#fox miscellanea

[yamayuandadu]

Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China, p. 26.

[yamayuandadu]

Thank you for the answer on the shinko. if you are willing to indulge another fox related question. How seperate are they from the typical 'dakini'-'yakan' Are they separate idea's that just kinda merged together over time in certain area's? Like did fox spirit stories exist before the concept of a yakan-dakini got imported into china?

According to Bernard Faure, the shinko itself could only have arisen in the middle ages in Japan, and only after the singular Dakiniten emerged from the category of dakinis (Protectors and Predators, p. 133). However, the association between dakinis and foxes which ultimately lead to its “birth” goes back to China in the seventh or eighth century (Berthe Jansen, Iyanaga Nobumi, Ḍākinī in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume II: Lives, p. 135-136). The earliest Chinese references to supernatural foxes collected by Xiaofei Kang come from the Han period already, ie. from between 206 BCE and 220 CE. For instance, nine-tailed foxes appear in the Shanhaijing (described, curiously, as a separate animal that just happens to look fox-like), the Baihutong, and in legends about Yu the Great and Tang of Shang. They primarily play the role of good omens. Black, white or unusually large foxes are reported as good omens too (The Cult of the Fox. Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China, p. 14-16). Regular foxes evidently also were viewed as at least partially supernatural as early as in the first century CE, though. There are references to illnesses supernaturally caused by foxes in medical texts discovered during excavations in Mawangdui. Slightly later Xu Shen (許慎), a Han dynasty lexicographer, described the fox as a “demonic beast ridden by ghosts” (ibidem, p. 17). The idea that foxes could take human shape was already known to Guo Pu (郭璞), active in the early fourth century CE. He states that a 50 years old fox can turn into a woman, while a 100 years old one into an extraordinarily beautiful woman, a medium, or a seductive man. Regardless of the form taken, foxes can use sorcery and possess people. Upon reaching the age of 1000, they ascend to heaven. His contemporary Ge Hong instead believed foxes can take a human shape at the age of 500, an ability he also attributed to other animals (ibidem, p. 17). More elaborate tales about foxes transforming into humans are abundant in sources from the Tang period, in the seventh century. A reasonably popular new belief was that a fox has to find a skull that fits its head - typically on a graveyard -  and pray to the Big Dipper to transform. It can be safely assumed that this echoes the same tradition as Xu Shen’s reference to fox as a creature close to ghosts (ibidem, p. 17-18). Given that in Buddhist sources which reached China at the time dakinis are regularly associated with graveyards, cremation grounds and similar locales, and considering the emphasis on their ability to use malevolent sorcery (Ḍākinī, p. 132-136), it’s easy to see how preexisting ideas about foxes could impact their image. However, ultimately fox beliefs developed in China entirely separately and considerably earlier.

The Tang period saw many other developments in fox literature - most notably the formation of the image of the fox as a representation of the human other - but that’s a topic for another time.

[yamayuandadu]

Tangentially related to the previous ask: if you’re interested in other unusual foxes associated with Dakiniten, there’s a group of seven of them (outright called 七野干, nanatsu no yakan) in the Izuna mandala, including Tenko-ō (天狐王; with a long tail), Chiko-shin (地狐神), Shin-ō (辰王), Yakanto (野干兎), Konpaku-ko (魂魄狐), Riko (狸狐) and Nintō-ko (人頭狐; with a human head). Illustrations and brief descriptions can be found in Gaétan Rappo’s  Fortune, Long Life, and Luck in Battle: The Cult of the Three Devas and Worldly Rituals in Medieval Japan, p. 65-66.

