedang sabu, 大唐師傅 [Tripitaka]), Pilgrim Sun (Son haengja, 孫行者 [Sun Wukong]), Zhu Bajie (猪八戒), [and] Monk Sha (Sa Hwasang, 沙和尙 [Sha Wujing]) (Yu, 2004, as cited by Wall, 2019, p. 2137).
Interestingly, Sun Wukong was eventually associated with the very nails that fastened the figures to the royal rooftops (Chang, 2004, as cited by Wall, 2019, p. 2137). They were called “Pilgrim Sun-Nails” (Son) haengja taech’ ol; Ch: (孫)行者帶鐵), [1] which implies our hero “was at some point considered representative of all roof ornaments” (Wall, 2019, p. 2137). This connection no doubt references Monkey’s adamantine body and position as the demon-conquering exorcist par excellence. After all, the japsang figurines were believed to “protect the palaces from calamities” (Ro & Park, 2015, p. 78), making them cognates for Chinese roof figurines, which serve as “guardians against fire and evil spirits” (Li, 1990, as cited by Wall, 2019, p. 2138). This is fascinating from a historical perspective as late dynastic Korea was staunchly Neo-Confucian, showing Journey to the West was so wildly popular in the “Land of the Morning Calm” that the pilgrims were able to transcend their original Buddhist associations (Wall, 2019, pp. 2137-2138).
(I also find this subject interesting because, while not officially worshiped by people of non-Chinese descent, it shows Sun served a religious function in Korea. Thus, we can add this thread to the complex tapestry of his worship in East and Southeast Asia.)
I originally intended to write my own in-depth article on japsang figures but later discovered Macouin (2003). This masterful paper explains the evolution of such roof adornments and their later association with the Chinese novel. Macouin (2003) is written in French, so I am presenting both the original and a rough English translation. I did not include the Korean and Chinese characters in the translation.
Fig. 1 (top L) – A chart of nine japsang (larger version). Notice that most feature the same basic arched back design similar to the Hebrew letter mēm (מ). Fig. 2 (top R) – Photo of a roof-hip featuring seven figures (larger version). From Wikipedia. Fig. 3 (bottom) – A picture of the lead figure believed to be Tripitaka (larger version). From Yogin, 2001 as cited in Macouin, 2003, p. 29. But as noted, Sun Wukong came to be associated with all japsang figures.
I. Abstract (with translation)
French
Dans l’architecture ancienne de la Corée, à l’époque de la dynastie des Yi (1392-1910), les toits de certains bâtiments étaient ornés de statuettes protectrices, disposées en file sur leurs arêtes. À la fin du XIXe siècle, seuls les édifices peu ou prou en relation avec la fonction royale en étaient pourvus. La présence de ces figurines, à l’aspect d’animaux accroupis, est attestée au XVe siècle. Elles peuvent avoir succédé à d’autres ornements et, plus lointainement, à des tuiles spéciales à embout relevé.
Une tradition associe quatre de ces grotesques à des personnages bien connus par le roman chinois du XVIe siècle, le Xiyou ji. Plus précisément, la statuette placée en rive est identifiée au célèbre moine Xuanzang, héros de ce livre. Il est suggéré finalement que la personnification de ces statuettes pourrait être en relation avec des pratiques de bizutage.
English
In the ancient architecture of Korea, during the Yi Dynasty (1392-1910), the roofs of some buildings were adorned with protective statuettes, arranged in a line on their ridges. At the end of the 19th century, only buildings more or less related to the royal function were provided with it. The presence of these figurines, with the appearance of crouching animals, is attested in the 15th century. They may have succeeded other ornaments and, more distantly, special raised-toe tiles.
One tradition associates four of these grotesques with figures well known from the 16th century Chinese novel, Xiyou ji. More precisely, the statuette placed on the bank is identified with the famous monk Xuanzang, hero of this book. It is finally suggested that the personification of these statuettes could be related to hazing practices.
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Notes:
1) For a discussion of Monkey’s “pilgrim” nickname, see section three of my previous article.
Source:
Macouin, F. (2003). Des Figurines De Toiture Coréennes, Les Chapsang. Journal Asiatique, 291(1-2), 17-34.
Ro, M. & Park, S. (Eds.). (2015). The King at the Palace: Joseon Royal Court Culture at the National Palace Museum of Korea (C. Kwon, Trans.). Seoul: National Palace Museum of Korea.
Wall, B. (2019). Dynamic Texts as Hotbeds for Transmedia Storytelling: A Case Study of the Story Universe of the Journey to the West. International Journal of Communication 13, 2116-2142. Retrieved from https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10006/2648
In chapter four of Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592), Sun Wukong is invited to heaven to serve as the Bimawen (弼馬溫, “To assist horse temperament”), a minor post overseeing the celestial horse stables (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 148). He takes the position seriously, caring for nearly 1,000 horses day and night, making sure they are all well-fed, exercised, and rested (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 149) (fig. 1). But these are no ordinary horses. A poem associates them with the most famous steeds in Chinese history (Wu & Yu, 2012, pp. 148-149), and most importantly, the last line states: “They tread the mist and mount the clouds with unflagging strength” (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 149). This suggests that they have the supernatural ability to gallop through the skies (fig. 2). Additionally, the novel refers to them as “dragon horses” (long ma, 龍馬) (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 309), which brings to mind the White Dragon Horse (Bai long ma, 白龍馬) that serves as Tripitaka‘s mount throughout the journey (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 328).
Monkey’s position gives him power over all horses, especially those of mortal stock:
When the horse saw [Pilgrim], its torso slackened and its legs stiffened. In fear and trembling, it could hardly stand up. For you see, that monkey had been a [Bimawen], who used to look after dragon horses in the celestial stables. His authority was such that horses of this world inevitably would fear him when they saw him (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 309). [1]
The heavenly post is a homophonous pun on Bimawen (避馬瘟, lit: “avoid the horse plague”), an ancient superstition where people would place monkeys in stables to ward off equine sickness. For example, Essential Techniques for the Common People (Qimin yaoshu, 齊民要術, c. 544) states:
[Horses] are often associated with macaques [mihou, 猕猴] in the horse stable. This is in order to calm the horses, repel evil, and eliminate all diseases.
