View from the Quanhuatang (勸化堂) temple complex at Shihtoushan (獅頭山) in Miaoli Country (all photos by Hank Egberink)
The fat man wobbles. Not a Chunk from The Goonies truffle-shuffle-type wobble – his paunch is surprisingly firm. No, it’s unmistakably a drunken totter, which soon crescendos into a full-blown stagger from the temple portals to the hefty censer five meters away.
Clutching the uprights of the incense receptacle, he manages to steady himself. Next, in another absurdly non-sequiturial maneuver, he reaches into the urn, scoops up a handful of ash and daubs his cheeks with it. It is a bizarre, comical scene. But the onlookers are not laughing.
Just a moment ago the man was as clear-headed as a logician. Now, stripped to the waist, he’s reeling around like a mal-coordinated ice skater. An instant is all it takes for a drunken deity to take over. Jigong has arrived.
Blind drunk: A jigong spirit medium in action
He’s an odd kind of god. Rarely seen without a wine-filled calabash in hand, emaciated ribs protuberating against his stomach walls like the frets on a banjo, Jigong has markedly more of the vagabond about him than the divinity.
Master Ji, as he became known, reputedly roamed the streets of Hangzhou, China in the 12th century and was renowned for his eccentricities, which included producing a cure for a plague-stricken village from his own vomit, and flashing his genitals at an Empress.
This baffling carry-on was generally assumed to have been a Hamletian put-on to keep people at bay, masking his true identity. “In the midst of intoxication, I keep a clear head,” Jigong says.
He was genuinely extraordinary in other ways though, eating meat, boozing and cavorting with courtesans – strict no-nos for monks of the Chan Buddhist sect to which he belonged. Despite his licentiousness, Master Ji was a kind soul, helping the needy whenever he could. Upon his death, he was recognized by Taoism and later Buddhism as a living Buddha and achieved apotheosis.
Shamanistic spirit possessions can be seen across the world. What makes Taiwan’s Jigong possessions so compelling is their boozy, chaotic nature.
They usually begin with the medium going into a trance, then lurching around in the manner described. What comes next is often anyone’s guess, with different mediums indulging in a variety of antics.
In statues and woodcarvings, Jigong is sometimes depicted reclining with a dog on his back* and mediums have been known to start scampering around on all fours like demented canines.
An incense censer outside the Quanhuatang (勸化堂) temple complex at Shihtoushan (獅頭山), Miaoli County
Hysterical giggling, slurred speaking in tongues and heightened pain tolerance are some common symptoms but each medium goes about being possessed in different ways.
While the host will obviously grab your attention, keep an eye on the bystanders. The medium is nearly always a man, but is often assisted by women who steady him and hold his discarded robes.
Watch out: Close proximity with the spirit is enough to infect a person and there is usually at least one observer – again usually a woman – drawn into the proceedings.
Symptoms of intoxication include clapping, pirouetting like Margot Fonteyn on amphetamines, and yowling like a strangled kitten. These exertions can lead a person to collapse as the spirit leaves their body, so fellow onlookers often surround the vicariously possessed to ensure they don’t injure themselves.
Meanwhile, you may notice a temple employee on hand with a bottle of rice wine, should the drunken monk require libation.
Souvenir calabashes, or bottle gourds - appropriate as they are Jigong's favoured booze receptacle
Lions on a temple pillar
According to a friend with a medium in the family, spirit hosts are recognized as a bit different from an early age and it runs in families. What others sometimes take to be mild sociopathy, the initiated see as untapped spiritualism.
Although Jigong is invariably portrayed as chopstick-thin, mediums come in all shapes and sizes. Pre and post-possession, you’ll have trouble spotting one, unless he has already been fitted out with the garb for a planned ceremony.