[yamayuandadu]

The concept of a shinko or a dragon fox in Japan, how many stories or mentions are there of one? I cant really find any real mentions outside of maybe a few scattered 'oh amaterasu took the form of one' and such

The exact meaning of the term shinko (辰狐) is a subject of debate. The first sign, 辰, can mean “dragon” - specifically the Chinese zodiacal dragon (ie. 龍) as a symbol of the fifth of twelve Earthly Branches (十二地支), though, not any generic dragon - but it also refers to astral bodies (Berthe Jansen, Iyanaga Nobumi, Ḍākinī in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism Volume II: Lives, p. 137-138). This doesn’t mean “dragon fox” is necessarily an incorrect translation, and it can actually be found in scholarship. The other options are “gleaming fox, “astral fox” (Bernard Faure, Protectors and Predators, p. 133) and “celestial fox” (Ḍākinī, p. 137). Leaving the term untranslated is common, too, and is the option I lean towards myself. Especially since it’s possible that both meanings of 辰 are applicable at once. It has been argued that shinko was understood as a "magic fox transformed into a dragon and ascended to heaven, becoming an imaginary celestial body” (ibidem, p. 138). Finally, it’s possible that 辰 was only used as a homonym of 神, making all the speculation moot (Protectors and…, p. 386). The rest of the response has been placed under the cut due to length.

Dakiniten and her fox mount (wikimedia commons). Regardless of the exact meaning, what is clear is that shinko is primarily attested as a medieval designation of Dakiniten (Ḍākinī, p. 137). In an enthronement ritual from the Toji temple she is referred to as Shinko-ō (辰狐王), ie. “king of the shinko” (Gaétan Rappo, Fortune, Long Life, and Luck in Battle: The Cult of the Three Devas and Worldly Rituals in Medieval Japan, p. 41). The shinko can alternatively be her symbol, mount (Protectors and…, p. 133) or messenger (ibidem, p. 142).

A yegan (yakan in Japanese) drawn by the folklorist Minakata Kumagusu (wikimedia commons). The association between Dakiniten and a specific sort of supernatural fox shouldn’t be very surprising. Even before her emergence as a singular deity, dakinis came to be associated with foxes in China due to problems with translating Sanskrit śṛgāla, “jackal”. Chinese Buddhist authors, unsure what sort of animal was meant, typically went with yegan (野干), a legendary fox-like creature said to be able to climb trees and to have a taste for human flesh. This eventually led to making a connection between dakinis and foxes, though in China it’s only directly attested in the gloss humei gui (狐魅鬼), literally “fox sorceress demon” in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra. The idea became very popular in Japan, though (Ḍākinī, p. 135-136). The ninth century Buddhist writer Annen (安然) already stated that “a dakini is a fox” in his Taizōkai Daihō taiju-ki (胎藏界大法對受記). He attributes this statement to his contemporary Anne (安慧), who in turn presumably depended on the aforementioned gloss (ibidem, p. 137). In the context of an esoteric enthronement ritual, the sokui kanjō (即位灌頂), first performed for emperor Fushimi in 1287 (it actually continued to be performed up to the late Edo period, but that’s irrelevant here), Dakiniten’s association with the shinko was transferred to Amaterasu. A commentary on it is actually where the short narrative you’ve presumably stumbled upon before sending this question comes from (Mark Teeuwen, The Kami in Esoteric Buddhist Thought and Practice in Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami, p. 105-106). The story is specifically recorded in the fourteenth century Keiran Shūyōshū (溪嵐拾葉集), a compilation of originally orally transmitted Tendai esoterica. It explains that Tenshō Daijin (ie. Amaterasu) disguised herself as a shinko during her famous cavern sojourn to hide herself. This was a suitable animal form to take because “among all animals, Celestial Fox is the only one which casts light by itself” (Ḍākinī, p. 137). It further explains that the creature possesses this ability due to being identical with the Buddhist wish-fulfilling jewel, and that one has to revere it to ascend to the throne because it is the “expedient body” of Amaterasu, as described in the preceding section (The Kami…, p. 106).

An Edo period portrait of Nakatomi (or Fujiwara) no Kamatari (wikimedia commons). A shinko also appears in a similar context in a medieval legend about the seventh century official Nakatomi no Kamatari (Fabio Rambelli, Or Porath, General Introduction in Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan, p. 25). It is known as Setsuroku engi (摂籙縁起), since it deals with the founding of the Fujiwara clan, whose members served as the chancellors (摂籙, setsuroku) in the royal court. Supposedly Kamatari met a fox who was both a dakini and a manifestation of Amaterasu somewhere in the Hitachi province, and received a sickle from her. He later used this tool to kill the rebel official Soga no Iruka in order to protect the emperor (Abe Yasurō, The Cultural History of Kanjō in Japan in Rituals of Initiation and Consecration in Premodern Japan, p. 225). 

