Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Часть 1

Секция 2 • Panel 2 Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Т. 1. 2018 196 3. The plots of the two novelettes involve historic records of Li Zuoche and bring forward the idea of retribution for talent, even once rejected. 4. No less important is the idea of showing respect to a talent in spite of the social position as well as reprobation of arrogance of men of higher standing. 5. As a hypothesis here may be put forward a statement, that the later local religious tradition, associated with the God of Hail, could have been initiated by the stories of Pu Songling, and not vice versa. Keywords: China, literature, history, beliefs, folksy religion, Pu Songling, Liaozhai Zhiyi, Hail deity. The eminent collection of short fantastic stories by Pu Songling ( 㫢ᶮ喑 , 1640–1715), known as “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” ( 㙺啻䂼⮠ , Liaozhai zhiyi) contains two pieces with the same title: “Hail Deity” (or “God of Hailstones”, Bao shen ( 䴩⾎ )). Of course, taking in account the fact that fox turnskins, different shiftformers and certain supernatural powers have attained dozens of novelettes dedicated to them in the mentioned corpus, the number of Hail Deity items seems miniscule. On the second thoughts the status seems not that univocal and needs a descent study and analysis. First of all, the short stories by Pu Songling are pretty far from being the universal omni-inclusive encyclopedia of the Chinese folksy beliefs and popular- religious practices. In this sense works by Yuan Mei ( 㺱᷊ , 1716–1797), and primarily his “Zi bu yu” ( ᆀн䃎 . “What the Master Would not Discuss”) with a sequel “Xu zi bu yu” ( 㒼ᆀн䃎 ) give the far bigger variety of all-fashioned deities, ghosts, post-mortal convoy guards and the like. In the whole collection of Pu Songling’s tales one would never find even mentioning of such promi- nent folksy beliefs’ fiends as Niu Tou and Ma Mian ( ⢋九俜䶒 ); neither the demon-fighter Zhong Kui ( 䦮俇 ) and a great many other almighty beings are ever mentioned, while in Yuan Mei’s collection they go a long way and become protagonists of novelettes in number. In Pu Songling’s works a supernatural being is just an instrument to speak about secular cares and worries and has been chosen from those very grounds. The more curious then seems the fact that the Hail Deity comes to the foreground twice, and in different parts of the collection (the first time in juan 1 [ 15 , V. 1, p. 51–52], and the second time in juan 12 [ 15 , V. 3, p. 1606–1607]). Howsoever the whole collection of texts could be compiled, the very fact shows distinctively, that these two novelettes are not integrated in one unity (unlike the short-stories “Wu-tong” and “Thereto” (“ ӄ䙊 ”, “ ৸ ”) of juan 10 [ 15 , V. 3, p. 1417–1425]) and illustrate the author’s concern about the addressed issue, having made Pu Songling to return to the described subject again (more detailed analysis of “Wu-tong” and “Thereto” stories can be found in [ 7 ]).