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Female spiritual beings are often referred to, at least in the English translation of Chinese texts, as fairies or as angels or even, genii. They may be addressed as 'Goddess' or referred to as one of the Immortals. For example, in the Qing dynasty (18th century) Chinese classic tale, Hong Lou Meng, a novel about karma and love usually known in English as The Dream of the Red Chamber < in Chapter 5, our hero, Pao-yu, is visited by the "Fairy" whose appearance is described in detail. Other English words used in translated texts like this are angel, spirit or geni. For an 18th-century view of the status and nature of Chinese female deities, an opening section of the novel is quoted here [bolding and italics are mine]:
The wandering amulet stone, variously described as a jade or a ruby left behind by
Nu Wa-shi is
the wish-fulfilling jewel inscribed: PRECIOUS GEM OF SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION,
followed by
other mysterious lines of smaller writing. In the tale, accompanied
by a Buddhist priest or
lama, a family man called in this version, Shi Yin, passes beyond a large stone arch
on which is inscribed in large characters:
The choice of words in English eg. vacuity (more often called "Emptiness" nowadays) certainly reflects the underlying Buddhist doctrine that forms the foundation of this tragic tale. A more recent translation by Chi-Chen Wang (Doubleday,1959) has these English words (40-41) which leave no doubt as to the nature of the man, Pao-yu's experiences: ". . . there appeared before him, a fairy goddess . . . .
Her realm is probably more accurately called, Great Void Illusion Land, and the inscriptions above its gate say:
This Red Lady is now much easier to recognize; she is well known to Buddhist practitioners!
Realm of Disillusion in Romantic BalletMyrta, Queen of the Wilis, in the early (1841) Romantic ballet-blanc, Giselle, rules a similar realm of Disillusionment: " . . . [writer, Theophile] Gautier got his idea for the wilis from
[poet] Heine, but where do these mythical creatures come from? There is a Slave [sic] word 'vila' which means vampire. The plural is vile, and wilis is probably a Germanic pronunciation of that word as a 'w' in German is pronounced like a 'v'. (Puccini's first opera is based on the same legend, in Italian Le Villi.) In Serbia they were maidens cursed by God; in Bulgaria they were known as samovily, girls who died before they were baptized; and in Poland they are beautiful young girls floating in the air atoning for frivolous past lives." ~ http://www.balletmet.org/Notes/Giselle.html#anchor73513
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