Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're back with part two of our series about cauldron's.
Speaker 1: That's right. In the last episode, we talked about cauldrons, uh,
Speaker 1: and mostly an introduction into the idea of the cauldron
Speaker 1: is both a mundane tool for heating water and making soup,
Speaker 1: but also getting in a little bit to the idea
Speaker 1: that okay, this is something that also ends up taking
Speaker 1: on sacred and supernatural characteristics in various traditions. Um. But
Speaker 1: for the most part, we we talked about soup technology,
Speaker 1: which in and of itself is pretty fascinating. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: pondered the foggy distant prehistory of salmon soups in Japan. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this episode is going to look
Speaker 1: at the cauldron in Chinese traditions and in Chinese history
Speaker 1: and mythology. So in Chinese culture and history, the ancient
Speaker 1: cauldron is known as the ding a cooking cauldron with
Speaker 1: two looped handles and three or four legs. The three
Speaker 1: legged ones tend to have a more of a circular pot,
Speaker 1: while the four legged ones tend to have a rectangular
Speaker 1: pot and appear more like what we might think of
Speaker 1: as a chest or something in Western traditions, it's maybe
Speaker 1: a little less recognizable as a cauldron if you're basing
Speaker 1: your expectations just on cauldrons in Western traditions. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: made me wonder, like, wait a minute, why are pots
Speaker 1: always round? I mean, they don't have to be. So
Speaker 1: this is a pot that's that's got corners and it
Speaker 1: looks like something that link would pop open and pull
Speaker 1: a treasure out of. Oh it's the hook shot. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean these are ultimately artifacts that have a number
Speaker 1: of supernatural associations with them. But in terms of actual
Speaker 1: Chinese cauldrons or ding that have survived, uh, for instance,
Speaker 1: one example of that that that came up in my
Speaker 1: researches from the Warring States period around from around four
Speaker 1: thirty three b c e. Found in the Lego Doun
Speaker 1: tombs in central China. Upon its discovery, it still had
Speaker 1: ox bones inside it and soot on its base, meaning
Speaker 1: that it was apparently used for cooking, perhaps as part
Speaker 1: of a funerary feast. It was made of bronze and
Speaker 1: also included lifting hooks and a ladle lifting hooks, Does
Speaker 1: that mean something you'd like put some some hooks in
Speaker 1: to move it out of the fire. Correct in this
Speaker 1: In this case, now, when we get into later discussions
Speaker 1: of of cauldrons, you also get into the idea of
Speaker 1: flesh hooks for your cauldron. They have to do with
Speaker 1: the obviously, for the manipulating of flesh. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of meat that you're cooking inside of said cauldron.
Speaker 1: But these I believe, Yeah, we're just to to move
Speaker 1: the cauldron around while it was heated. Okay, So a cauldron,
Speaker 1: we know, can be used for the chores that sustain
Speaker 1: everyday life, cooking food and washing and so forth. But
Speaker 1: in Chinese traditions, cauldrons have a much more culturally and
Speaker 1: religiously charged significance. Even though they could be used for
Speaker 1: those same mundane tasks, they might also decide the very
Speaker 1: fate of your existence. That's right, and and uh and
Speaker 1: and I do want to stress that a lot of
Speaker 1: this will also end up lining up with traditions in
Speaker 1: the West as well, that we'll get into much later.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this this thing that for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, is about heating water for soup or maybe
Speaker 1: for laundry or something like that ends up taking on
Speaker 1: greater significance. So in Chinese tradition, the ding became associated
Speaker 1: with power and landownership, and it was used not only
Speaker 1: for food production and also for oridge. It was also
Speaker 1: used to make sacrifices to the gods. And the idea
Speaker 1: of gods here might also well include ancestral spirits, right
Speaker 1: They're sort of a blurring of the distinction there that,
Speaker 1: like appeasing one's ancestors, was believed to play a role
Speaker 1: in determining your fortune. Right now. One of the sources
Speaker 1: I was looking to for for this episode is an
Speaker 1: article titled Visions of Hell in Asia from eighteen published
Speaker 1: in the Journal of the Oriental Society of Australia by
Speaker 1: scholar Paul Morabel, and in it the author writes, quote,
Speaker 1: in ancient China, the cauldron was the alchemical recipient par
Speaker 1: excellence for the sacrifices animals and humans required in order
Speaker 1: to transmute them into immortal creatures when mixed with certain
Speaker 1: minerals and metals. Now, I want to stress that he's
Speaker 1: he's talking very broadly here. This is not to imply
Speaker 1: that all of these various cauldrons, including the specific one
Speaker 1: I just mentioned, was used for any thing like human sacrifice.