I’m aware of at least one more association between Amaterasu and the shinko, though it’s less direct and doesn’t have an explanatory narrative attached. Bernard Faure argues that Sankoshin (三狐神) from Ise can be identified with shinko. This deity - literally “three fox god” - represented the granary of the outer Ise shrine, which was known as Miketsu (御馔津); the fox association developed as a pun on that, with the name reinterpreted as mi ketsu (三狐; can also be read as sanko), ie. “three foxes” (Protectors and…, p. 138-139). One final attestation of shinko I found occurs in an exorcism formula meant to help against the “dada affliction” (吒吒病, dada byō) supposedly spread by Dakiniten’s servant Dasseiki (奪精鬼; also 奪魂魄鬼, Datsukonpakuki, “demon that ravishes vital essence”) or by foxes. If a large province (one of more than one hundred li) was affected, the skull of a shinko had to be used. For a smaller one, the skull of a tanuki or a white dog would suffice (Bernard Faure, Rage and Ravage, p. 91).

Sorry if the response is a bit less story-oriented than you'd like, I wasn't able to find much beyond that; most of the academic coverage of the shinko pertains to Dakiniten's involvement in enthronement rituals.

[yamayuandadu]

According to a number of late Qing dynasty novels, foxes seeking to attain immortality must pick a historical beauty to emulate:

A fox effectively becomes an actress portraying a historical figure in some of the examples (Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes in Late Imperial Chinese Narrative, p. 200-202).

[yamayuandadu]

Why is both inari and Huxian gender neutral sorry if it’s a stupid question 

I will admit I’m a bit puzzled why you’re asking about a Chinese term for a type of supernatural being and about a Japanese theonym which has nothing to do with it in one go.

Is this because of wikipedia? The huxian article over there links to Inari for no specific reason AND seems to operate on the mistaken assumption that there’s a singular well defined deity named Huxian… while citing Xiaofei Kang, who explicitly says huxian is simply the single most common term used to address foxes both in literature and in religious context (Xiaofei Kang, Cult of the Fox. Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China, p. 11) - at least in Qing and Republican periods; would be a bit hard for it to be popular earlier for the simple reason it was only coined in the Ming period (Ibidem, p. 50). A nineteenth century gazetteer from Wanquan in Hebei explicitly says both male and female foxes are called huxian and that every family in this area had their own huxian (Ibidem, p. 48). Granted, this should be obvious simply because nouns don’t have grammatical gender in Chinese.

Only wikipedia claims huxian is the name of a specific singular entity; nothing on p. 199-200 of Kang’s book can be used to support the claim that “[Huxian] can be represented as either male or female, but is most frequently identified as the female Húxiān Niángniáng (...) whose animal form is a nine-tailed fox” - which wikipedia attributes to her. As a matter of fact, pages 199-200 aren’t even about huxian, but about the perception of foxes in Japan. And no figure named Huxian Niangniang comes up in the book! The title niangniang is only mentioned once, in reference to its use to designate both the deity Bixia and foxES, plural (ibidem, p. 138). The nine-tailed fox isn’t mentioned either on p. 138 or p. 199-200; it barely comes up outside of the brief section about its role as an omen in early sources (Ibidem, p. 15-16).

I don’t think there’s a single specific reason behind Inari being depicted in both male and female forms. Bernard Faure credits identification with Uka no Mitama and Toyouke (based on shared association with grains) as a factor leading to the development of female Inari in addition to the “classic” old man depictions, though (Gods of Medieval Japan vol. 2: Protectors and Predators, p. 134). There’s also the de facto fusion with Dakiniten to consider (Ibidem, p. 156). Inari is a topic I don’t know much about; following Kang, I also recommend consulting Karen A. Smyers’ The Fox and the Jewel. Shared and Private Meanings in Contemporary Japanese Inari Worship. In any case, the fact there are both male and female depictions of Inari has nothing to do with the term huxian.

