The pantheon · Folk Deities (民間信仰)
Zhong Kui
鍾馗 · Zhong Kui (Wade-Giles: Chung K'uei)
Folk religion
The demon-queller, a ghost who hunts and commands other ghosts.
A fearsome protective deity who catches and subjugates malevolent spirits. A failed scholar in life, he became king of ghosts after death and is invoked to drive off demons and disease; his portrait is hung as a household guard.
- Portfolio
- Quelling demons and evil spirits · Warding off plague · Protection of home and examinations
- Observance
- Zhong Kui is a seasonal guardian rather than a god with a temple cult of his own. His image is put up chiefly at two times: the lunar New Year, where he joins the door gods against the coming year's ill fortune, and the Dragon Boat Festival on the fifth day of the fifth month, the traditional start of the dangerous, disease-prone summer, when his picture is pasted up to expel noxious influences. He is also a favourite subject of protective paintings given as gifts. Because his role overlaps with the door gods and with examination hopes, local practice varies in when and why he is displayed.
How to recognise them
A big, black-bearded man with a ferocious, glaring face, dressed in the robes and winged cap of a scholar-official rather than armour — the point being that he is an educated man, not a brute. He brandishes a sword and is often shown surrounded by the small demons he has captured, sometimes made to serve as his porters or musicians. A bat, emblem of good fortune, frequently flutters near him.
The classic account is recorded by the Song scholar Shen Kuo, who says the story was already old in his day. The Tang emperor Xuanzong, ill with fever, dreamed of a small demon stealing through his palace to snatch a jade flute and a perfume pouch. Then a huge, fierce man in a scholar's cap seized the imp, gouged out its eye and ate it. Asked who he was, the giant answered: Zhong Kui, a candidate who had failed the palace examination and killed himself in shame.
In the fuller legend Zhong Kui had in fact passed at the top of the examination, but was stripped of his honour because the emperor of the day found his looks too ugly. He dashed his head against the palace steps and died. The reigning emperor, ashamed, had him buried with honours; in gratitude Zhong Kui's ghost vowed to rid the world of evil spirits. He is thus a figure of injustice turned to protection — the wronged man who guards others from the wrongs done to him.
The emperor woke well, and is said to have ordered the court painter Wu Daozi to paint Zhong Kui from his description, and the image was printed and distributed. Ever since, his portrait has guarded doorways and studies. Traditionally he is hung at two moments — the New Year, alongside the door gods, and the fifth month's Dragon Boat Festival, when summer disease was feared and his image was thought to drive off pestilent air. Failed and successful examination candidates alike have looked to him, the scholar who was cheated of his rank.
Nearby
Written from
- Mengxi Bitan (Brush Talks from Dream Brook) — Shen Kuo
- Chinese Gods: The Unseen World of Spirits and Demons — Keith Stevens, 1997
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