Speaker 1: But of course human sacrifice is something that one encounters,
Speaker 1: uh in the ancient traditions of of every human culture.
Speaker 1: Just about so. But yeah, this idea that we we
Speaker 1: touched on very briefly in the last episode, that what
Speaker 1: is a cauldron, what is a cooking pot, but other
Speaker 1: than something that transforms one thing into another state, Right, so,
Speaker 1: it might transform a say, a tough piece of game
Speaker 1: meat into a nutritious broth and a much more tender
Speaker 1: piece of meat. And it might transform various ingredients living
Speaker 1: and dead into a bunch of fumes, a pillar of smoke,
Speaker 1: or a burnt offering that would be seen as pleasing
Speaker 1: to the gods or to one's ancestors. Correct. Now, when
Speaker 1: it comes to the sacred thing, there is like we
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, it also has this this this prestige with it.
Speaker 1: It signifies power, and it can also signify divine right
Speaker 1: of rule. And in this there's no greater example than
Speaker 1: the nine cauldrons of You the Great. Now we've discussed
Speaker 1: You the Great before and stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: as he as the legendary Um ruler of the Shia
Speaker 1: dynasty of the second and third millennium BC, born um
Speaker 1: from the belly of his father's corpse. He said to
Speaker 1: have quelled the great floods and established dynastic rule in China.
Speaker 1: His control of the flood is attributed differently in different tales,
Speaker 1: but I think we can summarize it as entailing the
Speaker 1: defeat of monsters, the possible prometheum, theft of the sacred self,
Speaker 1: renewing soil from the gods, the help of various gods,
Speaker 1: and also the use of damn and irrigation technology. So
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's a culture bearer. And oh, he's
Speaker 1: also said to have measured the earth, and in some
Speaker 1: accounts he stands eight feet tall. But the other feet
Speaker 1: attributed to you the great is that he also cast
Speaker 1: the nine cauldrons upon rising to power as young and
Speaker 1: in Turner discussed in the Handbook of Chinese Mythology quote,
Speaker 1: those cauldrons had the divine function to teach people to
Speaker 1: distinguish between faithfulness and treachery, and to keep evils and
Speaker 1: demons from harming people. So they were treated as national
Speaker 1: treasures and I believe it's uh that this story is
Speaker 1: related to the idea that the cauldron itself is a
Speaker 1: sort of symbol of power, both in a literal and
Speaker 1: metaphorical sense, like that in the literal sense that you
Speaker 1: would have to be a rich and powerful person in
Speaker 1: ancient China to own one or more of these cauldrons,
Speaker 1: and also that the cauldron was kind of like a
Speaker 1: symbol of someone's power or political dominance, right, right. And
Speaker 1: in this case, they're they're nine of them because they
Speaker 1: were nine cauldrons for the nine provinces, but then nine
Speaker 1: also had um cosmologically important connections as well. There's also
Speaker 1: this tradition of saying that the nine cauldrons uh sometimes
Speaker 1: are scattered and lost and uh, and it was said
Speaker 1: that whoever wished to claim imperial power and reign by
Speaker 1: the mandate of heaven would need to collect all these
Speaker 1: nine cauldrons. Yeah. I think I recall reading somewhere that
Speaker 1: there's an expression means something like seeking after cauldrons or
Speaker 1: something that means like ambition for power. Yeah. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: There's really are a number of different sayings in in
Speaker 1: in Chinese tradition that allude to cauldrons and and make
Speaker 1: use of the smoke. TIF in the book Chinese Mythology
Speaker 1: and Introduction and Barrel ads that while you the great
Speaker 1: forge the vessels, they are said to have been cast
Speaker 1: by feeling the Dragon, god of wind. The cauldrons could
Speaker 1: and would change weight and size, or even vanished completely
Speaker 1: or reappear at will, quote according to the virtue or
Speaker 1: decadence of the dynasty possessing them. Whoa, so yeah, this
Speaker 1: gets pretty interesting. Forens, if a dynasty is virtuous, then
Speaker 1: the cauldrons would become so massive that they would be
Speaker 1: almost impossible to lift. It was said that when the
Speaker 1: child people overthrew the shang, the child's virtue was such
Speaker 1: that it took ninety men to lift a single cauldron.
