Chapter 3 驕傲 Arrogance

ExR trans: Arrogance Part 4 FW pages 81-93

I am not a comparative religion expert, and I make no pretense of it. I’m just someone who reads Wikipedia too much.

観音 Kannon = Guan1yin1 = Avalokiteśvara, one of the most popular bodhisattvas in all of Buddhism. Bodhisattvas are people who have achieved Buddhist enlightenment but decided to stick around to help others achieve enlightenment too. Much like other Indian theological figures, they can have many forms, so what ExR says in their notes is not entirely correct. It just so happens that Avalokiteśvara in art tends to have more masculine depictions while Guanyin has more feminine depictions, but they’re not mutually exclusive. Further readings　 Seriously, I type in 男姿の観音 (“male kannon”) and the first result is a photo gallery of a master Buddha sculptor in Kyoto, Japan.

九天玄女 Kytuuten gen'nyo = Jiu3tian1 Xuan2nü3 = Dark lady of nine heavens 7S readers, I highly recommend you pencil in some umlauts on pages 90 and 388. I know that English is allergic to diacritics, but this one is important. “nu” and “nü” are totally different sounds. The Dark Lady of Nine Heavens is a figure in Chinese folklore described as an immortal in Daoism and a goddess elsewhere. As stated, Xuannü presides over war, sex, and longevity, a la wikipedia. Not sure where 7S got “protectress of the nation” but I’m going to chalk that up to them doing more primary source research than I did. The big story mentioned on Wikipedia revolves around her being a mentor to the Yellow Emperor, who has a long list of accomplishments as a mythological figure in his own right. Xuannü is the elder sister of 九天素女 jiu3tian1 su4nü3/kyuuten sojo, the Pure Lady of Nine Heavens, another music and sex deity. There’s a third sister mentioned on the English page but somehow not the Japanese or Chinese pages, cai4nü3 彩女, the Colorful Lady. I think she must be better known by another name, since I’m not getting any search results. Japanese wiki also links back to a few more literary appearances of Xuannü: in 12th century Chinese literary classic Water Margin 水滸傳 shui3hu3zhuan4/suikoden (chapter 41), 16th century novel The Three Sui Quash the Demons’ Revolt 三遂平妖傳 san1 sui4 ping2 yao1 chuan2, and 18th century Japanese travelogue Journey to the East 東遊記, touyuuki (yes, that’s blatant literary homage to Journey to the West 西遊記 xi1you2ji4/saiyuuki) Further reading on Jiutian Xuannü I’m not linking the Taoist sexual practices page… you go look that up on Wiki yourself.

玉皇大帝 gyokukoutaitei = yu4huang2da4di4 = Jade emperor Basic reading material here. The Jade Emperor is a deity in both Chinese folklore and Daoism. Most of you are probably reading TGCF. If you’re curious enough to look up Junwu as a mythological figure, I won’t be redundant. It is strange to me that FW defines him as a 神 kami. Daoism doesn’t seem to be keen on gods, I thought? I really need to do some further reading…

Note to self: I need to read the Classic of Mountains and Seas at some point. It was quoted at the beginning of every segment of Xiran Jay Zhao’s Iron Widow, and I was really curious about it back then, and I am even more now.

ExR uses “Erjin temple” but FW just uses 寺院 jiin. They’re totally different words. Erjin temples, as ExR notes, are a specific kind of temple built well into the mountains. I’m still not sure what the base word is to back check a Chinese dictionary whether it’s a term affiliated with a particular religion or not. Jiin appears to be a catch all for Buddhist temples. “A building in which statues of Buddha are enshrined, where monks/nuns live, where religious worship, training, and ceremonies are performed.” The Encyclopedia Nipponica has a long article on word origin and usage of each of those characters, 寺 ji and 院 in respectively, and their usage differences between India, China, and Japan, and I will stop myself from going on that tangent here.

Customary units of measure are a trip. It’s one of those things that changes based on your location and time period. 1 丈 zhang4/jou = 10 尺 chi3/shaku. The Dancing Devi is about “3 丈” tall. Is this thing really 3 meters/9.84 ft tall in traditional units?

Some references for metrics

Jin Ling insults the thing anyway.