The Shuowen says: The characters (for macaque) look like “mother monkey” (muhou), but it’s “bathing monkey” (muhou, i.e. macaque), not a female. Since a macaque resembles a hu-barbarian, he is also called hu-sun “grandson of a barbarian”. The Zhuangzi calls him ju. People who raise horses keep a macaque in the stables, which will ward off horse-diseases. The Hu barbarians call a macaque ma–liu, in Sanskrit books he is called Mo–si–zha (makaṭa). [2]
The second explains how monkeys are believed to help the horses:
The Classic of Horses states: Domesticated macaques used in horse stables help avoid horse diseases [lit: bimawen]. Their monthly menstruation runs onto the grass, and once the horses eat it, they will never be sick.
This is insanely comical as it directly links Sun Wukong, a powerful cosmic warrior, to menstruation! This then might explain why Monkey is so enraged when enemies call him a Bimawen. As noted by my friend Irwen Wong of the Journey to the West Library blog, it challenges the Great Sage’s masculinity.
Essays
The following essay by Arthur Waley (1955), famed translator of the Journey to the West abridgement Monkey (1942), links heavenly horses to a historical breed from Central Asia, the Ferghana horse. He describes China invading the region to procure these horses by force, suggesting Emperor Wu of Han directed this action because the ruler believed the equines were dragon horses capable of transporting him to heaven. This is linked to stories of ancient Chinese rulers attaining immortality by riding horses or dragons to the celestial realm. Waley (1955) notes both the Chinese and Indians believed supernatural steeds hailed from the water, showing a link between horses and dragons.
But Creel (1982) refutes the claim that the heavenly horses were procured for purely religious reasons. He shows they were indeed used in military battles.
Individuals are not happy in proportion to the amount of space their persons occupy. Yet certain nations, at certain periods of their history, seem to take it for granted that the wider they spread themselves the happier they will be. China is a case in point. Why did this enormous country in the second century BC, in the first century AD and again at various later periods ruin itself by gratuitous westward expansion? Were her aims commercial or strategic? Was she defending her silk trade, or guarding against possible wars on two fronts? What part was played by the individual ambition of Emperors or generals, or by mere restlessness and love of adventure?
To answer these questions we should have to take the campaigns one by one. In doing so we should not be reduced to mere guesses. In Imperial edicts and addresses about military campaigns certain traditional pretences are, of course, kept up: ‘everything under Heaven’ belongs by right to the Chinese Emperor, and any peoples who do not think so must be chastised. Concrete and material motives for war are not always mentioned in these regal utterances, any more than an Address from the Throne (or its equivalent) in modern countries usually mentions petrol or rubber. But statesmen and officials were often quite frank about material motives for conquest: more so, I think, than is the case with us today. Thus, as justifying a proposal to secure from the Huns a strip of territory that projected into the Kansu corridor in north-western China the following reasons are given by a statesman in 8 BC: first, that it was a good source of supply for the sort of wood and feathers used in making arrows; secondly, that it would mean a large increase of Chinese territory, and lastly that it would give the general in command of the campaign a chance to win a big reputation. It is interesting to find that extension of territory is here regarded as an end in itself. Possibly supporters of the proposal might, if pressed, have pointed out as an afterthought that Chinese farmers could be settled in the new territory and that the taxes they paid would be a help to the exchequer.
The tendency of modern historians, and not only in Marxist countries, is to stress material and particularly economic motives for war, and to regard the profession of other motives as mere propaganda. In dealing with early Chinese history I do not think this view would generally lead us far astray, so long as we bear in mind the additional factor of personal ambition and the almost axiomatic belief that extension of territory was an end in itself. But I am going to deal with a case that seems to me to be exceptional. Oddly enough the early Chinese military adventure that modern scholars have most unanimously explained solely on materialist lines, seems, on closer examination, to have been to a large extent a religious quest
In 102. BC the Chinese Emperor Wu sent a huge military expedition (there had been a small and abortive one two years before) to Ta Yüan, corresponding roughly to the modern Ferghana in Russian Turkestan, to capture Heavenly Horses. Modern scholars, both Far Eastern and European, have usually assumed that the real object of the expedition was a purely practical one; namely, to secure a better type of cavalry horse. It is certain that by the middle of the second century AD the Chinese did possess two kinds of horse: a steppe-pony, with a large clumsy head, and a western type of horse, similar to that shown on Greek coins of the fourth to the second century BC, with small graceful head. It may well be that one of the results of the Ferghana expedition was the introduction of a western type of horse into China; and in the eyes of the generals and the horse-experts who accompanied them this may have been the main object as well as the result of the expeditions. But modern historians, intent on the very interesting material aspects of the episode, have tended to overlook its place (amply attested by contemporary texts) in the history of Chinese religion. Incidentally, by examining these texts more closely, I think one gets fresh light on what concretely and zoologically (as opposed to mythologically) the Heavenly Horses really were. I should mention that as a result of the expedition thirty or so ‘superior horses’ and 3,000 horses and mares of ‘middling or lower quality’ were handed over to the Chinese. How many of these survived the journey of 2,500 miles back to the Chinese capital we do not know. A few years later the king of Ferghana agreed to send two Heavenly Horses to China every year. I shall here be concerned only with the thirty ‘superior’ Or ‘Heavenly’ horses. There is no reason to suppose that the 3,000 inferior horses were of a type different from the usual Chinese horse. They may merely have been needed as remounts.