Temples are your best bet. I’ve seen a couple of captivating rituals at a favourite old hiking spot of mine: Shihtoushan, or Lion’s Head Mountain (獅頭山), with its Qunahuatang (勸化堂) mountain-temple complex, on the borders of Miaoli and Hsinchu Counties. The beautiful setting imbues what is already a strange and powerful event with an even greater mysticism.
Taoist temples sometimes have resident mediums and itinerants are also welcome to get possessed there. While Buddhism officially proscribes the practice, Taiwanese popular religion has become such a mish-mash of beliefs and practices, that you wouldn’t know it. Around the island there are hundreds of temples with Jigong idols and some are dedicated to the rascal himself.
I’ve been told that Jigong possessions can occur spontaneously in far more mundane settings such as family dinners at the local restaurant.
So if you see some guy staggering around a Taiwan eatery, bear in mind: Rather than being an ungodly drunk, he may have been touched by a drunken god.
View of the temple complex at Shihtoushan
* I have still yet to receive a conclusive explanation for the dog: Several theories have been put forward, with the most common being that Jigong is going to eat him. As there’s usually a feeling of playful interaction between god and canine in most representations I have come across, I find this hard to believe.
However, a temple attendant and an antiques shop owner separately countered my scepticism with the almost verbatim contention that, rather than being cruel, eating the dog shows Ji’s love for the animal. By killing it, he is apparently moving the mutt out of this life and closer to Nirvana. Can anyone shed any light on this?
The association between Jigong and the dog can be found in Chs 14-17 of the Biography of Jigong (濟公全傳) which strings together a few stories based on dog meat. None of which, however, was about loving a dog by killing/eating it.
These stories are (1) a certain Tung-ping, moved by a teary-eyed mutt, decided not to slaughter dogs anymore. Jigong, knowing Tung was a pious son, saved Tung’s life from being crushed by a collapsing wall – by running away with his dog meat stand with Tung chasing after him. (2) Jigong then sold for Tung the dog meat by magically increasing the weight and the enticing fragrance of it. The profits were given to Tung to start a new career of peddling fruits. (3) Jigong saved the last 2 pieces of dog meat for himself and brought them to his temple of residence. He then proceeded to sell the meat to his much repulsed fellow monks thereby earning their anger. This offense was, however, shrugged off by the Chief Monk who merely inquired Jigong about his assignment of raising funds for renovating the temple. And (4) magically again, a few donors showed up at the door demanding to see the dog-meat-eating Living Buddha but declined to even speak the most sacred name of Jigong. Then the story continued onto many more others…
Thanks EyeDoc – informative as ever!
I knew he had a taste for dog meat but I still can’t figure out why you often see him with a dog nearby, especially on his back and bum. I have my own little wooden statuette given to me by my father-in-law and he is lying on his front, twisting round and looking at the dog on his back. Sometimes the dog even appears to be sniffing his arse (as it would another dog)!
This guy at the temple – and the antiques dealer – claimed that was because he ate dog meat (which I knew) but, as I say, the playful nature of the relationship seems to jar with that. So they suggested the ‘loving to death’ angle. 😉 Seemed suspect to me but at least two, possibly three, people told me the same thing …
When I mention the dog association to friends who are not that clued up about these things, they often say they have never seen Jigong with a dog. But I’ve seen it plenty of times. I still check in on shops selling religious statues/figures from time to time and have found plenty of instances of this.
Well, my peers regard me as the keeper of useless information.
Strangely, there are jade sculptures of Jigong and a dog, but the dog never appears in any traditional paintings. I visited Jigong’s temple in Hanzhou once. Don’t recall any dog by Jigong’s side, either. It could just be some artists’ rendition of Jigong’s irreverent life-style. The versions you have been quoted were most likely embellished.
We grew up with Jigong’s stories with the take-home lesson of treating those down on their lucks or the mentally ill ones well as you never know if they were really Buddha in disguise.