Speaker 1: But then when the Chin overthrew the chow, one of
Speaker 1: the cauldrons just like immediately flew into the river. Oh
Speaker 1: so the inanimate objects have a will of their own.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the one ring, except the cauldrons are virtuous,
Speaker 1: whereas the ring is wicked. Yeah. Yeah. It's also specifically
Speaker 1: noted that it is the weight that is important, not
Speaker 1: the size, So you you might have a dynasty that
Speaker 1: is corrupt. Uh, and the cauldrons might look enormous, but
Speaker 1: they weigh a little uh, thus signifying that you know
Speaker 1: that they're morally impoverished. But then the opposite is also true.
Speaker 1: You might have a noble dynasty and the cauldrons are
Speaker 1: very small, but it would take like ninety thousand men
Speaker 1: to lift a single one of them, because such is
Speaker 1: the virtue of these rulers. Oh that that resonates in
Speaker 1: a very pleasing way, because you imagine and like an
Speaker 1: evil dynasty having these giant cauldrons that are easily blown
Speaker 1: over by the wind, the big surface area and very
Speaker 1: little mass. Yeah, yeah, I think it works on so
Speaker 1: many levels. Uh. They're said to have been cast in
Speaker 1: iron and also said to be illustrated with images of
Speaker 1: the gods and forged from metals offered up by the
Speaker 1: nine regional stewards. There's also discussion of them being important
Speaker 1: to distinguish malign creatures, which are sometimes translated as goblins
Speaker 1: and trolls. So I'm not sure if that's meant to
Speaker 1: mean that the cauldrons also depicted these uh quote unquote
Speaker 1: adverse beings. But because it doesn't seem like it's explicitly stated,
Speaker 1: but um, at the very least they had images of
Speaker 1: gods on them. Now, as for the use of cauldrons
Speaker 1: and sacrifice, and borough includes a wonderful passage from the
Speaker 1: ancient text the Book of Songs or the Classic of Poetry.
Speaker 1: The passaging question is celebrating the agricultural culture hero and
Speaker 1: god Huji a k lord millet. Here is part of
Speaker 1: it in translation, of course, describing the sacrifice, our sacrifice.
Speaker 1: What is it like some pound, some bail, some sift,
Speaker 1: some tread. We wash it soaking, soaking wet. We steam it, piping,
Speaker 1: piping hot. Then we plan with thoughtful care, gathering southern wood,
Speaker 1: offering rich fat. We take a ram to make the
Speaker 1: wayside sacrifice, roasting and broiling to usher in the new year.
Speaker 1: The bronze pots filled the brim, the bronze pots and cauldrons.
Speaker 1: As soon as their aroma rises up, God on High
Speaker 1: enjoys it with pleasure. The rich fragrance is right and proper.
Speaker 1: For Hoji inaugurated the sacrifice with no fault or blemish.
Speaker 1: His people have continued it to the present day. I
Speaker 1: like the line on here about has the aroma rises up,
Speaker 1: God on High enjoys it with pleasure because that that
Speaker 1: is not unique to this poem or two Chinese religious traditions.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a common feature of many religions mentioning God,
Speaker 1: enjoying God, or God's enjoying the smell of a burning sacrifice. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a there's a lot of this that
Speaker 1: is that is ultimately a universe universal Um. It's it's
Speaker 1: fascinating than now for the second episode in a row,
Speaker 1: I'm going to also cite a children's book. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is another children's book. This one is titled Two of Everything,
Speaker 1: and Chinese American author Lily toy Hong wrote this It's
Speaker 1: fun and she credits it as being based on a
Speaker 1: Chinese folk tale. Um and I'd love to read another
Speaker 1: telling of it, but I haven't been able to find
Speaker 1: find what. I'm sure it's out there, but it does
Speaker 1: involve some sort of a magical pot or cauldron in
Speaker 1: this story, which is which has some some wonderful illustrations
Speaker 1: an elderly couple in in China. And this has a
Speaker 1: historical setting, by the way, so it's not I don't
Speaker 1: think it's supposed to be like modern China. But this
Speaker 1: elderly couple they happen to happen upon this pot or
Speaker 1: this cauldron, and they quickly find out that anything you
Speaker 1: drop or place inside the cauldron comes out duplicated. So
Speaker 1: you can imagine how this story goes. You know, food,
Speaker 1: gold gets duplicated, and finally somebody's gonna fall in that cauldron.
