53 Han xian baozhuan (Taichung: Shengxian zazhishe, no date). Alternative title on cover: Han Xiangzi baozhuan 韓湘子寶傳.
54 Ba Xianweng lingying zhenjing 八仙翁靈應真經 (Taichung: Xuyuan zazhishe 虛原雜誌社, 2004). On this scripture, see Philip Clart, “The Eight Immortals between Daoism and Popular Religion: Evidence from a New Spirit-written Scripture,“ paper presented at the symposium
“Foundations of Daoist Ritual“, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, 9–11 December 2007.
There are some indications that at least in the Chaozhou area of Guangdong and in areas settled by Teochiu in Taiwan there was an active tradition of Han Xiangzi worship with some corresponding knowledge of his story. However, even there Han Xiangzi apparently was never worshipped as a main deity, but only in conjunction with his (great-)uncle Han Yu.55 Just as for the Baxian as a group, in the case of Han Xiangzi too we are faced with a situation where we have a well-developed literary tradition with a strong impact on popular literature in the Qing dynasty, but little corresponding cult activity. If we think back to the questions first raised in the introduction, we have to ask ourselves: why doesn’t the supposed link between popular literature and religious cult work in this case?
55 At the time of the original writing of this essay, the only temples with Han Xiangzi worship of which I was aware had his (great-)uncle Han Yu as their main deity and were linked geographically or culturally with the Chaozhou region of Guangdong province. During the final revisions to the paper, however, I came across a reference to one temple devoted to Han Xiangzi as its main deity: the Xiangzi miao 湘子廟 in Xi’an. According to local legend, this temple is located at the old residence of Han Xiangzi and “flourished during the Yuan and Ming dynasties”. Recently it was renovated with the financial help of the municipal authorities and the Baxian Gong; from 27 to 28 October 2006 a consecration rite was held with the participation of many Daoist dignitaries. See Sun Changde 孫常德, “Xi’an Xiangzi Miao juxing xiufu jungong ji shenxiang kaiguang qingdian huodong 西安湘子廟舉行修復竣工暨 神像開光慶典活動,” Zhongguo Daojiao 中國道教 6/2006: 55; Dang Fangli 黨芳莉, Baxian xinyang yu wenxue yanjiu: wenhua chuanbo de shijiao 八仙信仰與文學研究—文化傳播的 視角 (Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin chubanshe, 2006), 55. This temple and its history will become the subject of a future publication; for the purposes of the present paper, this discovery does not change the overall picture of a very sparsely developed religious cult juxtaposed with a (at least until the Qing dynasty) very rich narrative tradition.
I would like to suggest two factors that might explain the case of Han Xiangzi--and may be applicable in other cases as well:
(1) In the relationship of literature and religious cults, the latter may occupy the primary position, i.e., perhaps there has to be a religious cult in place for literature to spread it.
Literature, popular or otherwise, cannot create a cult. In the case of Han Xiangzi, it seems that his story came into being independent of cult activity. Its earliest sources are poems and anecdotal literature--both forms of elite literature. Thus, Han Xiangzi was a product of elite imagination and literary speculation. The theme was picked up by Daoist members of the elite such as Du Guangting, and eventually “trickled down” into progressively more popular forms of literature. The success of this “trickle down”
process may have been due to the cultural relevance of its themes (deliverance, anti-Confucian sentiment, etc.), but lacking a cultic basis and a geographical centre it did not spawn a religious movement. Literature as carrier of myth for cults may only be effective where these cults have a solid basis in at least one area of China and are spread by means other than just narrative literature (such as by merchants through their network of guild halls56 or by the state57). Thus, we must not overestimate the
56 See Paul Katz’s research on Wen Yuanshuai 溫元帥 in Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995), chapter 4.
57 See James Watson’s study of the spread of the cult of Tianhou 天后 in South China:
“Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of T’ien Hou (‘Empress of Heaven’) Along the South China Coast, 960-1960,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China: Diversity and Integration, ed. David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 292-324.
effectiveness of literature in and by itself. It may well need an autonomous religious tradition to build on in order to have a formative effect.
