24 Chinese Families in Buddhist Stories: Family Values in the Stories of Mulian and the White Snake

As Confucianism was the state ideology of China for much of Chinese history, official records and widespread literature tend to support a Confucian point of view. Confucianism as an institution mostly took a dim view of Buddhism, claiming it was anti-family. However, Buddhist opinions can be found, if not in official records, then through popular stories. The stories of the White Snake and of Mulian are two such stories that offer Buddhist insight into Chinese Buddhist culture. Although Buddhism has a reputation of being anti-family in Chinese culture, the stories of Mulian and the White Snake indicate that Chinese Buddhist culture supported a version of the traditional Chinese family institution. Mulian’s story is about a monk who rescues his mother from the underworld, and the White Snake is about a Buddhist shape-shifting snake woman who marries and starts a family with a man who eventually becomes a monk. Each story provides an example of how families can and do exist under Buddhism.

Buddhist families are not only culturally present in China, but also legally permitted, supporting the constructions of family written about in the two stories. Buddhist monastic law codes include multiple provisions for monks who maintain contact with their family. These laws cover many different types of family relationship, which fall into two categories: co-renunciation and family relations between monks and laypeople. Co-renunciation is a general term for members of the same family “renouncing the world” together and joining a monastery. As an example, a monastic law concerning the minimum age of novices makes it clear that a layperson “can leave home for the religious life with… children,” as long as those children are above a certain age. The codes also reference “husbands and wives who have left home for the religious life together… [and] such monastic couples receive no comment or criticism”^[1] in these codes, indicating that married couples as well as blood relatives can co-renounce. Relationships between monks and laypeople are also allowed to exist in monastic law. In several cases, “it is taken for granted that monks visit family,” meaning that they maintain an emotional connection to those relatives.”^[2] This too extends to marital relationships, which are still recognized even if one party leaves for a monastery.^[3]

Legally, there is a significant amount of evidence for the maintenance of family relationships. However, two obstacles arise in using this legal evidence as the sole method of proving that the family relationship existed in the Chinese Buddhist context. First, although many of these laws are preserved in Chinese or have Chinese versions, many of them were written in the context of Indian Buddhism, and therefore do not provide insight on the Chinese Buddhist tradition.^[4] These laws also do not necessarily reveal how acceptable these practices were socially; they only state if a given action is permissible under the law. Chinese Buddhist stories, such as Mulian and the White Snake, supplement these laws, and indicate that in the Chinese Buddhist tradition, family relationships with and among monks were often maintained, and in some cases even followed the traditional Chinese framework of what a family should be. The story of the White Snake is a more personal, specific story that showcases how family relationships function within a Chinese Buddhist framework, while the story of Mulian instructs the reader how to achieve an ideal Chinese Buddhist parent-child relationship.

The story of Mulian provides proof that the family relationship is honored in monastic life, both by instructing the reader on the Chinese Buddhist parent-child relationship and through the characters in the story, all of which acknowledge Mulian’s family relationship despite his status as a monk. As an instructive narrative, the clearest purpose of the story is that “the myth of [Mulian] saving his mother [serves] to justify one of the most widespread of annual celebrations in China.” ^[5]The origin of the yulanpen 盂蘭盆, or Ghost Festival, is explained in the story of Mulian, when the Buddha takes pity on Mulian and creates the festival so his mother, who is trapped as a hungry ghost and is therefore starving, can eat the offerings Mulian provides to her.^[6] The Ghost Festival provides a way to adhere to traditional Chinese values of ancestral reverence in a Buddhist manner “by donating gifts to the Buddhist establishment donors produced a stock of merit that was dedicated to their forebears, who received the benefits in the form of a better rebirth.”^[7] This is similar to the requirements set by The Classic of Family Reverence, which mandates that relatives are “to make offerings to the spirit of the deceased” in annual spring and autumn sacrifices.^[8] Essentially, the Ghost Festival moves traditional ancestral sacrifices into the purview of Buddhism by inserting merit as an intermediary—instead of making offerings to the deceased, the family produces merit which is then given to the deceased. This insertion of Buddhism into the ancestor-descendant relationship, with Mulian’s story as its origin, proves that Chinese conceptions of family, including ancestral reverence, were permitted and even encouraged under Buddhism.

