Tag Qiu Chuji

Archive #30 – The “Great Sage Equaling Heaven” Story from Liaozhai zhiyi (1740)

Jim R. McClanahan Leave a comment

The world famous Liaozhai zhiyi (聊齋志異, 1740; a.k.a. “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio”) is a collection of over 400 narratives serving as a snapshot of late-Ming and early-Qing-era popular stories and culture. This is why story no. 4 of scroll 11, “The Great Sage Equaling Heaven” (Qitian dasheng, 齊天大聖), is important to the study of the Monkey King’s religion as it shows his cult was active in 17th and 18th-century Fujian. It also preserves the condescension that the scholarly class held for certain gods. For example, as Meir Shahar (1996) points out, the author Pu Songling was likely speaking through the main character Xu Sheng (許盛), a young merchant from Shandong, when he states: “Sun Wukong is nothing but a parable invented by [the novelist] Old Qiu [老丘]” (pp. 194). [1] Here, Xu chastises the people of Fujian for worshiping what he considers to be a fictional god. In addition, the story associates the Great Sage with a heavenly sword as opposed to his famous magic staff. I believe this is related to a 13th-century stone relief carving from Quanzhou.

Below, I have archived the only complete English translation of the tale that I’m aware of. It comes from volume six of Sidney L. Sondergard’s (Pu & Sondergard, 2014) Strange Tales from Liaozhai (pp. 2078-2085). I don’t currently have access to the physical book, so I have isolated the tale from an ebook and converted it into a PDF.

Archive link:

Click to access Strange-Tales-from-Liaozhai-vol.-6_removed.pdf

Disclaimer:

This has been posted for educational purposes. No malicious copyright infringement is intended. If you liked the digital version, please support the official release.

Note:

1) This refers to Qiu Chuji (丘處機, 1148-1227), the founder of the Dragon Gate sect of Daoism during the Song Dynasty. Qiu is associated with a travel journal also named Journey to the West, which Pu Songling confused with the novel of the same name (Pu & Sondergard, 2014, p. 2080 n. 1).

Sources:

Shahar, M. (1996). Vernacular Fiction and the Transmission of Gods’ Cults in Later Imperial China. In Shahar, M., & Weller, R. P. (1996). Unruly Gods: Divinity and Society in China (pp. 184-211). Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press.

Pu, S., & Sondergard, S. L. (2014). Strange Tales from Liaozhai: Vol. 6. Fremont, Calif: Jain Pub.

Archive #6 – A Mission to Heaven (1913) – The First English Translation

Jim R. McClanahan 1 Comment

Here I present A Mission to Heaven (1913), the first English version of Journey to the West translated by the Welsh Baptist missionary Timothy Richard (1845-1919). Modern translator Anthony C. Yu describes it and a slightly later translation as “no more than brief paraphrases and adaptations” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. xiii). This is because Yu’s translation stretches over 2,000 pages, while Richard’s barely breaks 370 pages. Also, there are many mistranslations that will become apparent to those who have already read Yu’s version. For example, in chapter one when light from Sun Wukong’s eyes reach the celestial realm, A Mission to Heaven reads:

They saw the light burning brightly and ordered a telescope to be brought. (The telescope was invented by Galileo only in 1609 A.D., therefore the Chinese must have had some kind of telescope before we in Europe had it. — Tr.) It was taken to the South gate of heaven to be looked through from thence (Chiu & Richard, 1913, p. 3).

However, Yu’s more accurate version reads:

Upon seeing the glimmer of the golden beams, he [the Jade Emperor] ordered Thousand-Mile Eye and Fair-Wind Ear to open the South Heaven Gate and to look out (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 1, p. 102).

As can be seen, Richard completely glossed over the two named deities, choosing instead to refer to both as a telescope.

1913 Sun Wukong print - small

The full title of the translation (larger version).

It’s interesting to note the author of A Mission to Heaven/Journey to the West is listed as one Qiu Changchun, otherwise known as Qiu Chuji (1148-1227), founder of the Dragon Gate sect of Daoism. This may be confusing to some since the novel has long been touted as the work of Wu Cheng’en (1500-1582). However, the novel was anonymously published in 1592. Qiu’s disciple is known to have written a travel journal titled Journey to the West (西遊記), which detailed his master’s journey to meet Genghis Khan. Therefore, early commentators confused this historical travel journal with the fictional narrative, thereby claiming Qiu as the author as early as the 17th-century. Wu Cheng’en wasn’t associated with the novel until the 1920s, and the association is again based on a similarly named work published by Wu. Historians remain divided on the true author.

PDF link

Click to access a-mission-to-heaven-1913-translation-of-xiyouji.pdf

Thanks

The original file can be downloaded for free from archive.org.

Sources

Chiu, C., & Richard, T. (1913). A Mission to Heaven. Shanghai: The Christian Literature Society’s Depot.

Wu, C., & Yu, A. C. (2012). The Journey to the West (Vol. 1) (Rev. ed.). Chicago, Illinois : University of Chicago Press.