In studying what was said about the horses in contemporary Chinese literature the best point of departure is the hymn made in 101 B.C. when the horses were about to arrive at the Chinese capital :
The Heavenly Horses are coming, Coming from the Far West. They crossed the Flowing sands, For the barbarians are conquered. The Heavenly Horses are coming That issued from the waters of a pool. Two of them have tiger backs. They can transform themselves like spirits. The Heavenly Horses are coming Across the pastureless wilds A thousand leagues at a stretch, Following the eastern road. The Heavenly horses are coming. Jupiter is in the Dragon. Should they choose to soar aloft, Who could keep pace with them? The Heavenly Horses are coming; Open the gates while there is time. They will draw me up and carry me To the Holy Mountain of K’un-lun. The Heavenly Horses have come And the Dragon will follow in their wake I shall reach the Gates of Heaven, I shall see the Palace of God.
This song has often been spoken of by western historians as though it were a purely secular literary poem. It is in reality one of a series of hymns written (possibly by the Emperor Wu himself, but the authorship is very uncertain) for use at the sacrifices to Heaven and Earth-sacred rituals performed by the Emperor in person. One or two of the phrases in it obviously need further explanation. Whether the people of Ferghana believed that their sacred horses ‘issued from a pool’ we do not know. But there are, apart from other instances of this belief elsewhere in Central Asia, many Chinese stories of horses coming up out of the water, the implication being that they are dragon-horses, that is to say, water-dragons who have changed themselves into horses, often retaining their dragon wings. As we shall see, the Emperor had been on the look-out for a water-born horse for some time. What is meant by ‘the Dragon will follow in their wake,’ more literally ‘they will be introducers of the Dragon’ ? The idea underlying these words is best illustrated by the following story, dating perhaps from some forty years earlier than the hymn: Recently a man who lived on the frontier lost his horse which ran away into the land of the barbarians. He was very much upset, and everyone condoled with him, except his father who remarked cheerfully, ‘This may be a blessing in disguise.’ And sure enough the lost horse came back bringing with it a ‘fine horse,’ that is to say, a horse of superior value and breed. The Emperor in this hymn hopes that the Ferghana horses would one day bring along a Dragon, a being even more magical than a Heavenly Horse.
The general implication of the hymn therefore is that the Heavenly Horses will carry the Emperor to the abode of the Immortals on the magical mountain K’un-lun. He imagines himself, I think, driving in a chariot drawn by horses rather than riding on horseback. Riding did not become common in China till the fourth century BC and was in the second century still felt ‘to be a utilitarian, unlegendary form of transport. More than this, the Ferghana horses being, as another hymn in the series says, ‘friends of the Dragon ‘ who is master of the clouds, will eventually carry him to Heaven, to the Abode of God-on-High-(Shang Ti).
The preceding hymn (No. 9 in the series), which is about the fleeting and uncertain nature of man’s life, ends with the words, ‘Why does not Tzu-huang come down to me?’ Tzu-huang was the horse with dragonwings that carried up the mythical Yellow Emperor to Heaven. There are many Chinese stories of legendary monarchs being carried up to Heaven by magic steeds; but it would be difficult to prove that any of them is older than the fourth century BC. It is interesting to compare these Chinese myths with Indian ideas about the relation of monarchs to magic steeds. In Indian legends the magic horse Valaha (‘Cloud’), is one of the ‘seven treasures’ of a great monarch. Valaha came up out of the sea, just as the Ferghana horse and others in which the Chinese were interested came up out of the water, and carried Simhala, the legendary founder of the Kingdom of Ceylon, back to India when he was on the verge of being eaten by female cannibals.
The Emperor Wu had, as I have mentioned, for some time past been on the look-out for a magic horse, ‘born from’ a stream. In 121 BC someone thought it worthwhile to report to the Court that a horse had come up out of a river to the north of the Ordos, the great square-shaped northern bend of the Yellow River. We have no details about this horse ; but in 113 BC another strange horse was not only seen but captured and sent to Court. A Chinese who in consequence of some misdemeanour had been sent to do service at the military colony near Tun-huang, on the northwest frontier, frequently saw a horse of strange appearance drinking in the river along with a number of wild horses. He tamed the strange horse by putting at the water-side a dummy figure of a man whose hands were bridle and halter. When the horse was used to this sight he substituted himself for the dummy, captured the horse and sent it to Court. In order to prove that the horse was ‘divine’ he pretended that it had come up from under the water. His story was evidently believed at the time, for this horse, too (like the Ferghana horses twelve years later), was made the subject of a hymn to be used in the Imperial sacrifices :
The Heavenly Horse comes down A present from the Grand Unity, Bedewed with red sweat That foams in an ochre stream Impatient of all restraint And of abounding energy. He treads the fleeting clouds, Dim in his upward flight; With smooth and easy gait Covers a thousand leagues.
Historians of religion, particularly those of the Vienna school, regard as ‘the beginning of religion’ the belief in a supreme celestial deity who later becomes merely a vague memory and ultimately fades away or becomes merged in other, more concrete cults. The ‘Grand Unity‘ (or ‘Great Unique,” as one might also translate it) of this hymn has therefore particular interest as a religious phenomenon, being a supreme celestial deity whose origin (at any rate as a national cult), whose heydey and disappearance all take place before our eyes within a limited historical period. So far from belonging to a remote, ‘archaic’ past he begins, officially at any rate, in 133 B.C. Up till then the Grand Unity was a philosophic conception denoting the primal unity out of which grew the plurality of the universe as we know it. Sometimes the phrase is a synonym of Tao, the underlying principle of the Universe in Taoist philosophy. But in the second century BC a cult sprang up in which the Grand Unity figures not as a philosophic conception but as a personal divinity, the highest of all gods, worshipped with an elaborate ritual. About 133 BC a member of the Grand Unity sect prevailed on the Emperor Wu to make the whole Imperial cult centre round this deity. The Grand Unity maintained this position during several reigns and the cult was only brought to an end (along with many other religious innovations of Wu’s reign) in 32 BC.