Speaker 1: The old man falls in the cauldron, and now there
Speaker 1: are two old men. So the story ultimately ends on
Speaker 1: a happy note, with a couple deciding, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put the pot away. We're not gonna use it unless
Speaker 1: we absolutely have to. But by this point they're living
Speaker 1: side by side with their own doppelgangers who have a
Speaker 1: replica of everything that they have. So I was looking
Speaker 1: around to try and find another version of this story
Speaker 1: and I was not able to. But in the process
Speaker 1: I found another story that includes cauldrons as a as
Speaker 1: a key plot point that I think will transition into
Speaker 1: something else we can talk about in a bit. It's
Speaker 1: a a wonderful little story called the Wizard's Lesson. The
Speaker 1: story appeared in the book Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies,
Speaker 1: ed edited and translated by Moss Roberts, a professor of
Speaker 1: East Asian Studies at n y U H. The original
Speaker 1: title is to zoo Chun and it is included uh
Speaker 1: in the sus Swan Kuai Lu, an early ninth century
Speaker 1: CE collection compiled by Li Fu Yen Uh, though there
Speaker 1: seemed to be some disagreements on the exact date of
Speaker 1: when this this original text was was published or written.
Speaker 1: This story is awesome. Yeah, um, I think at times perplexing.
Speaker 1: I've seen some some online like some sort of blog
Speaker 1: style discussions where people are like, what is this about?
Speaker 1: But um, but it but it has some some wonderful
Speaker 1: wizardry in it. So basically the story goes like this,
Speaker 1: we have this character to zoo Chun, and he's a scoundrel. Basically,
Speaker 1: he's spent all his money. He's burned all his friends
Speaker 1: and family members, you know, borrowing money and so forth.
Speaker 1: So he finds himself on the street with nothing, and
Speaker 1: then up comes an old man and ask him, hey,
Speaker 1: look there, buddy, how much money would it take to
Speaker 1: set you right? Like how many how many strands of
Speaker 1: coins will it take? And Tuzuchon names a sum and
Speaker 1: the old man just kind of scoffs and he's like,
Speaker 1: you should probably go higher than that, and he gives
Speaker 1: him another sum, and the old man agrees, and he's
Speaker 1: he gives him enough cash on the spot for a
Speaker 1: night's rest somewhere and says, meet me tomorrow in the
Speaker 1: market and I'll give you the full amount. So this
Speaker 1: goes exactly as promised, and the next day he receives
Speaker 1: his first millions from the old man like it's a
Speaker 1: it's a true fortune, enough for him to have a real,
Speaker 1: you know, proper start at rebuilding everything in his life,
Speaker 1: and then some but you can imagine what happens next.
Speaker 1: He immediately blows it all on a lavish lifestyle, and
Speaker 1: before long he's back on the street again. Then here
Speaker 1: comes the old man approaches him again, and this basically
Speaker 1: the same thing happens one more, only this time he
Speaker 1: squanders an even greater fortune. The third time, however, the
Speaker 1: old man warns him that an even greater fortune won't
Speaker 1: do the trick this time. Then there's clearly no helping him.
