Shenshu and Yulü

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"Yulü" redirects here. For the 4th-century Dai prince, see Tuoba Yulü.
New Year pictures from the late Qing dynasty depicting Shenshu and Yulü

Shenshu or Shentu (Chinese: 神荼) and Yulü or Yulei (simplified Chinese: 郁垒; traditional Chinese: 鬱壘) are a pair of deities in Chinese mythology who punished evil spirits by binding them in reed ropes and feeding them to tigers. Their images together with reed rope seasonally adorned the doors or gates to ward off evil, and are considered the earliest examples of Menshen (門神, 'gate deities' or 'door gods') venerated under such practice. Later traditions identified other gods or deified people as gate deities.

The description dates to writings from the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, during the Eastern Han dynasty, and the attribution to the Classic of Mountains and Seas dating much earlier appears to be spurious.

Early sources[edit]

The earliest record of Shenshu and Yulü occurs in a passage quoted from Shanhaijing (山海經; Classic of Mountains and Seas) in Wang Chong (d., c. 97 AD)'s Lunheng (論衡, "Discourses in the Balance"), although the passage is not found in surviving recensions of the Shanhajing,[1] and the attribution to the earlier work is disputed.[3]

The passage records the myth that two gods Shenshu[4] and Yulü[a] stand upon a giant peach tree that "twists and coils as far as 3000 li".[b] At the tree's north-east was the ghost gate (guimen [zh]; 鬼門; also 'gate of the spirits of the dead [demons]'). At the ghost gate, the two gods inspected the transit of countless dead spirits, and the evil-deeded ones they bound with reed rope and fed to tigers. This gave rise to the custom, allegedly set forth by the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), that at the change of seasons, giant peachwood dolls shall be erected, the two gate gods and the tiger be painted on doors, and a reed rope be left to hang, in order to ward against evil.[9][10][5]

The account is repeated with slightly differing wording elsewhere[12] and instead of invoking the legendary Hunagdi, it is stated that the "district office" (i.e., the Han dynasty administration) practices the use of peachwood figures and gate paintings for apotropaic use.[4]

Cai Yong (蔡邕 d. 192)'s Duduan, (獨斷; 'Soitary decisions[?]' on ceremonial matters) is another source [13] which contains a mostly identical passage,[14][15] and another corroborative source of this period, Ying Shao's Fengsu Tongyi (c. 195)[1][2] also provides a similar description.[c][16][17][18][d] These sources add that the decorations are put up on New Year's Eve,[19] or to quote more literally "the night before the La rites"[20][17] (La 臘; held at the end of the year;[21] precursor of Laba Festival). The peach figures, also called taogeng (桃梗)[17] are wood carvings.[e][22][20]

This legend has been commented on as the traceable origin myth for the cult of the posting of the Menshen gate deities,[24] and in later times, different deities have superseded them as gate gods to a large measure,[18] but regionally, Shenshu and Yulü still continue to be employed as the New Year's guardian gate gods.[1][6]

Later history[edit]

The carven peachwood figures (taogeng, etc.) were later simplified using peachwood boards, known as peach[wood] charms (taofu; Chinese: 桃符), and portraits of Shenshu and Yulü were drawn on the boards, or their names written on them.[25]

Later in the 8th century, it has been held the Taizong of the Tang dynasty (second emperor and co-founder of dynasty) appointed his generals Qin Qiong and Yuchi Gong to serve as personal bodyguards to protect him from evil spirits, which later led to the popular custom of using the generals as the gate deities.[1][26] However, by the 9th century, they were replaced by Zhong Kui (鐘馗), the famed ghost catcher (demon-queller).[26]

couplets (lian; Chinese: 聯) began to be written on the taofu boards around the 10th century.[27]

The taofu, according to a 13th-century description, was a thin planks 4–5 cun (≈inches) wide and 2–3 chi (≈feet) long, inscribed with the name of Yulü on the left and Shenshu on the right, garnished with pictures of deities and mythical beasts, the lion-like suanni [zh] (狻猊) and the ox-like baize (白澤). Spring (New Year) greetings and propitiatory words were also added to it. The boards were replaced every new year.[29]

The peach boards were eventually replaced by paper, and became the precursor of the modern day chunlian (春聯; 春联, "spring couplets").[25][30]

The Qing dynasty period scholar Yu Zhengxie (Guisi cungao 癸巳存稿, Book 13) conjectured that originally there were not two door gods, but perhaps one, though this was evidently based on a misinterpretation of the quote from a classic work.[f][31] But the question of 1 god or 2 as a moot argument for Yu, whose main thesis was that the gate gods Shenshu and Yulü originated from the concept of the "peachwood mallet/hammer" (taozhui or taochui; 挑椎).[32]