I will leave aside for the moment the other points of interest in the Heavenly Horse hymn of 113 BC and note here that the Emperor’s search for immortality did not begin with his interest in divine horses. He had, as is well known, for long past been pursuing this quest on other lines. He had sent numerous and costly expeditions to the East in the hope of discovering islands inhabited by Immortals who might be persuaded to yield their secrets to him. He had dabbled in alchemy, in the belief that if he ate out of vessels made of alchemic gold he would live forever, or at any rate for a prodigiously long time. The expedition to fetch magic horses from the West was, it seems to me, merely a continuation of his earlier quests in the East. ‘The Emperor Wu,’ says Wen Ying in about AD 200, ‘had set his heart on immortality. He was always hoping that a Heavenly Horse would come and carry him to K’un-lun,’ the western Abode of the Immortals. At last when all his guests in the East had failed and when the Horse did not come of its own accord (as it had come to legendary Emperors in the past, both in India and in China) he determined, having known for long that the king of Ferghana had such horses, to wrest some from him by diplomacy or, if need be, by force.
We have seen, then, how the horses were regarded by the Chinese Emperor. Other people, less obsessed by magico-religious ideas, may have viewed them differently; but there is nothing in the Chinese sources to suggest that they were needed or used for military purposes. Naturally, the normal political excuses were made for the expedition. In a public proclamation the Emperor accused Ferghana of having killed two Chinese envoys on their way to the west and an Indian envoy who was on his way to China. The excuse has a familiar ring. One is reminded, for example, of the German seizure of Tsingtao in 1897, alleged to be a reprisal for the murder of the German missionaries Nies and Henle.
Another question clearly arises. How were the Heavenly Horses regarded by the king of Ferghana and what role did they play at his Court? It is generally assumed that they were battle-chargers. But I wonder whether their function was not perhaps something like that of the ten Nesaean horses ‘most gorgeously caparisoned,’ who in the procession of the Persian king Xerxes, as described in the seventh book of Herodotus, walked immediately in front of the sacred chariot of ‘Zeus’ ? ‘And it occurs to one that to this same category of ceremonial horse may very well belong the ten yellow mares of the Pazaryk grave mound, in the eastern Altai, preserved in a solid ice block. They form part of the burial gear of a semi-nomad chieftain who lived perhaps somewhere about the 5th century B.C. ‘They are,’ says the Swedish archaeologist Karl Jettmar, ‘certainly of the noblest breed. They resemble the best strains of Turkmenistan or Ferghana.’ Two of them have masks. One mask represents a deer or reindeer; the other, a composite mythological creature. They may well have been special horses used by a ruler for ritual purposes, and perhaps (as Jettmar suggests) they took part in the funeral procession, which like the Scythian funeral processions described’ by Herodotus may have travelled an immense way. Their mythological function may well have been to carry the dead Khan to Immortality, just as the horse Tzu-huang carried the legendary Chinese Yellow Emperor and as in historic times the Emperor Wu hoped to be carried by the Ferghana horses. One is reminded, again, of the ‘treasure-horses,’ blue-grey in colouring and with black heads (that is to say, descendants of the magic horse Valaha) and gorgeously caparisoned, who took part in the procession that brought the infant Buddha back from Lumbini to his father’s palace. If the function of the Heavenly Horses at the Ferghana Court was a ritual rather than a practical one it would well explain why the king was so anxious not to part with them and at one point even threatened to kill them all rather than let them fall into the hands of the Chinese.
Though the main subject of this essay is the relation between the Ferghana expeditions and the religious pre-occupations of the Chinesr Emperor, the texts we have studied do also tell us something about the physical characteristics of the Ferghana horses, and it may be worth while to close with a few remarks on this subject. The first of the two hymns mentions that two Heavenly Horses had stripy backs. Lydekker in The Horse and Its Relatives says : ‘It has been noticed that dun-coloured domesticated horses frequently show a tendency to develop … one or two transverse dark stripes across the shoulder, and another along the middle line.’ Such presumably were the two Ferghana horses, and the Chinese regarded them as ‘marked’ by heaven and consequently particularly sacred. The other physical characteristic commonly attributed to Ferghana horses is that they ‘sweated blood.’ This, as we have seen, was also said of the horse sent from near Tun-huang in 113 BC. Professor Dubs, in his valuable translation of the Han History, has suggested that the flow of blood was caused by lesions inflicted on the horses by a parasite with the intimidating name Parafilaria multipapillosa. There is in any case no question of this characteristic being merely legendary. In AD 78 the Emperor Chang gave one of his uncles ‘a Ferghana horse which bled from a small hole above its front upper leg.’ In the letter that accompanied this gift he said, ‘I had often heard the line in Emperor Wu’s song about the Heavenly Horse in which it is said that it is ‘ bedewed with red sweat,’ and I have now seen with my own eyes that this is actually the case.’ Presumably the ‘hole’ looked more like a pore in the skin than a wound, and therefore what came out of it was regarded as sweat rather than blood.
Nowhere, I think, is it said that they were larger than Chinese horses, though this has constantly been assumed by Western writers. The only horses that the Chinese at this period call big (ta) were to be found not in Ferghana but in Parthia. ‘They have the big horse and the big bird (ostrich),’ says the Han History. But there is no record of those huge Parthian steeds (no doubt the Parthikoi of Strabo, which he says were of the same build as the huge Nesaean horses) being brought to China.
To sum up: the accepted idea about the Ferghana expeditions is that the Emperor Wu sent them in order to obtain ‘horses larger and fleeter than the small steppe breed.” It is assumed that in this he was successful and that the ‘western’ type of horse seen in some of the second century A.D. grave-reliefs corresponds to the type of horse brought back from Ferghana in 101 BC. I would re-formulate this view as follows: The Emperor sent the expeditions in order to secure Heavenly Horses which would carry him to Heaven. There is no evidence that Heavenly Horses were used in battle either in Ferghana or China: If they had been they would hardly have remained long, as it were, ‘on the secret list.’ I’m inclined, to think that their function was a ritual one, both in Central Asia and in China. About the breed of the horses that the Emperor secured we know nothing. But it is reasonable to suppose that the existence of the ‘Western’ horse in China, in the second century AD was due to Chinese intercourse with the West from the second century BC onwards and that the Ferghana expedition, as an episode in this intercourse, may well have played its part in what was perhaps a gradual process. There is no justification for saying as Tam does that ‘the origin of the Ferghana horses must have been one of the great Parthian war-horses’ or that the Ferghana horses were ‘of the great Nesaean-Parthian breed.’.
