Free Chinese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn Page B

there at the time came out, they say, perfectly beautiful and to the satisfaction of the Emperor. . . . From that time, the unfortunate workman was regarded as a hero; and his image was made the idol which presides over the manufacture of porcelain.
    It appears that D’Entrecolles mistook the statue of Putai, God of Comfort, for that of the real porcelain deity, as Jacquemart and others observe. This error does not, however, destroy the beauty of the myth; and there is no good reason to doubt that D’Entrecolles related it as it had been told him by some of his Chinese friends at Jingdezhen. The researches of Stanislas Julien and others have only tended to confirm the trustworthiness of the Catholic missionary’s statements in other respects; and both Julien and Salvétat, in their admirable French rendering of the Jingdezhen taolu , or History of the Porcelains of King-te-chin (a work which has been of the greatest service to me in the preparation of my little story), quote from his letters at considerable length, and award him the highest praise as a conscientious investigator. So far as I have been able to learn, D’Entrecolles remains the sole authority for the myth; but his affirmations in regard to other matters have withstood the severe tests of time astonishingly well; and since the Taiping rebellion destroyed Jingdezhen and paralyzed its noble industry, the value of the French missionary’s documents and testimony has become widely recognized. In lieu of any other name for the hero of the legend, I have been obliged to retain that of Pu, or Bu—only using it without the affix “tai”—so as to distinguish it from the deity of comfort and repose.
     
     
     

 

     
     
     Glossary
     
     
    Abhidharma —The metaphysics of Buddhism. Buddhist literature is classed into three great divisions, or “baskets”; the highest of these is the Abhidharma.… According to a passage in Spence Hardy’s “Manual of Buddhism,” the full comprehension of the Abhidharma is possible only for a Buddha to acquire.
     
    Chu-sha-kih —The mandarin-orange.
     
    Çramana —An ascetic; one who has subdued his senses. For an interesting history of this term, see Burnouf— Introduction à l’histoire du Buddhisme Indien .
     
    Da Zhongsi —Literally, “Temple of the Bell.” The building at Beijing so named covers probably the largest suspended bell in the world, cast in the reign of Yongluo, about 1406 ce, and weighing upwards of 120,000 pounds.
     
    Damâri —A peculiar chant, of somewhat licentious character, most commonly sung during the period of the Indian carnival. For an account, at once brief and entertaining, of popular Hindu songs and hymns, see Garcin de Tassy— Chants populaires de l’Inde .
     
    Dao —The infinite being, or Universal Life, whence all forms proceed: Literally, “the Way,” in the sense of the First Cause. Laozi uses the term in other ways; but that primal and most important philosophical sense which he gave to it is well explained in the celebrated Chapter XXV. of the Daodejing . …The difference between the great Chinese thinker’s conception of the First Cause—the Unknowable—and the theories of other famous metaphysicians, Eastern and Western, is set forth with some definiteness in Stanislas Julien’s introduction to the Daodejing, pp. x–xv. ( Le Livre de la Voie et de la Vertu. Paris , 1842.)
     
    Dogs of Fo —The Dog of Fo is one of those fabulous monsters in the sculptural representation of which Chinese art has found its most grotesque expression. It is really an exaggerated lion; and the symbolic relation of the lion to Buddhism is well known. Statues of these mythical animals—sometimes of a grandiose and colossal execution—are placed in pairs before the entrances of temples, palaces, and tombs, as tokens of honor, and as emblems of divine protection.
     
    Fenghuang —This allegorical bird, corresponding to the Arabian phoenix in some respects, is described as being