“Powerless goddess without status” (ExR) “some nameless rogue deity” (7S pg. 92) 聞いたこともない野良神 (FW pg. 83) “a stray deity I've never even heard of”

Not to be confused with the manga by the same name. 野良 nora is the “stray” you’d use for “stray cat”. I’m giving this one to 7S.

Also! ExR, with all due respect, your use of idiom leaves much to be desired. There are some phrases which inexplicably happen to be near identical across multiple languages. “Strike while the iron is hot” is one of them. “[Kill] two birds with one stone” is another. Why is this footnoted?

The townspeople of Buddha’s Feet were all astonished and thought that it was a magical stone formed by gathering he energy of heaven and earth… (ExR)

佛脚鎮の人々は非常に驚き、これは天地の霊力が結集した神の石だと信じて…… (FW pg 81) The people of Buddha’s Leg Garrison were extremely surprised–they believed that this was a stone deity concentrated from the spiritual power of heaven and earth…

ExR you are dropping adjectives again…

What happens in the cave had enough differences on both sides I got thrown off a few times.

With a few shings, everyone in the cave had either drawn their swords or taken out their talismans. At the same time, a person suddenly burst in from outside the temple, holding a gourd of medicinal alcohol. He threw it toward the stone statue, and raging flames sprouted from it, illuminating the stone cave so that it could even pass for daytime. … Before, the statue clearly had one foot lifted and both of its arms raised upward, of which one was pointing directly at the sky, its form graceful. However, amid the crimson and yellow flames, it had lowered both its arms and its foot. there was no doubt–it definitely wasn’t a mistake of the eye! (ExR)

石窟の中の者たちがそれぞれ剣を抜いたり、呪符を取り出したりする音が響く。ちょうどその時、祠の外から突然誰かが駆け込んできて、薬酒入りのひょうたんを天女像に向かってぶちまけた。石窟の中は、たちまちむせかえるような強烈な酒気で満ち溢れる。その男が呪符を一枚取り出して素早く石像に投げつけると、神座の上の石像から轟々と烈火が燃え上がり、石窟の中をまるで昼間のように照らした。 … 先ほどまで石像の両腕は上がっていた。片方の腕は天を指し、足も片方だけ上げていて、その姿はなんともなまめかしく色気があった。それが、今や炎の中のその手足はすべて下ろされている。決して見間違いなどではない！(FW pg 83-84) The sound of the folks in the cavern drawing their swords or pulling out talismans resounded. At that very moment, someone from outside the shrine suddenly rushed in, turned a gourd filled with medicinal alcohol toward the celestial maiden statue, and dumped out its contents. The inside of the cave was flooded with the overpowering smell of liquor as though it was choked all at once. That man pulled out a talisman, and no sooner did he promptly throw it toward the stone statue, conflagration erupted thunderously from the stone statue on the altar*, illuminating the inside of the cavern as though it were daytime. … Up until this point, the stone statue had both arms raised. One arm pointed toward the heavens, and it lifted both feet and just that one arm; and its form was really crudely adorned, and had sex appeal. Now, amongst the flames its limbs were all lowered. There was absolutely no mistaking it.

神座 shinza isn’t quite an altar. It’s the part of the shrine where the “god” “sits”. There’s no snappy one-to-one English word that I know of. I no longer recall if I had said so in a previous post, but part of the reason I go back and forth between “Celestial Maiden” and “Devi” is because of the donghua’s interpretation of this statue having extra body parts the way an Indian depiction of a many formed non-human being would. I also like the alliteration of “dancing devi”. You could argue 色気 iroke is “grace” but that’s not the first definition of the word. According to Jisho.org, “grace” number 4. The extra olfactory imagery combined with the more powerful flame imagery of the Japanese I think sets the scene a little better. I would like to know what happened to the “crimson and yellow” flames, but alas. You could also argue I under translated 見間違い mimachigai by not specifically including the explicit visual factor 見 mi. “Misjudgment” didn’t feel right; “mistake of vision” was too verbose. I’d have to think a lot longer to come up with something better, but I still have a ton more quotations to go through.

Lan JingYi’s face was pale with terror… (ExR)

蘭景儀が死んだような顔をした。(FW pg 85) Lan Jingyi made a face like he had died.

Poor kid

“…Dead souls are a lot easier to absorb than living souls… This creature only eats living souls, and knows of a way to obtain them. It is both powerful and selective in terms of food.”