Incidentally, dog meat (called 香肉fragrant meat) appeared on the menu of small eating places in Taipei in the early 1950s. They were operated by mainlanders and neighborhood dogs began to mysteriously disappear. One of my uncles ordered one serving without knowing what it was. He remains the only one in our extended family who has ever tasted dog meat to this day.
.-= EyeDoc´s last blog ..Aboriginal marriages =-.
You could definitely get dog meat a lot later than that, EyeDoc. I actually ate dog meat in Taiwan when I first came here. Some old biddy used to procure it when I lived in Miaoli. That was only 10 years ago and I’ve read that is was pretty easy to get until the 90s. I tried it again in Laos – actually by accident, when I pilfered some off a barnecue when the vendor wasn’t looking: http://thewritingbaron.com/rattan-shoots-and-buffalo-skin-getting-stuck-in-in-laos
My wife first told me about being careful about beggars/the mentally-ill being deities in disguise. In Gao Xingjian’s “Soul Mountain” he talks about a mendicant deity who knocks at your doorshabby and haggard. If you turn him away in disgust, your house burns down or something of the sort. Can’t remember who it was, though.
So you reckon it’s nothing more than an illustration of his irreverent lifestyle, eh? I’ve seen Jigong with dog at temples, too, though I’ll have to remember where. I think one in Hsinchu perhaps. I’m seeing my father-in-law this weekend, so maybe he’ll recall.
Don’t knock useless info. aggregation! Collaters of useless information are some of my favourite people.
Interesting, this culinary excursion of sorts in Laos. I am a bit disturbed to see buffalo on the menu. Taiwanese farmers regard water buffaloes as family members complete with names and their own “bedrooms”. Beef started to appear in the wet markets in the 50s, prompting the question of the origin, as most if not all farmers would not have been so heartless as to send their family members to the slaughterhouse. Many old timers still refuse to eat beef to this day.
A pyromaniac deity? Seems a composite of a deity in disguise and the kitchen god. The latter reports the family deeds to Heaven at the end of the year to determine if rewards or punishment. Kitchen gods can be bribed, BTW. The message I suppose is the same: treat beggars well. This can be a kind of safety net that predates the gov’t-run welfare system.
達摩 Da-mo as Jingng is also a favorite of the (wood-work) artists. There seems a colony of them in Hsinchu or Miaoli. The sculptures also come in many different styles, some inexplicably in Kung fu stance – reason why I suspect that Jigong.with the dog is also an artist’s interpretation.
Well, here you have it, more useless info with perhaps a hint of aggregation. Have a great weekend.
.-= EyeDoc´s last blog ..Aboriginal marriages =-.
Yep, I know the old schoolers aren’t down with eating the plough animals. My wife’s late grandma was very particular about that.
You’re right about Damo (Bodidharma) being massive in these parts as well. I have a great hewn from wood figure of him, too. Round the house here (in Toufen ) I think. He was one of the first religious figures to tickle my fancy.
The wushu/qigong stances aren’t that inexplicable. He’s commonly held to have being an early practitioner/ trained the Shaolin, though apparently it’s retroactive bollocks. Maybe it’s because he’s a beardie and always looks pretty intimidating. Elsewhere he often looks calm as an executioner, head down, deep in meditation as befits the Indian spiritualist that he was.
I once saw a wooden sculpture of him in such a pose in Hong Kong that I loved. The kind of shop it was in meant I didn’t need to check the price tag to know it was impossible. But I did check – one does, no? Two lifetimes, perhaps, for me. Surely a world away from the austerity, frugality anti-materialism that the man stood for.
True, it is commonly accepted that Da-mo had started the Shaolin wu-su; although he died in 495AD, one year before Shaolin Temple was even built. It was the 2nd Abbey 稠禪師 (512AD) who brought with him the martial arts and trained the monks.
Most traditional paintings depict Da-mo as a man of peace often in deep meditation. Kung-fu stance would be totally out of character indeed.
.-= EyeDoc´s last blog ..You are marrying whom !? =-.