Thus though my main object was to show that this episode cannot be properly understood without taking into account more than has hitherto been done its magico-religious aspects, my conclusions about its secular, concrete aspects are also somewhat different from those of my predecessors (Waley, 1955).
II. The Role of the Horse in Chinese History
Creel (1982) successfully refutes the former’s claim that the horses were procured for only religious reasons:
Waley, “Heavenly Horses of Ferghana,” 102, takes the position that the horses of Fergana were sought by the Han Emperor Wu “in order to secure Heavenly Horses which would carry him to Heaven.” He says that “there is no evidence that Heavenly Horses were used in battle either in Ferghana or in China.” (Ibid., 102.) But in fact, as we have seen, the use of Fergana horses in fighting is mentioned in Hou-Han-shu, 110A.4b. By speaking here of “Heavenly Horses” Waley is evading the real question: were horses obtained from Fergana used in battle in Han times? The answer is that they were. Waley also says: “Nowhere, I think, is it said that they [i.e., “Heavenly Horses”] were larger than Chinese horses, though this has constantly been assumed by Western writers.” (Ibid.) The evidence cited above certainly indicates that the Fergana horses were extremely large and that there is every reason to feel assured that they were much larger than most of the horses in China both in Han times and later. Further evidence against Waley’s view is the nature of the titles of the two men sent by the Emperor to Fergana “to select good horses.” (Shih-chi, 123.37.) These would appear to be ordinary official titles and refer to “managing horses” and “driving horses.” If the purpose had been primarily to select horses having special religious virtues, why did the Emperor not send men with religious qualifications? Certainly there was some religious aspect to this curious affair, and Waley has performed a service by emphasizing it. But in doing so he has given undue attention to a part of the evidence and neglected other parts of it entirely (p. 176 n. 66).
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Update: 03-12-23
Twitter user Lava (@Lavaflowe) has allowed me to post their lovely drawing of Sun Wukong as the Bimanwen. The image is comically labeled “horse girl.” I especially love how he has transformed his magic staff into a pitchfork. Also, check out the hay covering his heavenly robes (fig. 4). That’s such a great detail.
1) This power was given to Monkey by the Jade Emperor, who gives him the Bimawen post. This was pointed out to me by Irwen Wong of the Journey to the West Library blog.
2) The translation is partly based on Gulik, 1967, p. 35. I changed the Wade-Giles to pinyin.
Sources:
Creel, H. G. (1982). What is Taoism?: And other Studies in Chinese Cultural History. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago Press.
Waley, A. (1955, February). The Heavenly Horses of Ferghana. History Today, 5, 95-103.
Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West(Vol. 1) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
The Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592) story cycle has been popular in East Asia for nearly a millennium. Written and pictorial evidence points to it emerging in China by at least the 11th-century. Tales of the Tang Monk and his animal companions were well-regarded in Korea by at least the 14th-century (see here and here). I’m not sure when the story first arrived in Japan, but it received piecemeal translations starting in the 18th-century, and the first complete version was finished by 1835. [1] According to Shi (as cited in Chien, 2017), these translations “had a tremendous impact of spreading the story of Xuanzang far and wide in Japan” (p. 22).
Journey to the West came to influence all sorts of Japanese media (one example). In this article, I would like to focus on a lesser known Edo-period folktale from the Seven Wonders of Honjo (Honjo Nanafushigi, 本所七不思議) [2] called the “Foot Washing Manor” (Ashiarai Yashiki, 足洗邸; あしあらいやしき).
1. The “Foot Washing Manor”
The story tells of a filthy, titanic foot that plagues a samurai night after night. Matthew Meyer kindly gave me permission to reproduce his version of the story, as seen on his website yokai.com:
Long ago lived a hatamoto (a high-ranking samurai) named Aji no Kyūnosuke. One night at his manor in Honjo, a loud, booming voice was heard heard. It echoed like thunder:
“WAAASH MYYY FOOOOOOT!”
Just then there was a splintering crack, and the ceiling tore open. An enormous foot descended into the mansion. The foot was covered in thick, bristly hair, and it was filthy. The terrified servants scrambled to gather buckets, water, and rags. They washed the foot until it was thoroughly clean. Afterwards, the giant foot ascended up through the roof and disappeared.
The following night, and every night thereafter, the same thing occurred. A booming voice would demand its foot be washed. A giant foot would crash through the roof. And the dutiful servants would wash it clean.
A few nights of this was all that Aji no Kyūnosuke could take. He ordered his servants not to wash the foot anymore. That night, the foot crashed through the ceiling and demanded to be washed as usual. When it was ignored, it thrashed around violently, destroying vast swaths of the mansion’s roof in the process.
Kyūnosuke complained to his friends about the nightly visitor and the destruction it was causing. They were very interested. One of them wanted to witness the event so badly that he offered to swap mansions with Kyūnosuke, and Kyūnosuke quickly agreed. However, after his friend moved in, the giant foot never appeared again (Meyer, n.d.).
This story shares many parallels with an event from chapter 97 of Journey to the West.
For context, the four monks are framed for the theft and murder of a rich layman who had originally hosted them for a month in the Bronze Estrade Prefecture (Tongtai fu, 銅臺府) of India. Sun Wukong captures the real perpetrators but is forced to release the bandits for fear that Tripitaka will chant the band-tightening spell for killing them. However, imperial troops later capture the monks with the stolen items, making them look guilty. After allowing Tripitaka to be tortured (fulfilling one of the 81 predestined tribulations), Monkey escapes from the prison at night to affect his master’s release.