Explanatory notes[edit]

  1. ^ Wade–Giles:Shen-t'u and Yü-lü.[5]
  2. ^ "twists and coils" (verb qupan, 屈蟠). Hence the peach is identifiable with the famed "coiling peach tree" (pantao; 蟠桃),[6][7] i.e. the tree of the peaches of immortality.
  3. ^ The Fengsu Tongyi claims to quote from the Huangdi shu "Book of the Yellow Emperor", aka Huangdi Sijing.
  4. ^ "Shen Tu" "Yu Lei" are the readings of the names of gods by Ptak.[18]
  5. ^ Zhan Guo Ce (戰國策; 'Strategies of the Warring States'), quoted in the Fengsu Tongyi entry.[17] The quote represents a fictitious dialogue between a clay figure (Chinese: 土偶) and a peachwood figure (taogeng), used as parable by Su Qin discourage Lord Mengchang from invading Qin. The taogeng is peach wood carved into human form (Japanese: "桃の木を刻削して人の形"), as this source states.[22][23]
  6. ^ Sima Biao's Continuation of the Book of Han [ja] or Xu han shu, "History of Etiquettes" 礼仪志.

References[edit]

Citations
  1. ^ a b c d Yang, Lihui; An, Deming; Turner, Jessica Anderson (2005). "Shentu". Handbook of Chinese Mythology. Oxford University Press. pp. 200–203. ISBN 978-1-57-607806-8.
  2. ^ a b c Hojo, Katsutaka (May 2013), "Yasei no ronri/chibyō no ronri: okori chiryō no ichi jufu kara" 野生の論理／治病の論理―〈瘧〉治療の一呪符から―, Nihon bungaku (in Japanese), 62 (5: Special issue, Nature and fūdo[climate] as environment), 大阪府立大学人文学会: 46–47
  3. ^ "[The passage is] not given in the current [extant] Shanhajing, and according to Minoru Matsuda who analyzed the expressions and contents in details, it considering it as to be a lost text [from it] would be difficult. 現行『山海経』には記載がなく、表現や内容を詳細に検討した松田稔氏によると、その逸文とも考えにくい".[2]
  4. ^ a b Yan, Changgui (2017), "5 Daybooks and the Spirit World", in Harper, Donald; Kalinowski, Marc (eds.), Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China: The Daybook Manuscripts of the Warring States, Qin, and Han, Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 4 China, volume 33, BRILL, p. 230, ISBN 9789004349315
  5. ^ a b Antoni, Klaus (1982), "Death and Transformation: The Presentation of Death in East and Southeast Asia" (PDF), Asian Folklore Studies, 41 (2), Nanzan University: 148, doi:10.2307/1178120, JSTOR 1178120 Translation curtailed at "tiger", in Wade-Giles phonetics.
  6. ^ a b Shimada, Hidemasa (March 2003), "Chūgoku bunka no naka ni okeru tōri to Atomi Kakei" 中国文化の中に於ける桃李と、跡見花蹊 [Symbolic Meaning of 'Peach-and-Plum' 　in Chinese Culture and the Attitude as Educationalist of Kakei Atomi (1840-1926)], Journal of Atomi University Faculty of Literature (in Japanese) (36): 27
  7. ^ For a literal translation of pantao as "coiling peach tree" (and allusion the famous theft of the peach by Dongfang Shuo from the garden of Xiwangmu, Queen Mother of the West) see Lockhart, J. H. Stewart (1907), The Currency of the Farther East from the Earliest Times Up to the Present Day, vol. 1, Hong Kong: Noronha & Company, p. 185
  8. ^ Wang Chong 王充 (nd) [c. 85], "Dinngui, chapter 65" 訂鬼篇第六十五, Lunheng 論衡 [Discourses in the Balance] (in Chinese) – via Wikisource, 《山海經》又曰：滄海之中，有度朔之山。上有大桃木，其屈蟠三千里，其枝間東北曰鬼門，萬鬼所出入也。上有二神人，一曰神荼，一曰郁壘，主閱領萬鬼。惡害之鬼，執以葦索而以食虎。於是黃帝乃作禮以時驅之，立大桃人，門戶畫神荼、郁壘與虎，懸葦索以御凶魅。 "郁壘" recté "欝壘"
  9. ^ Lunheng, "Dinggui [Defining ghosts] 訂鬼篇".[8]
  10. ^ Ma, Boying (2020), A History Of Medicine In Chinese Culture (In 2 Volumes), World Scientific, p. 97, ISBN 9789813238008
