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借尸还魂 (jie4 shi1 huan2 hun2) - The ploy of incarnation
By Zhang Ciyun |
October 5, 2008, Sunday
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Print Edition
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THE title of this stratagem means literally that the soul of one dead person is reincarnated in the corpse of another. In military terms, this means to use whatever is discarded by others as useless to achieve your goal.
This scheme is actually derived from a legend in Chinese history.
More than 2,000 years ago, there was a young and handsome scholar named Li Xuan. He was very learned and highly intelligent. So, Tai Shang Lao Jun (a revered title of Lao Zi or Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism) took him as a disciple and taught the young man the art of immortality.
One day, Lao Zi invited the young Li to tour the world of gods in heaven. But as an ordinary man, he couldn't fly into the heaven in his earthly body. So, he decided to leave his body behind and let his soul travel with his master.
Before his departure, Li told one of his students to look after his corpse for seven days. "I will still need it to return to this world," Li said. "If I fail to come back within seven days, then I probably have become a deity myself."
The student guarded his teacher's empty body carefully for six days and nights. Then, he got an urgent message saying his mother was seriously sick and dying. This threw him into a dilemma: to stay and guard his teacher's body here or rush back home to see his mother for the last time.
Under the persuasion of others, the student abandoned his teacher's corpse and hurried home. On the seventh day, Li returned from his tour in the heavens and couldn't find his own body any more. But it was urgent that he find a body or his soul would miss the deadline for reincarnation. Just then, his soul saw the corpse of a beggar on the roadside and immediately appropriated the dead body for his resurrection.
Since the dead beggar was a limp before, so the scholar turned his bamboo stick into an iron crutch to help him walk. Later, he became known as "Iron Crutch Li" and his real name was gradually forgotten.
Today the term of "borrowing a corpse to resurrect a soul" may also be used to mean reviving something from the past by giving it a new purpose or a present-day "shell."
It can be an idea, custom, policy, belief or tradition, but always with a derogatory connotation.
This scheme is actually derived from a legend in Chinese history.
More than 2,000 years ago, there was a young and handsome scholar named Li Xuan. He was very learned and highly intelligent. So, Tai Shang Lao Jun (a revered title of Lao Zi or Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism) took him as a disciple and taught the young man the art of immortality.
One day, Lao Zi invited the young Li to tour the world of gods in heaven. But as an ordinary man, he couldn't fly into the heaven in his earthly body. So, he decided to leave his body behind and let his soul travel with his master.
Before his departure, Li told one of his students to look after his corpse for seven days. "I will still need it to return to this world," Li said. "If I fail to come back within seven days, then I probably have become a deity myself."
The student guarded his teacher's empty body carefully for six days and nights. Then, he got an urgent message saying his mother was seriously sick and dying. This threw him into a dilemma: to stay and guard his teacher's body here or rush back home to see his mother for the last time.
Under the persuasion of others, the student abandoned his teacher's corpse and hurried home. On the seventh day, Li returned from his tour in the heavens and couldn't find his own body any more. But it was urgent that he find a body or his soul would miss the deadline for reincarnation. Just then, his soul saw the corpse of a beggar on the roadside and immediately appropriated the dead body for his resurrection.
Since the dead beggar was a limp before, so the scholar turned his bamboo stick into an iron crutch to help him walk. Later, he became known as "Iron Crutch Li" and his real name was gradually forgotten.
Today the term of "borrowing a corpse to resurrect a soul" may also be used to mean reviving something from the past by giving it a new purpose or a present-day "shell."
It can be an idea, custom, policy, belief or tradition, but always with a derogatory connotation.
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