ABSTRACTS: Around the eleventh century, a legend was appended to editions of a popular Buddhist prayer for the dead, the "Precious Penance of the Liang Monarch." It told how Chi Hui, the wife of the pious Buddhist emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, had been changed after her death into a huge snake before being eventually saved. During late imperial times, several vernacular narratives developed the story along two different lines expounding her fate: One insisted on the sins of the evil empress against Buddhism, while the other focused on the jealous passion that led her to cruelly murder the concubines of her royal consort. The written versions of the story remained relatively unknown, but, in late imperial times, scenes, pictures and even objects it had inspired kept appearing in various religious paintings, sculptures, or dramas. The long-time association of the story with a prayer for the salvation of the dead most likely played an important role in its incorporation in religious plays such as those performed during the "ghost festival." Interestingly, the versions of the story presenting the very human plight of the jealous empress were then distinctly more influential than those focusing on her religious sins.
Vincent Durand-Dastès (Sat,) studied this question.