(2) There may also be an intrinsic reason within the Han Xiangzi myth why it did not spawn a general cult. If hope for assistance and deliverance is a reason for worshipping immortals such as Lü Dongbin, Han Xiangzi may not be a likely provider of that. As throughout his story Han Xiangzi almost exclusively saves his relatives, deliverance (dutuo) here is very much a family affair. However, one important factor in the genesis of many popular deities is their separation from their family context. It is this separation that makes them eligible to be worshipped by all and sundry, as they owe no primary loyalty to a particular family.58 By focussing on the cultural ideal of the immortal
58 Philip Chesley Baity, Religion in a Chinese Town (Taipei: The Orient Cultural Service, 1975), ch. VI; C. Stevan Harrell, “When a Ghost Becomes a God,” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, ed. Arthur P. Wolf (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 193-206. Baity (pp.
240-244) makes an intriguing argument that immortals are fundamentally different from gods in that they have never died and don’t need sacrifices from humans to sustain themselves.
Hence there is no reciprocity between them and humans, and therefore also no or little worship.
If this were the case, we would get a quite different take in the question why the Han Xiangzi literature has not spawned a corresponding cult. However, Baity’s argument is flawed. For example, how are we then to explain the widespread cult of Lü Dongbin? I would argue that there does exist a relationship of reciprocity between an immortal and his worshippers, one that follows the master-disciple model. In many stories, the immortal offers deliverance only to the person who has proved him or herself worthy. The relationship entered into between a worshipper and an immortal is a contractual one just like that between a worshipper and a deity, but the nature of the contract is different. It is a contract for instruction which establishes a mutually binding relationship, as between a teacher and his student. Once this relationship exists, the worshipper can also expect this-worldly benefits from his immortal, just like a human teacher is socially and morally responsible for more than just the instruction of his
delivering all his relatives to Heaven, the Han Xiangzi narrative may tie him too closely to family interests to qualify him for popular godhood. This barrier is not
insurmountable in individual cases as the example of Mingbi and Kang Tianxin show, but may have limited the mass appeal of Han Xiangzi as an object of religious devotion.59
These two observations merge into a single conclusion: In the relationship between a deity’s cult and its narrative development in literature, primacy may have to be given to the cult. Literature can serve to standardize a deity’s story and help spread it,
students.
During the presentation of this paper at the conference at Chung Hsing University, Prof. Wang Ch’iu-kuei made an observation similar to that of Philip Baity by pointing out that a “cult” of immortals strictly speaking does not exist in Taiwanese popular religion and that immortals are ritually clearly distinguished from popular deities. Hence the absence of a “cult” to Han Xiangzi would not be a phenomenon that needed explanation. However, here too I would point to the functional similarities between local deities and Daoist immortals. Their cults certainly differ in important respects, as Stephan Feuchtwang has shown for the separate cults of “Ang Gong” and “Xian Gong” (= Lü Dongbin) in the northern Taiwanese town of “Mountainstreet”, but the worshippers of the latter do not regard him as in any way radically different from a popular god. See Feuchtwang, Popular Religion in China: The Imperial Metaphor (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001). Hence the fact of the relative lack of a cult following for Han Xiangzi (as compared to the widespread success of Lü Dongbin) still represents a useful angle from which to explore the relationship of narrative tradition and religious cult.
59 However, viewed from another angle, the strong familial element in the Han Xiangzi myth apparently has caused his cult to become closely connected with that of Han Yu in the Chaozhou area. This occurred in spite of the religious incompatibility of the two figures. After all, Han Xiangzi embodies a religious/ideological critique of the public persona of Han Yu as an upright Confucian scholar and official, which is what he is worshipped for in the Chaozhou tradition. It is a testament to the strength of kinship bonds that such a subversive figure was able to claim a place at Han Yu’s side in popular worship.
but it is ultimately subordinate to the inner logic of Chinese popular religion. The success of a deity depends upon local conditions and needs, and on the compatibility of the deity with the structural requirements for popular godhood. A narrative tradition such as Han Xiangzi’s lacks both local roots and compatibility, and hence could not trigger or spread a religious cult of its protagonist. Its popularity is due to its
dramatization of culturally significant themes, but these themes themselves may militate against a widespread worship of Han Xiangzi.
The Story of Han Xiangzi, p. 443.