Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Volumes 1 and 2)

CII. A TAOIST DEVOTEE.

Herbert Allen Giles translation

Chü Yao-ju was a Ch‘ing-chou man, who, when his wife died, left his home and became a priest.[520] Some years afterwards he returned, dressed in the Taoist garb, and carrying his praying-mat[521] over his shoulder; and after staying one night he wanted to go away again. His friends, however, would not give him back his cassock and staff; so at length he pretended to take a stroll outside the village, and when there, his clothes and other belongings came flying out of the house after him, and he got safely away.

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · It would be more usual to “renew the guitar string,” as the Chinese idiom runs. In the paraphrase of the first maxim of the Sacred Edict we Note 2 · This, as well as the staff mentioned below, belongs to Buddhism. See No. IV., note 46. return to text