Speaker 1: So finally Tuzo Chun has a change of heart. He
Speaker 1: finally realizes, okay, who this old man has been so
Speaker 1: kind and patient with me and just overly generous, and
Speaker 1: I've done nothing for him. Uh. He has this change
Speaker 1: of heart and realizes that he shouldn't be spending this
Speaker 1: all on himself. He should try and do some good
Speaker 1: in the world. And he tells the old Man that
Speaker 1: he is going to do this. He's going to go
Speaker 1: help the widows and the orphans, he's going to make
Speaker 1: amends with family members and uh. And then at the end,
Speaker 1: he's going to meet up with the old Man once
Speaker 1: more and do right by him as well. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you might expect this to be the end of the story.
Speaker 1: He's learned his lesson, but no, it keeps going. And
Speaker 1: I I you know, this might be a situation where
Speaker 1: you have sort of combined stories, you know, they become
Speaker 1: one at some point. But um, what happens next is
Speaker 1: the old man Uh. He you know, he goes out
Speaker 1: in the world, he does all the things he's gonna do,
Speaker 1: and he meets up with the old Man again. The
Speaker 1: old Man takes him up to the mountain to a
Speaker 1: splendid residence and inside here's an alchemist furnace, guarded by
Speaker 1: a white tiger and a black dragon. Uh. It's written
Speaker 1: that jade, white fairy women stand by, and the old
Speaker 1: Man is no longer dressed like like the old man
Speaker 1: that he met in the market. Those uh, those of
Speaker 1: three times. No, now he's dressed in yellow and scarlet robes.
Speaker 1: He's dressed as a dallast wizard. Oh so immediately at
Speaker 1: this point, I'm like picturing him as played by Chining
Speaker 1: Lamb from the Mr. Vampire movies. Yeah, yeah, that that
Speaker 1: would be a wonderful stern performance of this character. So
Speaker 1: at this point, he presents Touzun with a beaker of
Speaker 1: wine and three white pills. He tells him to take
Speaker 1: the pills, and no matter what happens, no matter what
Speaker 1: he sees and the visions that are about to hit him,
Speaker 1: he must not speak. Okay, I'm gonna read a quote
Speaker 1: from the story here. Take care not to speak. The
Speaker 1: wizard cautioned, be it revered spirit, vicious ghost, demon of hell,
Speaker 1: wild beast, hell itself, or even your own closest relatives,
Speaker 1: bound and tormented in a thousand ways, nothing you see
Speaker 1: is truly real. It is essential that you neither speak
Speaker 1: nor make any movement. Remain calm and fearless, and you
Speaker 1: shall come to no harm. Never forget what I have said.
Speaker 1: With that, the wizard departed okay, so none of it's
Speaker 1: going to be real. As long as you keep your
Speaker 1: mouth shut, you'll be all right, right, And then the
Speaker 1: visions begin to hit him, so it's it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like one wave of visions after the other. So
Speaker 1: first a swarming army rides up on him in a
Speaker 1: ten foot tall general and armor is just referred to
Speaker 1: as the General comes up on an armored horse and
Speaker 1: demands that he tell to identify himself. He remains quiet.
Speaker 1: The general leaves in a rage. And then and then
Speaker 1: to Tuzochone is tormented by snakes and spiders and other beasts.
Speaker 1: There's a there's he's harassed by storms. This is the
Speaker 1: devil rides out. This is the Christopher. Lee is like,
Speaker 1: he's got him in the circle. Yeah yeah, instead, only
Speaker 1: this time it's the circle is silence. He cannot break
Speaker 1: that silence. Tuzu Chune, I'd rather see you dead than speak.
Speaker 1: So after the storms, the general returns, and this time
Speaker 1: he has his men place a great cauldron in front
Speaker 1: of Tuzu Chun and uh and in the story it's
Speaker 1: written the general return this time leading an ox headed
Speaker 1: sergeant and his soldiers of hell together with other weird
Speaker 1: faced ghosts. They placed a huge cauldron of boiling water
Speaker 1: before tuzu Chun and closed in on him with spears,
Speaker 1: swords and pitchforks, and so at this point they threatened
Speaker 1: and they say, look, identify yourself or we're going to
Speaker 1: boil you alive. He doesn't speak, So then they drag
Speaker 1: his wife before him and they start beating her, and
Speaker 1: he still refuses to speak, so they chop her up
Speaker 1: into a little pieces, and he still doesn't say anything.
Speaker 1: And finally the general denounces him as a quote master
Speaker 1: of the Black Arts and has his soldiers behead him.
