The ''Soushen Ji'', variously translated as ''In Search of the Sacred'', ''In Search of the Supernatural'', and ''Anecdotes about Spirits and Immortals'', is a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
compilation of legends, short stories, and hearsay concerning
Chinese gods
Chinese traditional religion is polytheistic; many deities are worshipped in a pantheistic view where divinity is inherent in the world. The gods are energies or principles revealing, imitating and propagating the way of Heaven ('' Tian'' ), wh ...
,
Chinese ghosts, and other supernatural phenomena. Although the authorship of the book is not made explicit in the text, it is believed to have been written and compiled by
Gan Bao
Gan Bao (or Kan Pao) (, pronounced ân.pàu (fl. 315, died March or April 336), courtesy name Lingsheng (令升), was a Chinese historian and writer at the court of Emperor Yuan of Jin. Life
He was a native of Xincai County, in southern Henan
...
, a historian at the court of
Emperor Yuan of
Jin (sometimes wrongly referred to as Yü Pao) around AD350. It was reissued in numerous editions, including in 1593. The book usually consists of 464 stories.
Stories
Notable stories include:
* Gan Jiang Mo Xie〈干將莫邪〉
* Wu Wang Xiao Nü〈吳王小女〉
* Li Ji Zhan She〈李寄斬蛇〉a legend about serpent-slaying: ''
Li Ji Slays the Giant Serpent ''Li Ji slays the Giant Serpent'' (李寄斩蛇) is a Chinese tale. It was first published in the 4th century compilation named ''Soushen Ji'', a collection of legends, short stories, and hearsay concerning Chinese gods, Chinese ghosts, and other s ...
'' (''Li Chi Slays the Serpent''), similar to the legend of
Chen Jinggu
Chen Jinggu () is a Chinese Protective Goddess of women, children, and pregnancy, and was a Taoist priestess. She is also known as Lady Linshui (臨水夫人 Linshui furen).
Chen Jinggu is a deity worshipped in Fujian, Taiwan, South China, and ...
.
* Han Bing Fufu〈韓憑夫婦〉
The collection also contains a variant of the story of a
Swan Maiden (or Heavenly/Celestial Bride) who marries a mortal man.
[Hsieh, Daniel. ''Love and Women in Early Chinese Fiction''. The Chinese University Press. 2008. pp. 123-136. ]
Legacy
Pu Songling
Pu Songling (, 5 June 1640 – 25 February 1715) was a Chinese writer during the Qing dynasty, best known as the author of ''Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' (''Liaozhai zhiyi'').
Biography
Pu was born into a poor merchant family from ...
cites Gan Bao's work as a far greater work than his own, the now famous ''
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio
''Liaozhai zhiyi'', sometimes shortened to ''Liaozhai'', known in English as ''Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio'' or ''Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio'', is a collection of Classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling, c ...
''.
References
* Gan Bao. ''In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record'', translated into English by Kenneth J. DeWoskin and James Irving Crump. Stanford University Press, 1996.
Further reading
*
External links
搜神記 (Sou Shen Ji)at
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...
(in Chinese)
*
Chinese literature
4th-century documents
4th-century books
Jin dynasty (266–420)
Chinese mythology
Chinese folklore
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