While the Ghost Festival is a way for lay people to participate in family relationships under Buddhism, the story of Mulian is about a monk and his mother, and as such can also be used as a guide to the relationship between a monk and their parents. In an ideal parent-monk relationship, “monks, as sons, are to recognize what their parents did for them and realize the depth of what is owed.”^[9] This provides a rationale for maintaining a family relationship even when a monk has theoretically renounced all worldly ties—in Buddhism, karmic debts must be paid even after joining a monastery. Owing a karmic debt to parents turns the child’s bond with them from a worldly attachment that needs to be overcome by severing it to a tie that needs to be overcome by repaying the debt. This debt, however, is repaid differently by monks and lay people. While lay people can repay their parents by donating to the monasteries on the Ghost Festival, monks were not allowed to touch money and were expected to “convert their parents to the Buddhist way of life to ensure their happiness.”^[10]  Mulian’s service to his mother is unconventional due to his fantastical circumstances, in which he has supernatural powers, direct assistance from the Buddha, and his mother is already dead and in hell. However, his service still achieves the same result—by rescuing his mother from the underworld, he spiritually uplifts her through Buddhism. Mulian also uplifts his mother by more conventional means through reciting scriptures on her behalf and showing her the benefits of Buddhist life.^[11] Through his devotion to his mother through Buddhist acts of service, Mulian demonstrates that not only is a relationship between a monk and their parents possible, but that a parent-monk relationship is ideal in Chinese Buddhism.

The characters in the story of Mulian reinforce the specifically Buddhist relationship between him and his mother by acknowledging both his status as a powerful Buddhist and his relationship with his mother. Although human characters are expected to be fallible and make mistakes, even the supernatural characters who know right from wrong acknowledge his power and his relationship. For example, when Mulian asks King Yama for help locating his mother, Yama first greets him according to his station as a virtuous Buddhist, calling Mulian “your reverence” and “[bowing] to the holy man [Mulian].”^[12] Yama, the king of the underworld, who has enough moral authority to be the judge of the dead, in one sentence acknowledges both Mulian’s religious status as a monk and his family relationship to his mother, saying “this reverend gentleman’s mother is called Lady Leek Stem.”^[13] This acknowledgement indicates that even supernaturally moral characters accept that monks can and do have family relationships, even after renouncing the world. Yama’s endorsement of Mulian’s relationship with his mother is not the most significant one, however. When Mulian encounters difficulties in freeing his mother from the Avici Hell, he implores the Buddha himself for help, and “Buddha lends him his own monk’s staff, which will protect him from every peril and enable him to beat down the gates of the Avici Hell.”^[14] Not only does the Buddha acknowledge Mulian’s status as a monk by giving him a monk’s tool, he also specifically provides assistance in his quest to free his mother, offering implicit approval of said quest by doing so. Many Buddhist monastic laws are preceded by a story that ends with the Buddha reacting to it by approving or disapproving of some action that causes the creation of said law.^[15] Buddha himself approving of the filial piety of a monk in this story indicates that monks having families is completely acceptable in Chinese Buddhism.

Another Chinese Buddhist story, the White Snake,^[16] is less instructive as an example of an ideal family, but still proves the prevalence of Chinese Buddhist family relationships. The titular white snake, also known as Lady Bai in the story, takes human form and marries a human named Xu Xian, and eventually gives birth to a son, Mengjiao. Eventually, Lady Bai is apprehended for various misdeeds, and both her and Xu Xian convert to Buddhism, with Xu Xian becoming a monk, while Mengjiao remains a layman. Although the characters in the story are more developed and therefore harder to project oneself onto, the family relationships maintained by each of them, without hesitation, provides more evidence that family relationships existed within a Chinese Buddhist framework.