Speaker 1: Well the scott gory, Yeah, it gets it gets gory,
Speaker 1: and hurry this story. Yeah, but but we've got to
Speaker 1: remember what was said at the beginning. The Taoist wizard
Speaker 1: promised him none of this is going to be real.
Speaker 1: It's just visions. Just don't say anything, right, So then
Speaker 1: to zu chun soul passes on and he become and
Speaker 1: he comes before the King of the Dead, who identifies him.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, you're that heretic and orders him cast
Speaker 1: into the Hell's quote zu Chun tasted the torments of
Speaker 1: hell to the fullest molten bronze, the iron rod, pounding grinding,
Speaker 1: the fire pit, the boiling cauldron, the hill of knives,
Speaker 1: the forest of swords. But he kept the wizard's words
Speaker 1: firmly in mind and bore the pain without letting a
Speaker 1: moan pass his lips. Then the tortures reported to the
Speaker 1: king that the punishments were completed. And at this point
Speaker 1: the King of the dead says, Okay, that's good. Uh,
Speaker 1: he can go on and be reincarnated. Now, let's have
Speaker 1: him reincarnated as a woman. And so he's born again
Speaker 1: as a small female child. And now the female to
Speaker 1: Zoo Chun as an infant, still doesn't cry out, grows
Speaker 1: up a mute Mary's has a child herself at this point,
Speaker 1: and then her husband finally like has an episode and
Speaker 1: and and accused and accuses her of being improper by
Speaker 1: refusing to speak to him, and murders their child before her.
Speaker 1: So finally, after a life and it's yet, it's it's brutal,
Speaker 1: and after a life time of silence, now she finally
Speaker 1: breaks her vow and unleashes a cry of anguish. And
Speaker 1: at this point the whole vision collapses, and once more,
Speaker 1: Here's to Zoo Chun himself again, still seated in the
Speaker 1: Wizard's pavilion, with an empty wine flask in his hand,
Speaker 1: and the wizards just cursing at him for failing. He
Speaker 1: tells him, if he'd only remain silent a little longer,
Speaker 1: you have been able to purify yourself of all your passions.
Speaker 1: You'd already purified yourself of all your passions except for love,
Speaker 1: and you blew it. And now you're not going to
Speaker 1: be immortal. That is harsh, you know, he already he
Speaker 1: got killed, He had watched all his people get killed.
Speaker 1: He got killed, he got sent to hell, tortured in hell,
Speaker 1: then lived a whole other life. But but the Wizard
Speaker 1: is like, you just had to hold out a little
Speaker 1: bit longer. How was he supposed to know how long
Speaker 1: it would be? Yeah, he had no idea. He was
Speaker 1: just supposed to keep going. But supposedly he was close,
Speaker 1: like this was the last testing. It was not able
Speaker 1: to overcome it. Remember how this started with this guy
Speaker 1: like blowing all his money on parties. Yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is a it's a weird story. And when I may,
Speaker 1: I may have to look into more to see if
Speaker 1: I can, uh, you know, grasp the some of the
Speaker 1: the deeper meanings involved here, but on the surface level,
Speaker 1: like coming back to cauldrons, it does feature cauldrons twice,
Speaker 1: and both of them in a very threatening manner. The
Speaker 1: idea that if you don't speak, I'm going to boil
Speaker 1: you alive, and then once you're in Hell you may
Speaker 1: be boiled as well. Well, this would not be the
Speaker 1: only vision of of hell or negative afterlife that involved boiling,
Speaker 1: and in fact, there are some famous boiling uh puddles,
Speaker 1: ponds and rivers in Dante's Inferno, though I don't recall
Speaker 1: there ever being a cauldron. Maybe there is. I think
Speaker 1: they're just various boiling rivers and puddles. Well, Paul Morabelais
Speaker 1: mentions this the things just as a brief aside, because
Speaker 1: you know, I think for starters the papers mostly mostly
Speaker 1: dealing with Asian visions of hell, but mentions that there
Speaker 1: are certain saints who had visions of hell and they
Speaker 1: might mention boiling, but they don't mention cauldrons. And part
Speaker 1: of that could be the legacy of sacred cauldrons in
Speaker 1: some of the European traditions, the pre Christian European traditions
Speaker 1: that will discuss in the future, like the idea being
Speaker 1: that if the cauldron is sacred, you would not find
Speaker 1: that in hell, and of course that might you might
Speaker 1: well ask, well, what are you guys talking about? You
Speaker 1: just you've already talked about sacred cauldrons in Chinese traditions,
Speaker 1: and here they are popping up in Chinese Hell. What's
Speaker 1: going on there? Well, I we'll get back to that,
Speaker 1: and I think it will ultimately wind up making sense.
