Author(s)
Story
To whom it may concern: greetings, and good health to you.
If by some trick of fate you have received this text, I have little doubt you possess mortal eyes. This text shall not fall into the hands of the gods or of Heaven – I have taken some precautions to ensure that they shall never see this. I do not intend for this text to fall out of my own hands either…or perhaps, that is my desire, to be heard. Whatever the case, I implore you to do the same: do not let the eyes of the gods read my words. I doubt that they will take it well, and I cannot risk even my current lowly position.
Who am I, you ask?
I was once am the ritual recorder, the scribe of the Yellow Emperor, the compiler of the Imperial Bestiary. You may know me by the name Bai Ze (白澤), or Hakutaku in the Japanese language. The island is in fact where I currently reside after my reassignment…the details of which I am not comfortable to relate even now. Of course, you will not find me there, for I have hidden myself away from the humans I am forbidden from communicating with.
As to why, despite this prohibition, I choose to write even now…
…
Mortal, have you read the Investiture of the Gods (封神演義)?
It would have been five centuries since it was made public to your eyes. What an undertaking it was – and how fascinating it is now remembered! The learned of this age call it a work of fiction and metaphor; the unschooled marvel at its colourful tales, retold by their schoolbooks and their elders. Few mortals still “believe” in this, do they not? “Believe” – that is, to take these exhortations to the gods and spirits as reality. And with it, the reality that this collection contained real tales of real beings, and real rituals to real gods!
I know all about it – a learned man from that kingdom of Germany calls this the “disenchantment of the world.” You humans have achieved a new orderly examination of this world; not through rituals or obedience to Heaven, but through science. The foundation of science is rationality: the concept that all that is true in this world must be tested and confirmed with your own eyes, your own tests. Because of rationality, most of you no longer believe in the existence of Heaven, or gods or demons. Likely, you do not believe in me either; that I exist, or that I have truly written this text.
Some of you, however, do.
And it is because of those who believe that I have reason to assert that this world is not disenchanted. Not entirely.
But I am speaking too swiftly. Five centuries is an eternity to the world under Heaven, though it is the mere blink of an eye to myself. Five centuries ago, the Middle Kingdom was still deeply enchanted. We all crossed deep realms to depend on each other. Humans for the protection of the gods. Demons for the power to control the humans. The gods to bring order to both, and to keep out the tyranny of Chaos.
It was in those times – the Yuan and Ming dynasties particularly – that the sages of the Dao desired a unified compilation of all their rituals and sacred tales. Of course, the gods and gods-to-be approved of this. Much like their human worshippers, many engaged in squabbles over territorial rights to places of worship, orthodoxy, and the amount of attention their dedication rituals received. Many were unruly, uncivilized subjects, disobedient to Heaven. Something like the Investiture would, at least, satisfy the gods by giving them recognition of their role in history, while their followers could gain the assurance of their orthodoxy.
Despite its form as a ‘novel’, the Investiture was never meant to be a work of entertainment, nor was it the work of a single skilled writer. It was a collection of the various founding tales and legends of different gods and their cults. Each tale was woven into the ‘main’ history – the fall of the Shang dynasty to the Zhou. Some…liberties were, of course, taken with individual contributions; we did not want to displease any contributors, after all. And with the final few chapters canonizing each contributing deity – the ‘investiture’ for which the collection is named – our task was staggering and painstaking, but complete.
I did have a role to play as well, though I was hardly spoken of. The human sages brought their editors Lu Xixing and Xu Zhonglin to retrieve the stories. I was called upon by the Heavenly Bureaucracy to confirm their accuracy, and include necessary details from each god. Due to my well-known offerings to the Yellow Emperor’s classification of 11,520 yaoguai types, Heaven thought my knowledge to be of most value here. And so I carried out my meticulous task for which I trotted across the four directions of the Kingdom. It was all for the sake of pacifying and exhorting the powers that wished to control this world.
Yes…I have some personal connection to the Investiture, for what I have contributed to. Order, and continued peace under Heaven…
And it is therefore with melancholy that I now reflect on its obscurity.