  11. ^ Wang Chong 王充 (nd) [c. 85], "Luanlong, chapter 47" 亂龍篇第四十七, Lunheng 論衡 [Discourses in the Balance] (in Chinese) – via Wikisource, 上古之人，有神荼、郁壘者，昆弟二人，性能執鬼，居東海度朔山上，立桃樹下，簡閱百鬼。鬼無道理，妄為人禍，荼與郁壘縛以盧索，執以食虎。故今縣官斬桃為人，立之戶側；畫虎之形，著之門闌。夫桃人非荼、郁壘也，畫虎非食鬼之虎也，刻畫效象，冀以御凶。今土龍亦非致雨之龍，獨信桃人畫虎，不知土龍。九也。
  12. ^ Lunheng, "Luanlong [Discussing on dragons] 亂龍篇".[11]
  13. ^ Hojo, citing Cai Yong's Duduan (獨斷/独断 上巻 疫神)[2]
  14. ^ Duduan (獨斷): "海中有度朔山.." Mizuno (2008), p. 115, n28; compare with the Lunheng/Shanhaijing text on p. 114–115, n27.
  15. ^ Saso (1965), p. 41 (English paraphrase), p. 51 (text).
  16. ^ Mizuno (2008), p. 105, citing Fengsu Tongyi, "Sidian 祀典 [Chapter] 8".
  17. ^ a b c d Ying Shao 應劭 (c. 195), "8", Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義 [Comprehensive Meaning of Customs] (in Chinese) – via Wikisource
  18. ^ a b c Ptak, Roderich (2017), "Qianliyan und Shunfeng'er in Xiaoshuo und anderen Texten der Yuan- und Ming-zeit", in Hoster, Barbara; Kuhlmann, Dirk; Wesolowski, Zbigniew (eds.), Rooted in Hope: China – Religion – Christianity Vol 2: Festschrift in Honor of Roman Malek S.V.D. on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, Monumenta Serica Monograph Series 68 (in German), Taylor & Francis, p. 587, ISBN 9781351672603
  19. ^ Akita (1944), p. 293.
  20. ^ a b Chapman, Ian, ed. (2014), "28 Festival and Ritual Calendar: Selections from Record of the Year and Seasons of Jing-Chu", Early Medieval China: A Sourcebook, Wendy Swartz; Robert Ford Campany; Yang Lu: Jessey Choo (gen. edd.), Columbia University Press, p. 475, ISBN 9780231531009
  21. ^ Chapman (2014), p. 469.
  22. ^ a b Nakamura, Takashi [in Japanese] (February 1976), "Shunren to monshin: Chūgoku no nenjū gyōji ni kansuru oboegaki" 春聯と門神─中國の年中行事に關する憶え書き, The journal of cultural sciences: Ritsumeikan bungaku (367·368): 3, JSTOR 1178120
  23. ^ Crump, J. I. Jr. (1964), Intrigues: Studies of the Chan-kuo Tsʻe, University of Michigan Press, p. 13, ISBN 9780608306742, But you are only a knot of peachwood from the eastern kingdoms which someone has cut and shaved in the image of man.
  24. ^ Thornton, Patricia M. (July 2002), "Insinuation, Insult, and Invective: The Threshold of Power and Protest in Modern China", Comparative Studies in Society and History, 44 (3): 601, doi:10.1017/S0010417502000270, JSTOR 3879381, S2CID 145256755, The posting of so-called gate-gods (menshen) is traced to a legend recorded in the Han Duduan..
  25. ^ a b Beijing Foreign Languages Press (2012), Chinese Auspicious Culture, Shirley Tan (tr.), Asiapac Books, pp. 23–24, ISBN 9789812296429
  26. ^ a b Liao, Kaiming (1994), Chinese Modern Folk Paintings, vol. 1, Science Press, p. 3, ISBN 9787030042101
  27. ^ Shimada (2003), p. 35, n28.
  28. ^ Chen Yuanjing [in Chinese] (1879) [c.1250], "xietaopan, Book Five" 寫桃版. 巻第五, Suishiguangji 歲時廣記 (in Chinese), 歸安陸氏
  29. ^ Chen Yuanjing (13c.), Suishiguangji (歲時廣記, "Extensive records of the [Four] Seasons"), Book Five, article on "xietaopan 寫桃版 ".[28] Cited by Shimada (2003), p. 105
  30. ^ Akita (1944), p. 293; Nakamura (1976), p. 14–15; Shimada (2003), p. 35, n28
  31. ^ Hu, Xinsheng (1998), Zhongguo gu dai wu shu 中国古代巫术, 山东人民出版社, p. 3, ISBN 9787209023252, 《续汉书·礼仪志》..清人俞正燮因为该书只提郁垒未提神茶,便认为汉代门神只有一位,这是误解。
  32. ^ Mori, Mikisaburo [in Japanese] (1944), "桃椎"+神荼 Shina kodai shinwa 0 支那古代神話, Taigado, p. 281
Bibliography
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