[yamayuandadu]

I've been embarrassed to ask for this for a long time. In short, I've been trying to do research for my game, which had a folklore of Daji (and King Zhou). However research was hard because I don't know where to go (I don't properly speak chinese despite descending from one, ironic). The wikislop is of course, using the Fengshen Yanyi novel to describe the King. My question is how much "satirizing real life events" it was? Or was it just rooted in typical "women are subordinates uwu" misogyny?

Eh, I’d say the wiki article isn’t -that- bad (though much briefer than I’ve expected - and like you pointed out, a bit too dependent on a single novel), my main objection is that whoever wrote it seems to be misinterpreting what Xiaofei Kang wrote about supposed Daji shrines. They’re only attested in a Song edict preserved in the document collection Song Huiyao Jigao (宋会要辑稿) which states that “illicit shrines” in Kaifeng had to be demolished, and lists “Daji shrines” among them. Most likely these were “regular” fox shrines - the sort that still can be found esp. in rural areas in northern China today (note other sources say Kaifeng had a similar number shrines of “fox kings” instead) - and calling them “Daji shrines” in an order to demolish them probably only reflects the combination of their classification as illicit with the development of the idea that Daji was a fox (Xiaofei Kang, The Cult of the Fox: Power, Gender, and Popular Religion in Late Imperial and Modern China, p. 38-39). Portraying Daji as a fox must’ve already been a thing by the 1100s since it’s casually referenced in a Japanese source, Oe no Masafusa’s Kobiki (狐媚記; Kang refers to something called Gomeicho instead, which isn’t referenced anywhere else and seems to be an error) by then, and there must’ve been Chinese predecessors. The novel Wu Wang Fa Zhou Pinghua (武王伐紂平話; “King Wu’s Campaign Against Zhou”) might be an early example, if the Song (rather than Yuan) dating is to be accepted (Ibidem, p. 210). Origin in oral storytelling from the Tang period has been suggested for her identification as a fox (Rania Huntington, Alien Kind: Foxes and Late Imperial Chinese Narrative, p. 195). Daji’s portrayal across history seems to be uniquely negative compared to other historical or legendary concubines blamed for the downfall of emperors, like Xi Shi or Yang Guifei. This probably reflects the fact there was no tradition of nostalgia for the Shang dynasty. Even when compared to other fox stories she sometimes ends up seeming excessively malevolent, though - while there are multiple novels where she’s simply the reincarnation of a fox, there’s also a distinctive tradition where she’s the end result of a fox possession so thorough the original person is entirely gone. Normally fox possession is either temporary, or a person only ends up impersonated via shapeshifting. Other fox stories also don’t really indicate a particular penchant for cruelty; this seems to come more from the “wicked concubine” genre. In other words, she’s effectively a synthesis of two types of stock villains with the traits exaggerated to the extreme (Ibidem, p. 195-196). As noted by Rania Huntington, it gets so over the top Daji starts to feel “more like a destructive force than a character” in Ming literature (Ibidem, p. 221). While Daji was already portrayed negatively before the development of the trend of making her a fox, some specific additions only emerged after that. For example, in the Shiji it is the emperor himself who decides to have the minister Bi Gan executed; in Investiture of the Gods Daji suggests this to him instead. Her plot to get rid of the emperor’s wife comes from this work too; both of those episodes are meant to show her aim was to deprive the emperor of advice from everyone loyal to him. It’s pretty clearly a particularly over the top take on the popular motif of an evil manipulative concubine, meant as a cautionary tale for men. However, to be entirely fair the emperor is not presented as blameless, and his Daji obsession is presented as a moral failing (Yenna Wu, The Chinese Virago: a Literary Theme, p. 94-95).