As I have mentioned earlier, many have claimed the Investiture to be a mere work of fiction. Certainly, it is of similar ilk to other pieces like Journey to the West and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms – all are narrative accounts that also serve as exhortations of the gods. Perhaps the Investiture, as a more blatant chronicle and invocation, lacking some literary finesse, has become less popular than the others as a result. But they were not always examined for literary merit, even though their tales persist as such. Nowadays, all that remains in popular retellings of the Investiture are the myths of Daji and Lord Jiang Ziya, as well as Lord Nezha’s tale as a standalone. Some claim the latter to be a metaphorical tale against corrupt authority, which is…not incorrect, but wholly lacking in explanation. How did all this happen?
It is again, because of the “disenchanting” of this world.
Time has been unkind to the enchanted world. During the early Qing it was not yet so – the gods had complained much about the intrusion of Buddhism, but it was more for the political meddling of the Manchus, rather than problems of orthodoxy. They had no problems co-existing with the Buddhists in the Tang, after all. What was really damning were the Western barbarians. Firstly, their followers of the god Yesu began to denounce rituals as idolatrous, or mere superstition. This was their tactic to assert the superiority of Yesu, and unfortunately, the other gods fell for it. Furious as they were, they tried in vain to stir up all Heaven and Earth below with violence to stop the advancement of this teaching. They were too distracted with rage and envy to foresee what would happen next.
The claim of ‘superstition’ would invite the scientists and the rationalists, those who did not believe in gods. One would think them enemies of the followers of Yesu, but interestingly, they all used similar arguments. They all denounced the gods as figments of imagination, the creation of an uneducated, ‘savage’ mind. Sometimes even their very rituals were denounced as savage – what they now call ‘violation of human rights.’ I do not blame them, some of the gods were certainly given to desires of savagery and cruelty. But instead of believing in rituals to pacify their savagery, the movement of the ‘Enlightenment’ sought to deny them their existence.
Who could have foreseen the disaster that this Enlightenment would cause? Heaven was all-powerful and all-knowing, and the gods slightly less so. Many scoffed at this human movement. The gods brought blessings and disasters, prosperity and plague. Surely, there was no way a god-denying ideology could stand! It went against the very understanding of order and reality itself!
And yet…it happened.
There is a Japanese saying – “you are abandoned by the gods, and you are saved by them.” How quickly the tides had turned – now it is we who were abandoned by the humans, where once we were saved by them! The Investiture was proof of this contract: a god only had power so long as they were acknowledged by a human. Temples, holy altars and the like were mere conduits for this exchange, and rituals would facilitate their relationship. When a human defied this contract, the god would have the right to demand their dues. But that contract would no longer exist if the party was no longer acknowledged by the other as having any power, even of existing at all.
And so, myriad gods were cast away into Chaos, shaken and unaware of what power had been stripped from them…
To be sure, temples and local cults survived outside the Middle Kingdom. I know of many gods who have retreated to islands such as Taiwan and Singapore – Lord Nezha has a sizable following in the former to modern day. But things would not improve in the Kingdom. The Republic Era saw an increase in scientific advancement and rationalism. They even denounced ancestral worship and the revering of Honourable Kong Fuzi, branding him a tyrant and an oppressor of women. Once the People’s Revolution occurred, this “disenchantment” was made complete with a total ban on religion! Both the traditional gods and the cult of Yesu suffered greatly, although the latter was quite persistent in their underground presence. In this new nation, Heaven did not bless the Kingdom – it was humans who would hold up nation and Heaven with their own labour, their own hands.
And now, what place in this world remains for gods?
We are still around, existing in realms hidden from your eyes. A lot of…reflection had to be done, on the part of the Heavenly Bureaucracy, and of the ones who remain. So must I too reflect, which is in part why I have written my many words on this scroll. But I find myself with never enough words, and fewer answers still.
I do, however, find illuminating revelations in how the Investiture has been remembered, and retold.
Recently, I was made aware of a modern theatrical production – The Legend of Jiang Ziya (2020), an adaptation of the Grand Duke’s role in the Investiture. He is, perhaps, one of the most well-known figures of the collection, and dramatic adaptations of his story are nothing new. This modern version, however, is something I could not have expected. While I fully expected artistic liberties, I was most shocked at its retelling.
For one, the Grand Duke willingly sacrificed the fate of all Heaven and earthly realms, because he was unwilling to kill the evil Daji! Surely this abhorrence would have turned him into a villain, but it is not so. The production makes him a hero for his defiance, as in this adaptation, the fox’s fate is tied to a young girl’s, whose death is necessary in order to destroy the fox’s spirit. The entire premise is baffling: the story insinuates it is ‘The Master’ (and it is never clear which ‘Master’ it is) who tied the fox and the girl’s spirits by a string of fate, desiring to destroy the fox for the greater good of the realms. Surely such blasphemy cannot stand! What good would it do for the Heavenly Rulers to so cruelly and unnecessarily bind a human’s spirit to Daji’s? And no mention is made of King Zhou’s evil, which tore down his own dynasty, and made Daji and Heaven’s intervention necessary and righteous.
