How did Nezha, originally of Indian descent and a Buddhist deity, become a Chinese god?

The origin of Nezha

Nezha, though familiar to the Chinese people, is not a native Chinese deity, but rather an import from the Indian Buddhist scriptures, like the Monkey King, the Great Sage of Heaven.

Na Cha's Sanskrit name is "Nezha Kubara," which was first introduced into China as "Na Cha. According to Buddhist scriptures, Nezha, who was born as the brother of two men, Nezha and Ba Zha, built temples to worship Buddhism and named them after themselves, and was a great fan of the Buddha Shakyamuni.

The Nezha of Buddhist mythology is a hybrid of the night-forked Nezha K???a of the Ramayana, a Hindu myth, and the god Krishna, who is "a child god of great strength and power, and both have been known to defeat giant serpents." The Buddhist god Nezha is the prince of the Northern Heavenly King Vishamon, who appears as a Buddhist guardian deity with great powers: "The Four Heavenly Kings are subordinate to the Emperor Shi and rule the world. The Four Heavenly Kings, who are subordinate to the emperor, rule the world, while the Four Heavenly Princes, such as Nezha, are capable of driving away ghosts and gods," and has great wisdom, "No one can use a box with a diamond, but Nezha is the first to use it. He was the first to raise his eyes to silence the three worlds and ring a bell to bring back the nine heavens." There is also a legend that says, "Prince Nezha returned the flesh to his mother and the bones to his father, and then he spoke to his parents on the lotus flower. Nezha's role as a defender of Buddhism and as a guardian of the world, "aiding and abetting the rightful ruler, holding the demons, and protecting the world and its people," has earned him a high status, and there are many incantations in Buddhism that call for Nezha's help.

The Tang Dynasty monk Hui Lin's book, "The Sound and Meaning of All Sutras," contains two volumes of Buddhist scriptures about Nezha: "Nezha Kubla's Sutra of Achievement" (哪吒俱钵羅求成就經一卷), and "Nezha Prince's Sutra of Achievement" (哪吒太子求成就陀罗尼經一卷). Unfortunately, the two Indian-origin sutras have been lost and are difficult to find out.

Figure 2 The first is the 25-volume Yinyi of the Sutras, also known as the Yinyi of All the Sutras, written by Shi Xuanying during the reign of the Tang Emperor Zhenguan. The second is the 100-volume Yinyi of All Sutras, written by Shih Huilin, a Buddhist monk, between the reigns of the Tang Dynasty and the Yuan He period.

The Image of Nezha

Before the Southern Song Dynasty, the image of Nezha was primitive, in the form of a Buddhist guardian deity of nightmares. Like many Buddhist guardians, Nezha has a fierce, angry appearance, which implies that he is as strong as he is vengeful. Unusually, Ne Zha has three heads, eight arms and nine eyes, and is armed with a demon-subduing vajra staff, an eight-petaled embroidered ball and a halberd.

After the Southern Song Dynasty, the image of Nezha underwent major changes.

In Yuan miscellaneous dramas, although Ne Zha still possesses the characteristics of the Buddhist god's appearance, such as three heads, eight arms and anger, the weaponry has become increasingly Chinese, including knives, swords, guns, bows and arrows.

The image of Nezha is further fleshed out in the novel Journey to the West, a novel of gods and demons. In the Journey to the West, Nezha evolved into the familiar figure of the clean-cut boy whose stories of killing the third prince of the Dragon King, returning bones to his father and regenerating himself from a lotus leaf brought the character to life.

Nezha's current image was finally established in the Ming Dynasty's "Enlightenment of the Gods," which was written during the Wanli reign. There are several chapters dedicated to the story of Nezha in the book, in which Nezha is reincarnated from a spirit bead, and his father cuts down a ball of flesh, and when he is born, "his body is red, and his face is like powder, and his right hand is covered with a gold bracelet, and there is a piece of red damask around his belly. Golden bracelet is Qiankun circle, red damask name is mixed sky damask. Worship Taiyi real teacher, kill the third prince, fight the dragon king, fight Shiji, and then suicide and death, Taiyi real for its use of lotus reshaped body, given the fire tip gun, wind and fire Qiankun circle, mixed sky damask and a concealed gold brick, down the mountain after the war with his father and after the war, eating fire dates generated three heads and eight arms, to help the king of Wu to fight against the king. At this point, Ne Zha has fully evolved into the image we know today.

The localization of Nezha

The evolution of Nezha from an exotic Buddhist deity to the local Taoist deity we know today has been a long and tortuous process of localization.