死霊の魂は生霊の魂よりも遥かに吸い取られやすい…それなのに、あの天女像は簡単に食べられる死霊の魂じゃなくて、わざわざ生霊の魂だけを選ぶような偏食だ。(FW pg 86) The soul of a spirit of the dead is by and far much easier to absorb than the soul of a spirit of the living…Despite that, that devi statue appears to be a picky eater who chooses not the souls of dead spirits which it could simply eat, but only souls of the living, on purpose.

I need to revise my glossary yet again. The last time I saw 生霊 ikiryou, I thought WWX was talking about astral projection. A “Wraith” is “an apparition of someone that is believed to appear as a portent just before that person’s death.” (Wordnik.com) so I thought it might line up nicely. I was wrong.

Also at some point in this discussion, around page 88ish, they stop using plain old 魂 tamashii to describe what the Dancing Devi consumed and switch over to 魂魄 konpaku, which, if I’m reading this Wikipedia page correctly, has different theological implications. TLDR Chinese spiritualities postulate that you don’t have just one soul, but several, and they come in two varieties: 魂 hun2 is connected to human mental capacities while 魄 po4 pertains more to the flesh. You can have multiples of each. When you die, 魂 hun2 separates from 魄 po4, which is why your spirit wanders off but your corpse remains.

“Wait, so you’re really not a lunatic?” (ExR) 「ちょっと待てよ⁉あんた、本当は阿保じゃなかったのか⁉」　(FW pg 86)

No, he’s not a simpleton either.

Lan JingYi, “All of these are just your guesses, right?” (ExR) 「そりゃそうだけど。でもこのまま仮説を立て続ければ、きっとすべての辻褄が合うはずだ。」 (FW pg. 88) “That may be so. But if you keep raising hypotheses like this, they should all be consistent eventually.”

They better be given how much text I’m rekeying.

The goddess statue was originally just an average rock which happened to look like a person. Having accepted a few hundred years’ worth of worship without any reason, it had gained some powers. Yet, because it was greedy and its thoughts ventured off the wrong path, it had wanted to quickly increase its powers by eating souls. …the creature in Dafan Mountain wasn’t any sprite, demon, ghost, or monster, but a goddess! This was an untitled goddess born from the hundreds of years of incense. Using the items used to deal with evil spirits and beasts to deal with it would be like using fire to distinguish [sic] fire! (ExR)

天女像は、たまたま人間の姿に似ていたため、奇しくも数百年も祀られ続け力を得たが、もともとただの石の塊でしかなかった。しかし非常に欲深い天女像はいつからか魔が差して、信じ難いことに魂魄を吸って食べることによって力をさらに増幅させようと目論んだようだ。……大梵山にいる怪異の正体は、妖魔鬼怪の類ではなく、神だったのだから！ 食魂天女は、数百年にわたって祀られてきた野良神のなれの果てだ。だから、殺鬼や妖獣を退治するためのものを使って戦うのは火で火を消そうとするのも同然だ！(FW pg 89) The devi statue miraculously gained power through continued worship over several hundred years due to the fact that it somewhat resembled a human, but originally it was nigh but a clump of rock. However, the extremely greedy devi statue at some point succumbed [to its greed], and as hard as it is to believe, appears to have schemed to magnify its power even more by consuming souls… Because the true face of the mystery of Mount Daibon was not some type of creature, demon, ghost, or monster, but a deity! The soul eating devi was a shadow of its former self–a stray deity worshiped over hundreds of years. So fighting it by using thing for exorcising killers or beasts would be no different from trying to extinguish fire with fire!

When I first saw “ventured onto the wrong path” I was a little nervous we might have another questionable compound ending with ending 道. It didn’t quite go where I thought it would. On the other side of this equation is 魔が差す ma ga sasu, an idiom both containing a key word, 魔=demon, and meaning “to be possessed by an evil spirit” as definition number one. I liked definitions two and three better, “to give in to an urge, to succumb to temptation”, and I would also like to emphasize there’s absolutely no way this stone statue could ever be a “demon,” as per the definition of which in Chapter 4, given that it was “originally a clump of rock”. 妖魔鬼怪 youmakikai isn’t a word in Japanese, but yao1mo2gui3guai4 is in Chinese, and there’s a set translation for it. Without the context of Chapter 4, I would ascertain ExR is overtranslating 妖魔鬼怪, but with that context, taking it one character at a time is perfectly fine. I’m using my own and totally ignoring ExR’s note. There’s genuinely no satisfying way to parse 妖 you (ayakashi)/yao1, and as far as I know, there aren’t enough examples of them in this novel to even bother trying. I’m not typing up the whole paragraph from 7S but they use nefarious being for 妖魔鬼怪 and malicious spirits for 殺鬼や妖獣. I see why they might have done that (e.g. lack of context) but I do not agree.

