Two Precious Scroll Narratives of Guanyin and Her ... - Khamkoo

16 Introduction
While he does not go so far as to set himself up as her suitor, his
insistence that she marry a husband who will live with her at home
in the palace brings him dangerously close to filling that role as well.
In many French hagiographic romances the male protagonist is
portrayed as a hated tyrant while the virgin saint enjoys the sympathy
of everyone else; this is not the case in The Precious Scroll of
Incense Mountain. Miaoshan does not have the outspoken or silent
support of her surroundings in her fight against the male protagonist.
As her father is the representative of authority and as such represents
(Confucian) common sense, he can draw upon the support
of all segments of the court. 58 When his promises and threats are
unable to sway his stubborn daughter, others who appeal to her
common sense replace him. Miaoshan finds herself confronted at
one time or another by her mother, her elder sisters, all of the palace
ladies, the prioress of the White Sparrow Convent, and the assembled
civil and military officials. Only the common folk who live
in the city consistently sympathize with her. 59 This may well be an
indication of the intended audience of The Precious Scroll of Incense
Mountain.
Cazelles stresses at various points the silence of the victims,
despite including in her corpus of texts the story of St. Catherine,
whose eloquent words were said to have left dumbfounded fifty philosophers.
In fact, many of the other virgin saints she describes are
quite outspoken in their declarations of faith. They are of course
not great theologians, but then theological nitpicking is not always
an indication of deep faith. Still, when compared to the French
hagiographic romances, The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain
allows much more space for debates between the representatives
of common sense and the representative of religious aspiration,
Miaoshan. ‘‘In the first half of the story, ending with Miao-shan’s
execution, the effect is a series of incidents (the refusal to marry—
the punishment in the palace garden—the entry to the threatened
monastery—the return to the palace) punctuating an endless, agonized
dialogue between Miao-shan and her baffled family.’’ 60 In these
dialogues, all the well-known arguments in favor of a married life
and against a religious career and a monastic existence are paraded
out, as Miaoshan’s dialogue partners alternately stress the joys of
palace life, appeal to classical authority, describe the sufferings
of a monastic existence, and bring out all the conventional Chinese
arguments against Buddhism.