First, he imitates the voice of the slain layman at his wake and threatens heavenly retribution if his widow, the person who framed the monks, doesn’t recant her false claims. Second, he imitates the voice of the deceased uncle of the city magistrate who had imprisoned them and again threatens heavenly retribution if the official doesn’t reexamine the case. And third, at dawn he appears as a giant, disembodied foot (fig. 2) before the district-level magistrates and threatens to stomp the city and surrounding area into oblivion as heavenly retribution if they don’t put pressure on their superior to free his master:
Pilgrim flew out of the hall, and he found that it was beginning to grow light in the east. By the time he reached the Numinous Earth District [Di ling xian, 地靈縣], he saw that the district magistrate had already seated himself in the official hall. “If a midge speaks,” thought Pilgrim to himself, “and someone sees it, my identity may be revealed. That’s no good.” He changed, therefore, into the huge magic body [da fa shen, 大法身]: from midair he lowered a giant foot, [3] which completely filled the district hall. “Hear me, you officials,” he cried, “I’m the Wandering Spirit [Langdang youshen, 浪蕩遊神] sent by the Jade Emperor. I charge you that a son of Buddha has been wrongfully beaten in the jail of your prefecture, thus greatly disturbing the peace of the deities in the Three Regions. I am told to impart this message to you, that you should give him an early release. If there is any delay, my other foot will descend. It will first kick to death all the district officials of this prefecture. Then it will stamp to death the entire population of the region. Your cities finally will be trodden into dust and ashes!”
All the officials of the district were so terrified that they knelt down together to kowtow and worship, saying, “Let the noble sage withdraw his presence. We will go into the prefecture at once and report this to the magistrate. The prisoner will be released immediately. We beg you not to move your foot, for it will frighten these humble officials to death.” Only then did Pilgrim retrieve his magic body. Changing once more into a midge, he flew back inside the jail through the crack between the roof tiles and crawled back to sleep in the rack (Wu & Yu, 2012, p. 335-336).
Fig. 2 – A modern manhua depicting Monkey’s giant foot confronting the district-level magistrates (larger version). Comic found here. While the image shows Sun wearing shoes, the original Chinese doesn’t say whether are not his foot is covered.
3. Comparison
Both stories involve a single, giant foot threatening high-ranking members of society within the confines of their living or working quarters. The former is a samurai, while the latter are district-level magistrates. The threat involves death and the destruction of property. Danger looms over the Samurai’s household as the monstrous foot demands cleaning, and when its wants are ignored, it destroys part of the building in a fit of rage. Monkey, on the other hand, threatens to stomp everything (people and buildings) into oblivion if his demands for Tripitaka’s emancipation are not met. Also, the Japanese tale refers to the foot being “covered in thick, bristly hair” (Meyer, n.d.). This may be a reference to a furry monkey’s foot.
Now, someone might question what foot washing and release from prison have to do with each other. The two don’t appear to be related at all, but Meyer (n.d.) explains:
“[W]ashing your feet” is also a Japanese idiom for rehabilitating a criminal. A culprit whose ‘feet have been washed’ can be said to have paid his debt to society.
This is indeed an actual ceremony performed by criminals wishing to cleanse themselves of their negative past and reenter society (Clark, 1994, pp. 122-123). Therefore, both concepts are intimately related. Someone released from prison can be said to be rehabilitated, and this again is symbolized by said foot washing ceremony. Therefore, the monster in the Japanese tale is likely demanding that the Samurai do his part to help release or pardon a prisoner just like the Journey to the West episode.
Update: 04-09-23
The final act of Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons (Xiyou: Jiangmo pian, 西遊·降魔篇, 2013) includes a trio of demon hunters looking to defeat the Monkey King. One is a seemingly crippled old man who hobbles around on a crutch because of an underdeveloped right leg. But when the time comes, he uses qi energy to grow the appendage to giant proportions, calling it his “Heaven-Destroying Foot” (Tiancan jiao, 天殘脚).
This character’s look and skill were copied directly from an HK martial arts film from 1965 commonly known in English as The Furious Buddha’s Palm (Rulai shenzhang nusui wanjian men, 如來神掌怒碎萬劍門; lit: “The Buddha Spirit Palm Shatters the 10,000 Sword Sect”). During the final battle, the main villain “Iron-Faced Asura” (Tiemian xiuluo, 鐵面修羅, played by Shih Kien) uses the same method to produce a giant foot. But what’s interesting for my purposes is that it appears to be covered in coarse hair like a primate (fig. 3).
A single, giant, destructive foot covered in hair sounds familiar doesn’t it? I wonder if this martial skill was influenced by the JTTW episode. This connection was first suggested to me by Jose Loayza (Twitter). A big thank you to him.
Note: A few hours after adding this update, it dawned on me that the “Buddha Spirit Palm” (Rulai shenzhang, 如來神掌) technique is used at the end of the film to combat the giant, monkey-like foot. This of course brings to mind the episode in JTTW when the Buddha defeats Sun Wukong with his palm by transforming it into Five Elements Mountain.)
Fig. 3 – A movie still of the Iron-Faced Asura summoning his hairy “Heaven-Destroying Foot” (larger version). Image found here.
1) The 18th-century translator Nishida Korenori (西田維則, d. 1765; penname: Kuchiki sanjin, 口木山人) began publishing Japanese translations of stories from Journey to the West in 1758, ultimately publishing a total of 26 chapters before his death. Others picked up where he left off, including Ishimaro Sanjin (石麻呂山人) (ch. 27-39 and later 40-47), Ogata Teisai (尾方貞斎) (ch. 48-53), and Gakutei Kyuzan 岳亭丘山 (ch. 54-65). This incomplete version, known as The Popular Journey to the West (Tsuzoku saiyuki, 通俗西遊記, 1758-1831) was published in five instalments over 31 volumes. The first complete version of the novel, The Illustrated Journey to the West (Ehon Saiyuki, 繪本西遊記), was published a few years later in 1835 (Tanaka, 1988, as cited in Chien, 2017, p. 21).