Wei WuXian couldn’t help but to comment, “Why are you blindly worshiping him? Even his own inventions were a mess! (ExR) Wei Wuxian replied helplessly, “What are you blindly believing ion him for? Anything he came up with was utter bullshit. (7S pg 100)

「あんな奴の言葉なんてむやみに信じるなよ。あいつは自分のことすらちゃんとできない、めちゃくちゃな人間だからな！(FW pg 90-91) “Don’t believe whatever that [sort of] guy says so indiscriminately! He [derogatory] was a mess of a man who couldn’t even take care of himself properly!

The reason I bring this one up is because I’m not sure exactly where his “inventions” comes from? It is bothering me.

To extinguish fire, water was needed. Therefore, if magical weapons didn’t work, what about dark sorcery? (ExR)

DISAGREE

You need water to extinguish fire. If spiritual devices wouldn’t work, then how about demonic tricks?! (7S pg 101)

DISAGREE

火を消すには水を、仙門法器がダメなら、邪門鬼道の技を使うしかない！(FW pg 93) To extinguish fire, [missing verb] water; if the tools of the trade of the school of cultivation were no good, then one could only use the techniques of the evil school of the ghost path!

I’m being overly literal with 仙門法器 senmon houki for the sake of a parallel structure that’d otherwise be dropped entirely, because I thought it was cleverly worded. For the record’s sake, these are totally made up strings of characters. They’re not real words. I have to do mental back flips to make them real words. Break down as follows. Translation… is pain.

This should have been a last resort for him, but however, with the situation already like this, it didn’t matter what he summoned. It’d be fine as long as the dark energy was strong enough and the killing intent was keen enough, so that it could rip the soul-consuming goddess into pieces! (ExR) He shouldn’t have done this unless it was absolutely necessary. But with things as they were, he no longer cared hat was summoned, as long as it was murderous enough and vengeful enough. As long as it could rip apart the soul-eating Heavenly Maiden, it was good enough! (7S pg 102)

万策尽きるまで、この手を使うつもりはなかった。だがこうなったら、どんなモノが召喚されてももう構わない。邪気が強く凶暴で、あの食魂天女をズタズタに引きちぎってくれるモノであれば！(FW pg 92) He didn’t plan on using this tactic until all other means were exhausted. But at this point he didn’t care what sort of thing he summoned. As long as it was something with strong malice and ferocious, that could tear that soul-eating devi to pieces!

I really don’t like ExR’s “dark energy”. 7S is a little more piecemeal than FW’s is, but it’s certainly closer to my back translation.

The word only referred one person—the right-hand man of the YiLing Patriarch Wei Ying, who had helped with the tyrant’s crimes, stirred upwind and waves, played the jackal to the tiger, overturned the world with him, and most of all was a fierce corpse who should have been turned into ashes a long time ago—Wen Ning! (ExR)

この単語を指すのはただ一人。それは夷陵老祖魏嬰の第一の手下で、彼の悪逆を助けて騒ぎを引き起こした共犯者であり、天地を覆すほどの力を持ち、とうの昔に焼き払われ灰にされたはずの凶屍――温寧！ (FW pg 93) This word referred to only one person. That was the Iryou elder Wei Ying’s number one subordinate, the accomplice who assisted his atrocities and provoked uproars, a revenant who had the power to overthrow heaven and earth, and who was supposed to have been burnt to the ground and reduced to ashes–Wen Ning!

As stated in the above post, I will be damned if I ever use “fierce corpse”; it sounds dumb. Interesting turn of phrase there in the ExR translation but I’m not sure what exactly it’s pointing at. Maybe that was an addition on their side? 焼き払われ灰にされた is pretty redundant, and if I wasn’t back translating most of the time, I would have dropped one of them.