The continuation of a traditional family structure within the monastery is attested to when Mengjiao reunites with his father and offers to join the monastery to be with him. Although Xu Xian and Lady Bai are Buddhists, Mengjiao is a devout Confucian, and as a filial son, he must serve his parents above all else.^[17] However, he has some difficulty with this, as his father refuses to leave the monastery, making it difficult for Mengjiao to be properly filial to him. Mengjiao poses a solution to this, saying that “I, your son, will stay with you in this monastery/You will be a monk and I’ll serve as an acolyte/Father and son, we will practice self-cultivation.”^[18] As mentioned previously, co-renunciation is regarded by Buddhists as a way to continue a family relationship, but Buddhist canon law gives no indication of the opinions of those outside of Buddhism. Mengjiao, a Confucian,^[19] believes that co-renouncing with his father is a form of filial piety. Given that throughout the story he is portrayed as an ideal Confucian, non-Buddhist members of Chinese society must also believe that this is an option that maintains the relationship between parent and child. It is not the ideal option—Mengjiao only requests this once it becomes clear that his father will not leave the monastery—but it is an option that maintains the family relationship in a close enough manner to Chinese custom that a devout Confucian is willing to accept it.

Even family relationships that may qualify as worldly ties are recognized in the White Snake story, and therefore in Chinese Buddhism at large. When Mengjiao offers to co-renounce with his father, Xu Xian responds by ordering him to take the exams and continue their lineage.^[20] While emotional relationships are arguably not worldly, concern about the success of one’s lineage is certainly a worldly concern. Yet Xu Xian says that “only because the Xu lineage still lacked an heir/did your mother descend to this mortal world.”^[21] Earlier in the story, Lady Bai descends to the world because the mahasattva Guanyin tells her that she owes a karmic debt to Xu Xian,^[22] so Xu Xian’s speech to his son implies that giving him a successful child who could continue the Xu lineage was the way that Lady Bai karmically repaid him. For continuing the Xu lineage to be a valid way to repay Xu Xian, it must be considered a good deed in the ideological framework of Chinese Buddhism. As continuing a family lineage is considered a good deed, the Chinese conception of family lineages is viewed in a positive light. Although inside the monastery, monks are not allowed to work for the benefit of their family lineages, this karmic repayment indicates that they are culturally recognized by Buddhism as a beneficial system.

Despite not being a Buddhist himself, Mengjiao receives recognition from the Buddha for his extraordinary filial piety and is rewarded for it. Unlike Mulian, Mengjiao is a Confucian and has no monkish obligations, so this does not indicate that filial piety is supported within the monastery. But like Mulian, Mengjiao’s piety is recognized by a Buddhist figure, implying that Buddhism approves of family relationships in a more general sense. When Mengjiao ceaselessly attempts to release his mother from her imprisonment, his filial piety causes the Buddha to take notice and free his mother.^[23] Not only does this again imply the Buddha’s approval of filial piety and the family relationship, it also establishes him as a religious figure that rewards people for it, even if they are members of the laity. By rewarding a great act of filial piety through supernatural means, the Buddha takes a recognized role in the traditional Chinese mythological framework, further supporting the idea that Buddhism accepted traditional family ties.

The story of the White Snake does not only provide evidence for Chinese Buddhist parent-child relationships, but also the relationship between husband and wife. It is difficult to determine the religious status of Lady Bai during her capture; she certainly “took refuge in the Buddha,” and is sequestered away from the world by being trapped under Thunder Peak Pagoda,^[24] but as she is a supernatural being, her status is more ambiguous than the firm delineation between monk and laywoman. However, her husband is definitely a monk, and therefore their marriage can be used to comment on marriage bonds involving monks. Despite becoming a monk, Xu Xian constantly refers to Lady Bai as “my wife.” Notably, there is a Chinese term translated as “former wife,” which refers to a wife from a monk’s life as a layman,^[25] yet Xu Xian refers to Lady Bai as his wife,^[26] indicating that he sees no separation between them even though he is a monk. Although this could be seen as a failing of Xu Xian as a monk, later in the story he reaches perfect enlightenment and becomes a Buddha. This accomplishment retroactively gives his actions the weight of an incredibly devout Buddhist, who manages to achieve the highest goal of Buddhism within the same lifetime as he makes said actions. A monk as virtuous as Xu Xian referring to his wife in a way that emphasizes their marital connection indicates that the Chinese Buddhist religious order accepted the marital connections of married monks.