Buddhism was introduced to China at the time of the two Han dynasties. At this time, Confucianism and native Taoism were the mainstays of China, and the Buddhist teachings of emptiness and disregard for blood clashed with the Chinese ethic of filial piety, so Buddhism was not emphasized and was only classified as a form of traditional Chinese medicine. The god Nezha, who absorbed some of the legends from West and Central Asia, was not recognized by the Chinese people because he had an uneasy relationship with his father. As late as the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Zhe wrote in his poem "Na Cha", "There is a crazy son of the Northern Heavenly King who only knows how to worship Buddha but not his father". The image of Nezha contradicts traditional Chinese filial piety and needs to be changed.

The change in Nezha's image has been quite a "lying" one. As early as the Tang Dynasty, the father of the Buddhist god Nezha was revered, and temples were built throughout the country, with legends of Nezha leading divine armies to protect the country. Chinese folklore tends to associate historical figures with immortals, such as Mr. Lu Xun's "Wu Moustache" and "Aunt Du". After the Tang Dynasty, when the country was in decline, Li Jing, a famous general in the early Tang Dynasty, was more and more respected by the people and began to be deified.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, Li Jing and Vishamon Heavenly King were merged into one and became the revered "Vishamon Totah Li Tianwang", formally obtaining the establishment of Buddhist deities. Nezha, the son of King Vishamon, naturally became the son of Li Jing, completing a magnificent transformation from a Buddhist god of the night to a native Chinese god.

Figure 4 An embroidered image of Nezha, holding a gun and embroidered ball, from The Complete Book of the Three Religions and Sources of Searching for Gods

Then began the Taoist "reorganization" of Nezha's father and son.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Taoist priests began to say "Nezha, Nezha, Nezha", and the absorption of Nezha began. In the Ming Dynasty, Nezha was formally recognized as a marshal in the book "The Complete Book of the Three Religions and Sources of Searching for Gods and Goddesses", which was written during the Yongle period, and included in the genealogy of Taoist deities and immortals: "Nezha is a Dala Immortal under the Jade Emperor's driving force with a six-foot-long body and a golden wheel with a three-head, nine-eyed, eight-armed ...... Jade Emperor's order to descend to the mortal world, and was therefore entrusted to the Heavenly King of the Tota King, Li Jing". ...... Therefore, the Spirit Mountain will be thought of as Tongtian Taishi, Wei Ling Xianhe Great General. Jade Emperor that is sealed as thirty-six members of the first consul general, the sky marshal Yuan leader, the eternal town of heaven's door also."

To the "Journey to the West", Li Tianwang Nezha father and son have become the Taoist leader of the Jade Emperor's seat under the generals, Li Jing from the Buddhist Vishamon Heavenly King incarnation of the Taoist heavenly army leader, demon subduing marshal Tota Li Tianwang, Nezha is in the body of Li Tianwang, the third son of the Emperor, the seal of the three altars of the sea will be the great god.

The obviously non-Chinese name "Nezha" has also been forcibly explained as "originally, when the King of Heaven gave birth to this son, there was a character "哪" on his left palm, and "吒" on his right palm, hence the name Nezha. The name Nezha was given to him because he had the character "Na" on his left palm and "吒" on his right." But although Nezha was a child in appearance, his true form was still the Buddhist god of nightmares, and it was Buddha Rulai who remodeled his lotus body after his death and reconciled the conflict between his father and son, making him a "Buddhist on the outside, but a Buddhist on the inside", so to speak.

Figure 5 Li Jing, the king of the Totah Heavenly Kings, and Nezha, the third son of Nezha, in the CCTV version of Journey to the West

By the time of the "Enlightenment of the Gods," Nezha had become a purely indigenous Taoist god with Chinese cultural colors, who was born on Chinese soil, worshipped Taiyi Zhen Zhenzi as his teacher, and was reborn as a lotus flower, and whose Buddhist weapon, the pestle and mortar, had vanished completely, replaced by a symbol that was commonly seen in the summer of the Ming Dynasty. In its place are bangles, red silk and Chinese-style spears, which were common for children in the summer months of the Ming Dynasty. The tragic story of Nezha's relationship with the Heavenly King of the Pagoda, which went against the grain of father-son relationships, evolved into a story of Nezha's suicide in order to prevent his parents from getting into trouble, and then he and the Heavenly King of the Li Dynasty were reconciled as a father and son, thus completing the localization of the story.

During the Qing Dynasty, Nezha was fully recognized as a local Chinese deity, and when it came time to get to the bottom of the story, it was only half-heartedly said that "the story of Nezha is suspected to have come from the Buddhist scriptures".

Besides the cultural fusion, Nezha's powers of eliminating violence and safeguarding peace were widely spread by monks, and Nezha's ability to quell floods and save people from illnesses in local legends made him popular with the public. The image of Nezha as a baby boy wearing a red bib was a favorite among the farming community. As a result, Nezha has become a popular cult, and to this day, Nezha temples in the Jiangyou area of Sichuan and Taiwan are still in full bloom.

The introduction and reinvention of the image of Nezha is a testament to the inclusiveness of Chinese civilization.