Jiang Ziya is no longer righteous because he aided the unification of a righteous dynasty. Nor is it because he subdued the unruly spirits. This retelling, instead makes him seek his own righteousness – by declaring to defy Heaven is better than to sacrifice a single soul, child though they may be. It is Heaven that is corrupt (and irrationally so), and he is declared righteous for defying them even if he must destroy the unity of all realms! Is this not the height of blasphemy and evil: to selfishly seek one’s good above others? To declare one’s judgement greater than all the sages and Heaven itself!
Alas, it is the reality of this new age: the individual’s desires matter more than the collective. To “believe in your own justice” is this age’s wisdom. I cannot reconcile with it, but it is what it is. In a world that has abandoned gods, it is humans who decide their Fate, without greater powers to impose laws upon them. It is even enough to transform the Investiture’s original purpose, of exhorting the gods’ power and the everlasting prosperity of the Realms, into a tale of rebellion and self-fulfilment. For sure, Daji is still a villainess whose chaotic actions must be punished. And most importantly in this version, the Grand Duke acts out of his pity and humanity. To kill a young child is surely a cruel thing, and he refuses to do so out of pity. But is this truly the way of righteousness – to let one’s pity rule in oneself, and doom the whole world?
…
I do not know the answer anymore…
After all I The gods only have authority so long as the humans grant it to them. Many of you still do, but many of you do not. It seems Heaven’s reign has loosened, and it won’t be long before the Chaos subsumes this world.
What is left now? Now that humans have wrested their own Fate from the gods, it is up to you all to restore Order and peace to these realms. You demanded for the power to decide your own Fate with your own two hands – now you must bear the responsibility of holding up Heaven itself. No longer does the old Investiture have any meaning to this new age – these are all names of tradition and ancestors. Entertainment you may take them for, and sometimes guides to your own path, or affirmation of your new righteousness, but nothing more. In place of the martial Jiang Ziya who unites the gods and the Kingdom, you have a new one, who decides his pity is just, and who would defy the gods for the sake of his own wisdom.
Is this the reality that you mortals seek?
Whatever you choose, whatever you decide, I must accept it. I still serve under Heaven, though its authority is defied, and my position is non-existent not what it once was. For Heaven’s continued sake, and for the sake of the peace of the realms, I shall continue recording, and watching over you all.
That is my curse duty.
Author’s Reflection
This short story originated from my love of East Asian mythology and fantasy novels. As an aspiring writer and deeply religious person myself, both these interests caused me to find a third interest in religious history – the examination of how religion structures society, creates intellectual and cultural beliefs, and how dismantling religion creates new structures and new values. When I had considered writing a story related to The Investiture of the Gods, I was drawn to how it had deep ritualistic purposes beyond just a novel about gods and demons. Even though stories of famous characters such as Jiang Ziya and Nezha have persisted in modern day as folktales and local cults, their ubiquity has a different connotation in modern day as opposed to when they were originally compiled during the Ming Dynasty. Scholars tend to ignore the very ritualistic and religious purposes of the ‘novel’ and examine it merely as a literary work, rather than situate it within China’s religious and ritual history. An attempt to turn the tide against this scholarly bias features greatly in one of the key texts that inspired this story, Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel, by Mark R.E. Meulenbeld.
The “disenchantment of the world”, a famous concept coined by Max Weber, is a key consideration in this text. It explains not just the trend of scholarly views towards the Investiture, but also changes that have occurred in China’s cultural and religious landscape. As the Bai Ze narrator in this story has demonstrated, mythical and religious tales transmit different values of different time periods, and the re-interpretation of myths remains a useful way to examine how value systems are articulated and change across time. There is some debate to be had as to whether the Bai Ze’s traditionalist views are an accurate perspective to China’s religious landscape, or whether China is truly “disenchanted” in the sense Weber has proposed. This story is not meant to provide a conclusive answer to this debate (and my personal views do not totally align with the narrator’s either). Rather, it is meant to present to readers a perspective on the cultural and intellectual impact of religious upheaval in China.