The familial connections between the characters may imply that family and filial piety was accepted in Chinese Buddhism, but the authorial comment at the end of the story states it explicitly. Unlike the rest of the text, which tells the story of the family from a detached third-person perspective, the postscript is the author directly speaking to and urging the reader to do good deeds.^[27] The author goes on to define what they feel good deeds are. The author’s definition straddles the line between traditional Chinese family values and Buddhist virtue, muddying the delineation between the two. The best example of this cultural blending is in the phrase “filially obeying your parents-in-law is Buddha worship.”^[28] These two lines explicitly state that filial obedience to family, a very Chinese virtue, is a way in which one can revere the Buddha, giving Chinese family dynamics a place in Buddhism as a religion. Other parts of the postscript simply state family values alongside more traditionally Buddhist values, such as two lines which read “if you stick to the Five Norms, you will go to heaven/eat vegetarian food, refrain from killing living beings.”^[29] This again is a Buddhist virtue paired with a traditional Chinese virtue related to family. By combining Chinese family virtues and Buddhist virtues into one recommendation, the anonymous author presents a worldview in which family is a Buddhist virtue.

Although the stories of Mulian and the White Snake have established that Chinese Buddhism is open to traditional family relationships, one of the aspects of Buddhism most offensive to the traditional Chinese family is the dharma-name. When entering a monastery, monks abandon their family name and take another, called the dharma-name. In a cultural context where family lineage is paramount, giving up the family name can seem like a complete betrayal of the family relationship. However, the stories of both Mulian and the White Snake acknowledge this and argue through their portrayal that the dharma-name is an initial shock that can be overcome by the open-minded through a very similar narrative structure. In both stories, the families are separated and their reunion is complicated by one of them having a dharma-name which they are known by, but that their family does not know. In both stories, however, this is portrayed as something that is overcome and is followed by a happy reunion. In Mulian’s story, his parents died when he was young, before he became a monk, so neither of them know his name as a monk. When he meets his father in the afterlife, they initially do not recognize each other, but after Mulian introduces his childhood name, Radish, “[his father] knew it must be his son.”^[30] Not only does Mulian’s father recognize him, he also explicitly accepts him as his son. Mulian reaching out to his father, and his father accepting the overture, clearly sends the message that Buddhist monks are willing to be family with their lay-relatives, so long as those relatives accept who they are.

Mengjiao also encounters the issue of a dharma-name while searching for his father who has become a monk. He, unlike Mulian, anticipates this, and tells the monastery that he does not know his father’s dharma-name, but that he is from Hangzhou and is surnamed Xu.^[31] His father also worries that “father and son would meet each other face to face but be unable to recognize each other.”^[32] Although both of them are aware of this issue, the only obstacle it presents is practical—they are worried they will not be able to recognize each other—rather than as a sign that Xu Xian has left the family. Of course, the two of them are also reunited as a family. Although taking a dharma-name is a significant issue to most Chinese families, the two stories go to some lengths to portray it as nothing more than a temporary obstacle to a family relationship.

By portraying family relationships between Buddhists as normal, these two stories prove that culturally, as well as legally, Buddhists were allowed to have family relationships that were not too far from the Chinese norm. Mulian and the White Snake are arguably Buddhist propaganda, intended to show that Chinese family values and Buddhism can coexist, but the fact that they are conveying that message, even as propaganda pieces, indicates that Buddhism is willing to accommodate Chinese families. Given that most Chinese sources on Buddhism are from Confucians, who also have an agenda when portraying Buddhist life, it is important to consider the Buddhist side of the cultural divide and what the religion had to say. Just like Mulian reaching out to his father, Buddhism reached out to China through these stories—the Chinese people had the choice of whether to reach back and accept it.

Bibliography

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Cole, Alan. Mothers and Sons in Chinese Buddhism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.

Idema, W. L. The White Snake and Her Son: A Translation of the Precious Scroll of Thunder Peak with Related Texts. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co, 2009.

The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence. Translated by Henry Rosemont and Roger T. Ames. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i , 2009.

Teiser, Stephen F. The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Waley, Arthur. “Mu-Lien.” In Ballads and Stories from Tun-Huang, 217–35. London, UK: Routledge, 2011.