FEI JIANG-FANG


       Fei Jiang-fang [Fei Chang-fang or Pi Chang-fang] was a legendary magician during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 C.E. ).  He was said to have had "the power of shrinking and collecting in an urn mountains and streams, birds and animals, people, pavilions, terraces, and buildings, boats and carriages, trees and rivers." 
       A story from the Jin dynasty (265-420 C.E .) and then alluded to at the end of the fifth century tells of how Fei, as a marketplace provost, once discovered that an old man selling herbs there was actually an immortal punished for a mistake.  The old man had hung a gourd-shaped hu vessel in front of his shop.  Whenever the market closed, he jumped up and entered this vessel, without being seen by the people in the marketplace.  Only Fei saw him, from the top of his lookout.  Fei confronted the old man who told him to return the following day.  Doing so, he was then taken into the old man's confidence and the two of them were allowed to enter inside the magical hu.  There they feasted and drank from a wine vessel that did not empty.  The old man insisted his punishment was now finished and invited Fei to follow him in search of the Dao.
       Both of them entered into the depths of a mountain and, after several tests, Fei Jiang-fang became a magician famous for his power over demons and for curing sicknesses.

       Seekers after medicinal herbs go into the heart of the mountains equipped with a staff to which they have attached a protective talisman, consisting of a picture of the sacred mountains, along with a little gourd intended to hold the fruits of their journey.
       Now, in tales from the East, the market theme has been used as a meeting place for adepts and spirits.   Other hu-kung ("Gourd Elders") besides Fei Jiang-fang are mentioned in Daoist alchemical lore through the centuries.  Another version of this story from the late third century indicates that the old man magically appeared to Fei, coming from "far countries" inhabited by barbarians, monsters, demons, and spirit.  Inside the hu vessel one only saw a world full of palaces of the immortals.
       The banished immortal herb seller replaces his home Isles of the Blessed -- which have all the treasures of the mountain there contained -- with his gourd, which also includes these treasures in their entirety.  The gourd is the container for drinks and herbs, concentrating in this little place the essential powers of a remote and isolated mountain.  The narrowed opening or gate through which the adept passes with some difficulty opens into another world, closed off and completely sufficient to itself.  This paradisiacal, perfect, happy place is far from this vulgar world, just like the miniature gardens that play the same role for those who cultivate them.

       This legend shows up in several other works, including a Daoist encyclopedia of the seventh century (i.e., early Tang dynasty) which contains a number of rituals or magical practices to which the legend contributed.  One detailed procedure allegedly allows one to be able to transform a pint container so that it contains Heaven and Earth.  Another ritual lets one reduce one's size as well as reducing distances.

       Were Fei Jiang-fang’s magical miniatures actually only detailed dwarf potted trees and other landscapes which transported the imaginations of viewers to other lands?  Was his story indicative of the potential of the miniature landscape?  Or, were the earliest pen gardens actually attempts to recreate Fei's works?  And for how many years or centuries might individual or sects of Daoists have developed the cultivation of these tiny gardens as a memory aid and focusing device for their attempts to be like Fei?

       At this point we cannot credit Fei with originating magical miniature landscapes: the earliest graphic evidence of these comes several centuries later and shows much more primitive compositions than are told of in his legend.   1



NOTES

1.    Stein, Rolf A. The World in Miniature (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press; 1990), pp. 54-55, 66-70, with Fig. 29 b&w photo on pg. 68, pg. 78, notes 129-134 on pp. 294-295.  See pp. 58-78 for much more information concerning hu (calabash gourd-shaped) vessels and miniature/magical worlds.  Depictions of the three Blessed Isles in the fourth century, for instance, resembled hu vessels, and they were known by the names Peng-hu, Fang-hu, and Ying-hu.  In addition, the gourd represents in all of Chinese East Asia the cornucopia: Chinese doctors pack their drugs into little empty gourds or into vials of the same shape, which also makes the fruit the symbol of curing.;

Mentioned in Wu, Yee-Sun   Man Lung Artistic Pot Plants (Hong Kong: Wing-Lung Bank Ltd.; 1969, 1974.  Second edition), pg. 62; Lesniewicz, Paul  Bonsai: The Complete Guide to Art & Technique (Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press; 1984), pg. 13; Lesniewicz, Paul and Hideo Kato  Practical Bonsai, Their Care, Cultivation and Training (London: W. Foulsham & Co., Ltd.; 1991), pg. 8; Webber, Leonard  Bonsai For the Home and Garden (North Ryde, NSW, Australia: Angus & Robertson Publishers; 1985), pg. 1; Koreshoff, Deborah R.  Bonsai: Its Art, Science, History and Philosophy (Brisbane, Australia: Boolarong Publications; 1984), pg. 3;

cf. Samson, Isabelle and Rémy Samson  The Creative Art of Bonsai (London: Ward Lock Ltd.; 1986), pg. 8: "Then, during the Tang dynasty and the later Song dynasty (960-1276) public records refer to a man who 'had learnt the art of creating the illusion of immensity enclosed within a small space and all this contained within a single pot.'";

The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Boston: Shambhala Publications, Inc.; 1991), pp. 53, 143;

Yanagisawa, Soen  Tray Landscapes ( Bonkei and Bonseki ) (Tokyo: Japan Travel Bureau; 1955, 1956, 1962, 1966), pp. 2, 77;

Behme, Robert  Bonsai, Saikei and Bonkei, Japanese Dwarf Trees and Tray Landscapes (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.; 1969), pg. 15;

Cahill, James  Scholar Painters of Japan: The Nanga School (New York: Asia House Gallery; 1972), pg. 89.


cf. "Zhang Guo was a Daoist magician who could ride vast distances on a magical mule; when he stopped to rest, he would fold it up like paper and put it in his hat-box.  He could bring it back to life when needed by spraying it with water from his mouth.  In an ink and color on silk handscroll by Ren Renfa (1255-1328), Zhang is seen demonstrating his magic powers before the Tang emperor Minghuang (Empress Wu's grandson Hsüan Tsung, the last great figure of the dynasty, 712-756).  As the old magician looks on with a crafty smile, a boy releases the miniature mule, which flies along the floor toward the emperor.  The mule is perhaps the size of a rat but has perfect equine proportions, complete with a tiny saddle.  Minghuang leans forward, credulous but reserved, while a courtier standing nearby clasps his hand and opens his mouth in wonderment.  (The painter of Zhang Guo Having an Audience with Emperor Minghuang followed a career of official service under the Mongols and as a painter specialized in portrayals of horses.)"  Per Yang, Xin et al Three Thousand Years of Chinese Painting (New Haven & London: Yale University Press and Beijing: Foreign Languages Press; 1997), pp. 150-151.
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