Sun Wukong’s magic staff is famed in popular culture for its ability to grow and shrink but less so for its great weight. The latter quality is best demonstrated in Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592; “JTTW” hereafter) chapter 56 when human bandits attempt and fail to pick up the 8.8 ton weapon:
Sticking the rod into the ground, Pilgrim said to them, “If any of you can pick it up, it’s yours.” The two bandit chiefs at once went forward to try to grab it, but alas, it was as if dragonflies were attempting to shake a stone pillar. They could not even budge it half a whit! This rod, you see, happened to be the “As-You-Will” Gold-Banded Staff, which tipped the scale in Heaven at thirteen thousand, five hundred catties [yiwan sanqian wubai jin, 一萬三千五百斤; 17,559.81 lbs. / 7,965 kg]. [1] How could those bandits have knowledge of this? The Great Sage walked forward and picked up the rod with no effort at all. Assuming the style of the Python Rearing its Body, he pointed at the bandits and said, “Your luck’s running out, for you have met old Monkey!” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 81).
I suggested in one of my earliest articles that the weight of Monkey’s staff had a connection to Chinese numerology:
Thirteen thousand five hundred is divisible by nine, which Chinese numerology considers to represent “infinity.” So it’s possible the number (infinity multiplied) was meant to convey that the staff was heavy beyond comprehension, something that only a divine hero such as Monkey would be able to wield.
While I still agree that the great weight cements his position as a superior hero, I no longer believe that the number is directly connected to numerology.
I now suggest that the weapon’s weight was directly influenced by a scene in chapter 28 of the Water Margin (Shuihu zhuan, 水滸傳, c. 1400). It involves the bandit Wu Song lifting a heavy stone block:
[Wu Song:] “You mean I haven’t got my strength back? All right. How heavy is the stone block [shi dun, 石墩] I saw in front of the Heavenly King Temple yesterday?” [2]
[Shi En, a young admirer] “Probably four to five hundred catties [si wu bai jin, 四五百斤; 520.29 to 650.36 lbs. / 236 to 295 kg].”
“Let’s take a look. I wonder whether I can move it.”
“Please have some food and wine first.”
“There’ll be time enough for that when we come back.”
The two men walked to the Heavenly King Temple. The prisoners on the grounds bowed and hailed them respectfully. Wu Song shook the stone slightly. He laughed.
“This soft life is spoiling me. I’ll never be able to pick it up!”
“You shouldn’t scoff,” said Shi En. “That stone weighs three to five hundred catties [san wu bai jin, 三五百斤; 390.21 to 650.36 lbs. / 177 to 295 kg]!”
Wu Song grinned. “You really think I can’t lift it? Get back, you men, and watch this.”
He slipped off his tunic and tied the sleeves around his waist. Embracing the stone, he raised it easily [fig. 1], then tossed it away with both hands. It dropped with a thud, sinking a chi [尺; 12.3 in / 31.8 cm] into the earth. The watching prisoners were astonished.
Wu Song grasped the stone with his right hand and lifted. With a sudden twist, he flung it upwards. It sailed one zhang [丈; 10.25 ft / 3.18 m] into the air. He caught it in both hands as it came down and lightly put it back in its original place. He turned and looked at Shi En and the prisoners. His face wasn’t flushed, he wasn’t even breathing hard, his heart beat calmly (based on Shi & Luo, 1993/2001, vol. 2, pp. 590-591).
Now compare it to the scene in JTTW chapter three where Monkey first procures his magic staff:
“Take it [the staff] out and let me see it,” said Wukong. Waving his hands, the Dragon King said, “We can’t move it! We can’t even lift it! The high immortal must go there himself to take a look.” “Where is it?” asked Wukong. “Take me there.”
The Dragon King accordingly led him to the center of the ocean treasury, where all at once they saw a thousand shafts of golden light. Pointing to the spot, the Dragon King said, “That’s it—the thing that is glowing.” Wukong girded up his clothes and went forward to touch it: it was an iron rod [tie zhuzi, 鐵柱子] more than two zhang [丈; 20.5 ft / 6.36 m] long and as thick as a barrel. Using all his might, he lifted it with both hands [fig. 2], saying, “It’s a little too long and too thick. It would be more serviceable if it were somewhat shorter and thinner.” Hardly had he finished speaking when the treasure shrunk a few chi [尺; 1 = 12.3 in / 31.8 cm] in length and became a layer thinner. “Smaller still would be even better,” said Wukong, giving it another bounce in his hands. Again the treasure became smaller. Highly pleased, Wukong took it out of the ocean treasury to examine it. He found a golden hoop at each end, with solid black iron in between. Immediately adjacent to one of the hoops was the inscription, “‘As-You-Will’ Gold-Banded Staff. Weight: thirteen thousand five hundred catties [Ruyi jingu bang zhong yiwan sanqian wubai jin, 如意金箍棒，重一萬三千五百斤] [fig. 3].” He thought to himself in secret delight, “This treasure, I suppose, must be most compliant with one’s wishes.” As he walked, he was deliberating in his mind and murmuring to himself, bouncing the rod in his hands, “Shorter and thinner still would be marvelous!” By the time he took it outside, the rod was no more than twelve chi in length and had the thickness of a rice bowl (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 135). [3]
Fig. 2 – Monkey lifts the iron pillar (larger version). Fig. 3 – Sun looks at the inscription, including the weight (larger version). Screenshots from the 1960s classic Havoc in Heaven.
2. Comparison
Both scenes involve a hero (Wu Song vs. Sun Wukong) asking someone (Shi En vs. Ao Guang) to show them a heavy object that cannot be moved (stone block vs. iron pillar). Both heroes then adjust their clothing before easily lifting the object with both hands. Most importantly, the Chinese characters for the weight of each object (三五百斤 vs. 一萬三千五百斤) are similar. The only difference is the addition of 一萬 and 千, respectively (fig. 4). [4]Now, someone might say the numbers are meaningless as “three to five hundred” is a common estimate for lengths, distances, and people used throughout the Water Margin (some examples). But the proposed connection is strengthened when you take into account the many similarities shared by Monkey and Wu. I show in this article that both are reformed supernatural spirits previously trapped under the weight of magic mountains, slayers of tigers, Buddhist monks nicknamed “Pilgrim,” monastic masters of martial arts, wearers of moralistic golden headbands, and wielders of bin steel weapons. Therefore, given the close historical and cultural ties between the two characters, I believe that the JTTW author-compiler embellished the Water Margin episode to portray Sun as a hero like no other, a divine immortal that can lift weights far beyond even Wu Song himself.
