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

Introduction 29
myth. This story held a strange fascination for traditional (male)
Chinese readers; in later ages it figured as the first selection of the
Epitome of Ancient Prose (Guwen guanzhi), though it could hardly
function as a model for prose essays.
‘‘The Count of Zheng Defeats Duan in Yan’’ tells the story of a
man who is willing to go down to the Underworld to be reunited
with his sinful mother, whom he had imprisoned. Although the sin
of the mother is not explicitly identified as sexual in nature, it
clearly has sexual overtones. She is said to hate her eldest son because
of the pain he caused her at birth and to love her younger
son because his birth was much easier. When later the younger son
rebels against his elder brother, his mother promises to open the
gates of the capital for him. In this way, her transgressive love for
her (younger) son threatens the proper order of both the family
and the state. After the rebellion has been suppressed, her elder
son has her locked up and swears that he will not see her again unless
it is at the Yellow Springs (i.e., after death). When later one of
his dinner guests refuses to eat the best part of his food because he
wants to take it home to his mother, the count is filled with regret
and with longing for his own mother. At the suggestion of his guest,
he has a deep tunnel dug and meets with his mother below the
earth. If the artificiality of the tunnel suggests a ritual scenario, the
contemporary southern Chinese ritual of the smashing of the City
of Hell by the filial son as part of the burial rites for a mother may
well have a very long history indeed. 100
The Count of Zheng did not rely on a higher instance, secular
or divine, to punish his mother; he ordered her imprisonment on
his own authority. Cole argues that deep down it is Mulian himself
who punishes his mother for her sin of sexuality. 101 In the same
way, one may well wonder whether Miaoshan isn’t responsible for
causing her father’s disease: it is her memories of the White Sparrow
Convent that cause the Buddha to punish the king by his disease.
The Count of Zheng needs the example of a filial son to change
his mind and forgive his mother. In The Precious Scroll of Incense
Mountain the queen facilitates the reconciliation between father
and daughter. The queen, who is given a prominent role in The Precious
Scroll of Incense Mountain, is both the only one to stay with
her husband during his foul illness and the first to suspect that the
‘‘hermit of Incense Mountain’’ may be her own daughter. Later,
although Miaoshan refuses to disclose her identity to her father,