To sum up: the unusually negative portrayal of Daji probably does have a lot to do with misogyny as you suspect, and in particular the fear of being manipulated by women. However, it can be argued it’s also just that through random circumstances she accumulated tropes that normally applied to different kinds of stock villains. The sheer antiquity of the events she was involved in meant there was no nostalgia for her period to lead to a reevaluation, so no counter tradition arose and there were no straightforward romances starring her; she just kept becoming increasingly villainous.

I can only think of one exception: there’s a sort of comedic take on Daji in the Ming erotic Zhaoyang qushi (昭陽趣史), where she’s doing perfectly fine after her “canonical” adventures, briefly attempts to create a fox kingdom, then reincarnates as a royal concubine - Zhao Hede - in the times of Han Chengdi. She ultimately brings him down by having him overdose an aphrodisiac. The dead Han Chengdi seems to be fine with it though since in the end he intercedes for her in heaven so that she’s allowed to practice Daoist self-cultivation. Note that this purposely over the top erotica with folkloric and historical decorations at the core, though; it was never intended to be taken particularly seriously (Alien Kind…, p. 198-199; the wiki mentions it but skips the horny part for some reason even though that's the bulk of it?).

[yamayuandadu]

regarding the sogdians and foxes. do you know if the sogdians themselves practiced a fox cult of some kind? also an unrelated question but i was wondering. was Taoism practiced westwards in the sogdian heartland?

I am not aware of that. I don't really think there was much in the way of animal cults in Sogdia in general. While many deities were associated with specifica animals and in fact in art some can only be identified by their animal attribute (a mount, a throne with animal decorations, or an accessory), foxes aren't among them. Comparative evidence from other contemporary or slightly more recent sources pertaining to other Iranian peoples doesn't really hint at anything similar to the Chinese fox cults either. In Zoroastrian tradition some favorable description can be found but this reflects the fact Avesta considers the fox a type of dog and by extension presents it as one of the animals created to counter malign influence (source), there's no fox yazata or anything of that sort. Al-Biruni might be describing depictions of the simurg as "flying foxes" (ﺧﺮﺳﺎنخﺮ, hurasan-xvarra) but that's an isolated example. The only information about Sogdian or at least Sogdian-adjacent perception of the matter of foxes in Cult of the Fox is that we at the very least know An Lushan and his contemporary Geshu Han were aware of the derogatory implications. Doubtlessly there were more foregners who had opinions on that since there's a fair share of evidence the fox comparisons were employed casually in everyday speech, but so far I failed to find any first hand accounts. Individual Chinese stories might portray foreigners as well versed in fox affairs - for example in Shen Jiji's Tale of Miss Ren a foreign food vendor living next to the eponymous character is well aware she is a fox and doesn't really seem to be bothered - but there are ultimately just literary fiction. I do think it would be interesting to wonder how the matter was seen by "naturalized citizens" so to speak - whether they saw a mirror of own struggles in fox tales, whether they took part in domestic fox cults in areas where they were prevalent etc. - but I don't think there's any material evidence which would make it possible to explore that.

As for the second question, I am not aware of Taoism spreading that far westwards. It also doesn't come up in any publications I read which deal with religions present in Sogdia - and most of these do highlight plurality. An indigenous set of beliefs (whether it can be considered a form of Zoroastrianism or merely something vaguely related remains a matter of debate), Buddhism, (Nestorian) Christianity and Manichaeism are all well attested. I read a few surveys of Sogdian theophoric names too, and no Taoist figures come up (while Buddha and Jesus are comparably well attested as local variants of Mithra and Nanaya). For the most part I'm only aware of Taoism spreading in some capacity to Vietnam, Korea and Japan in the first millennium - in other words, eastwards, not westwards. However, there is some evidence of Xuanzang being provided with Sanskrit translations of Taoist classics before embarking on his journey to India (see Daoism in the Tang (618-907) in the Brill Daoism Handbook), so it does seem fair to say attempts must have been made.

The possible attempts at westward transfer of Taoism were seemingly generally tied to interactions between this religion and Buddhism. This is highlighted in particular by the rise of a popular legend according to which Laozi was also the source of many other teachings because he was identical with the historical Buddha (or vice versa; see here for full context).