Fig. 4 – The weight of Monkey’s staff where the red characters represent additions to the weight of Wu Song’s stone in black.
3. Updates
Update: 03-11-23
My friend and contributor Saie Surendra (his website) was recently sent a video similar to this one suggesting another possible origin for the weight of Monkey’s staff. [5] The speaker, Lan Yanling (兰彦岭), states, “The Golden-Hooped Staff weighs 13,500 catties, and everyday a person breathes 13,500 times” (金箍棒重13,500斤，人一天呼吸13,500次). The specific number of breaths is drawn from ancient medical treatises, some of which were absorbed into the Daoist canon.
For example, the first scroll of The Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Eighty-One Difficult Issues (Huangdi bashiyi nanjing, 黃帝八十一難經) reads:
A person, in the course of one day and one night, breathes altogether 13,500 times (Unschuld, 1986, p. 65).
This second possibility is interesting as Sun achieves immortality through a series of breathing and energy circulation exercises. This means that, if the number did influence the weapon’s weight, one could speculate that the staff is a physical manifestation of the methods by which he gained his powers.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about this new possibility. On one hand, it doesn’t require adding characters (i.e. 一萬 and 千) to come up with the figure 13,500 (refer back to section 2). But on the other, it lacks the literary context laid out in the main article. I’ll have to look into this more.
Notes:
1) I have changed Yu’s (Wu & Yu, 2012) dry rendering “Compliant Golden-Hooped Rod” to a more pleasant one based on W.J.F. Jenner (Wu & Jenner, 1993/2001, vol. 1, p. 56). Also, Yu’s (Wu & Yu, 2012) original translation says “thirteen thousand five hundred pounds” (vol. 1, p. 135). However, the Chinese version uses jin (斤), known in English as “catty.” The catty and pound are two different measures of weight, the former being heavier than the latter. Therefore, the English text has been altered to show this. The catty during the Ming Dynasty when the novel was compiled equaled 590 grams (Elvin, 2004, p. 491 n. 133; Jiang, 2005, p. xxxi), so 13,500 catties would be roughly 17,560 lbs.
2) I’ve updated the English translation because it didn’t mention the specific temple name appearing in the original Chinese version.
3) Both the original Chinese and the translation say that the staff shrank to “no more than two zhang in length” (zhiyou er zhang changduan, 只有二丈長短) (based on Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 135), but it was close to two zhang (20.5 ft / 6.36 m) from the start. Irwen Wong of the Journey to the West Library blog has suggested to me that this is a likely error for “one zhang two (chi)” (丈二; 12.3 ft / 3.74 m). I’ve, therefore, modified the translation.
4) These mean “10,000” (yiwan, 一萬) and “1,000” (qian, 千), respectively. When combined with the character for three, the latter becomes “3,000” (sanqian, 三千).
5) The video was sent to him by an acquaintance named Afeng.
Sources:
Elvin, M. (2004). The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China. New Haven (Conn.): Yale university press.
Jiang, Y. (2005). The Great Ming Code / Da Ming Lu. Vancouver, Wa: University of Washington Press.
Shi, N., & Luo, G. (2021a). Shuihu zhuan (shang, zhong, xia) [Tale of the Water Margin (Vols. 1-3)]. Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe. (Original work published 1975)
Shi, N., Luo, G., & Shapiro, S. (2001b). Outlaws of the Marsh (Vols. 1-4) (S. Shapiro, Trans.). Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press. (Original work published 1993)
Unschuld, P. (1986). Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues; With Commentaries by Chinese and Japanese Authors from the Third through the Twentieth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Wu, C., & Jenner, W. J. F. (2000). Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4). Beijing, China: Foreign Languages Press. (Original work published 1993)
Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vols. 1-4) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
I’ve previously written an article on the worship of Sun Wukong in 19th-century America. My source was Frederic J. Masters’ (1892) “Pagan Temples in San Francisco”, which appears in a collected edition of The Californian. He discusses the legends of Guan Gong (“Kwan Kung”), Hau Wong (a.k.a. “How Wong”), Mazu (“Queen of Heaven”, a.k.a. “Tin Hau”), Guanyin (“Kwan Yum”), our monkey god Qitian Dasheng (“Tsai Tin Tai Shing”), and Kum Fah, as well as mentions various other deities, such as Tudi Gong (“Earth God”), Kum Fah’s attendants, Chenghuangshen (“City God”), Heidi (“god of the North Pole”), Zhurong (“God of Fire”), and the “Holy Abbot” (Ksitigarbha?). Much of the information covered in the article isn’t new for anyone familiar with Chinese religion. But it’s easy to forget that Masters is talking about the religious practices and beliefs of immigrant Chinese workers living in 19th-century San Francisco, and this is where the article’s true value lies. Many of the temples (“Joss Houses”) are said to be the property of immigrant businesses.
Masters was a Methodist pastor who wrote extensively about Chinatown. While he comments at length about the beauty of temples and the respectability of keeping the stories of noble heroes alive for centuries, he shows a marked Western Christian condescension for many Chinese beliefs. For example, he calls the worship of the monkey god “the acme of absurdity and sinfulness” (Masters, 1892, p. 737). In the beginning of the article, he makes the mistake of equating the ancient god Shangdi with the Judeo-Christian god, believing that Chinese worship of the Almighty was perverted over the millennia by outside influences. He closes the piece by saying the Chinese will return to this ancient worship with proper guidance: “The nation [China] will one day return to the worship of the Highest and the faith in the True. In the dawn of a clearer light shall vanish all that is extravagant, foolish and false” (Masters, 1892, p. 741).
Masters. F. J. (1892). Pagan Temples in San Francisco. In C.F. Holder (Ed.). The Californian Illustrated Magazine: June to November, 1892, vol. 2 (pp. 727-741). San Francisco, Calif.: Californian Pub. Co.
