Subverting Celestial Authority in Song Dynasty Art
In the flickering candlelight of a 12th-century Song Dynasty workshop, an anonymous painter dipped his brush into vermilion pigment to depict a scene that would unsettle imperial censors for centuries. The resulting Soushan Tu (搜山图, Demon-Quelling Scroll), now preserved in the Palace Museum, Beijing, presents a cosmic paradox: heavenly soldiers with bulging eyes and twisted faces hunt down fox spirits wearing scholar robes, while weeping deer-women clutch their half-human infants. This 6-meter-long visual rebellion dismantles the myth of divine benevolence through deliberate symbolic inversion—a coded critique of power that still resonates today.
The scroll's genius lies in its grotesque ambiguity. A boar-headed soldier drags a tree spirit by its roots, the latter's branches clawing at the air like skeletal hands. Nearby, a pheasant-winged celestial general raises a spiked mace over a cowering family of rabbit spirits, their human-like faces frozen in terror. These are not the clean moral binaries of temple murals, but a murky world where pursuer and prey mirror each other's monstrosity.
The Yuan Dynasty zaju (杂剧, poetic drama) Erlang Shen Zui She Suomo Jing (二郎神醉射锁魔镜, The Drunken Erlang Shen Shoots the Demon-Sealing Mirror) provides textual counterparts to these haunting images. In the play, the drunken god Erlang Shen (二郎神) accidentally shatters a mystical mirror containing two demon kings, unleashing chaos upon the mortal realm. Yet the Soushan Tu asks uncomfortable questions: Who defines "demons"? When celestial guards resemble the horned Yaoguai (妖怪, evil spirits) they pursue, where does true evil reside?
78% of the scroll's 46 "demonic" figures wear Han Chinese attire, while the heavenly battalion sports Jurchen-style armor—a daring commentary on the 1127 Jingkang Incident (靖康之变), when northern "barbarians" sacked the Song capital. Like Goya's Disasters of War, this was protest art disguised as folklore. The painter even smuggled in political satire: A monkey demon clutching a torn imperial edict bears an uncanny resemblance to Song Huizong, the artist-emperor whose love of aesthetics doomed his reign.
How Folk Operas Gave Voice to the Marginalized
Beneath the painted silk lies a deeper rebellion: China's folk performance traditions as vehicles for suppressed narratives. Consider the Ming Dynasty Mulian Xi (目连戏, Mulian Rescues His Mother), a Buddhist ritual opera performed during the Hungry Ghost Festival. In one haunting scene, a wronged concubine-turned-fox-spirit sings:
"They called me huli jing (狐狸精, seductress fox)
For loving a scholar beneath my station
Now heaven's hounds tear my golden tails
Who judges the judge? Who blesses this damnation?"
These performances blurred sacred and subversive. During the Qing Dynasty, troupes in Anhui province inserted satirical subplots about corrupt magistrates into the Mulian Xi framework. Actors playing condemned ghosts would improvise critiques of local officials, shielded by the premise that they were merely "channeling spirits."
This tradition finds modern echoes in 2019's animated blockbuster Nezha: Mo Tong Jiangshi (哪吒之魔童降世, Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child). The film's breakout character—stuttering mentor Shen Gongbao (申公豹)—embodies centuries of resistance against predetermined roles. He declares, "Chengjian (成见, prejudice) is a mountain no demon can climb".
The Soushan Tu's snake spirit peeking from a tree—equal parts terrified and terrifying—becomes a universal refugee. Similarly, in the Kunqu (昆曲) opera Fleeing the Hunt, a persecuted fox spirit delivers a monologue that could belong to any dissident: "I am the monster they needed me to be, so their swords might taste purpose."
The Evolution of Justice in Chinese Storytelling
The 17th-century Revised Soushan Tu housed in Boston's MFA reveals a fascinating shift: Erlang Shen's role diminishes while Guan Yu (关羽), the red-faced God of War, emerges center-stage. This wasn't mere artistic preference. As Ming rule crumbled, people sought heroes who rose from mortal ranks—a butcher-turned-deity symbolizing merit over birthright. Guan Yu's green-dragon blade now strikes down both demons and corrupt officials, reflecting public yearning for earthly accountability.
Modern adaptations radicalize this theme. In the experimental Kunqu opera Demons' Reckoning, actors wearing half-mask (半面, banmian) portray dual identities. The Erlang Shen performer snarls: "I am the law!" then whispers: "The law is my hunger." Behind him, projections show Song Dynasty tax collectors burning villages—a visceral reminder that historical "demon-quelling" campaigns often targeted tax-evading peasants labeled as yao min (妖民, demonic people).
The 2023 digital exhibition Unseen Soushan at Shanghai's Power Station of Art takes this further. Visitors don VR headsets to experience the scroll from a demon's perspective: Heavenly soldiers loom like giants, their armor dripping molten gold that burns the virtual landscape. Curator Zhang Wei explains: "We wanted to question who truly 'melts' whom in these conflicts. The gods' righteousness often literally scorches the earth."
As director Yang Yu (饺子) told China Daily: "Today's villains are tomorrow's heroes. Our films don't create this change—they prove it's already happened." This fluid morality permeates works like the movie Legend of the Demon Cat (妖猫传), where a feline spirit exposes imperial crimes, asking: "If truth makes me a monster, what does that make your glorious emperors?"
China's demon-quelling tales form a 900-year dialogue about power and resistance. The Soushan Tu's genius lies not in answers, but in its unresolved tension: the recognition that today's liberator could become tomorrow's tyrant.
As night falls, shadow puppeteers still perform Erlang Shen's Hunt. Children gasp as the god's silhouette morphs into a wolf, then a bureaucrat, then their own wide-eyed faces. In this flickering light, the ancient question persists—when justice wears a hundred masks, how do we know which is divine?