Speaker 1: But yeah, clearly, whatever it's particular religious significance, I think
Speaker 1: it's also got to be highlighted in this story just
Speaker 1: because it's like a horrific way to threaten somebody with
Speaker 1: death right. And and you know, certainly when we start
Speaker 1: talking about weird forms of capital punishment and execution, I
Speaker 1: mean that the line between that and human sacrifice is
Speaker 1: often a bit blurred. You know, both spectacles are are
Speaker 1: doing something beyond simply uh, killing an individual or burning
Speaker 1: a piece of meat, that sort of thing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sometimes in history they appear to have been sort of
Speaker 1: the same thing that, like some human sacrifice in history
Speaker 1: was clearly carried out on people who were leave to
Speaker 1: have committed some kind of crime, or people who were
Speaker 1: like prisoners of war right, and so death by boiling
Speaker 1: pops up many times in global tales and traditions, often
Speaker 1: as often as a meanance of state execution for all
Speaker 1: sorts of things like sorcerers, bandits, counterfeiters, poisoners, and traders. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some accounts maybe legendary, but there are plenty of very
Speaker 1: believable historic cases of boiling executions, and it was practiced
Speaker 1: into the sixteenth century in France and Germany as a
Speaker 1: punishment for clipping coins. This is when you would scrape
Speaker 1: the edges off of coins and then melt those scrapings
Speaker 1: down to make new coins, a practice that was finally
Speaker 1: defeated by milling the edges of coins. Yeah, several of
Speaker 1: the main examples I found of actual use of capital
Speaker 1: punishment by boiling took place in England and the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: where it was apparently used as a as a punishment
Speaker 1: for poisoning. There was famously a guy named Richard Rousse
Speaker 1: who made some horridge that they I think he was
Speaker 1: a cook, and he made some poison porridge that poisoned
Speaker 1: like a bishop, and then just a bunch of other
Speaker 1: people who happened to eat it, and at least a
Speaker 1: couple of people died and he was put to death
Speaker 1: through a public boiling. It was pretty curaresome, very criesome.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting, like I guess with the with the
Speaker 1: with the clipping of coins, they're sort of, hey, if
Speaker 1: you you boil clippings from our money, will boil you.
Speaker 1: Sort of a thing like you you melt money, you
Speaker 1: get melted. I'm not sure exactly what the poisoning thing is,
Speaker 1: excepted like poisoning was just something they really wanted to to,
Speaker 1: uh to to to draw a line on, you know,
Speaker 1: and say, look, this is really bad and therefore you
Speaker 1: get boiled if you do it. Yeah. I can't prove this,
Speaker 1: but I have a gut suspicion, and it's that poisoning
Speaker 1: is a type of crime that is especially horrifying to
Speaker 1: kings and royal people. Uh you know, it's it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing they could imagine happening to them. Don't
Speaker 1: mess with the king's money or the king's food. Both
Speaker 1: must be deterred in the strongest sense. Um. It's also
Speaker 1: interesting looking at the the European use of boiling executions,
Speaker 1: because you would see this tradition later on as you know,
Speaker 1: tales were being told of what what is surely going
Speaker 1: on in various foreign parts of the world, be at
Speaker 1: Africa or Asia. Uh, you know there would be the
Speaker 1: especially in like sort of the pulp era. Uh, this
Speaker 1: idea of of boiling people is something that the other does,
Speaker 1: whereas history tells them. I mean, certainly there are examples
Speaker 1: of boiling in various cultures, but but clearly there was
Speaker 1: a long history of it occurring in Europe as well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, clearly you can see that as just part
Speaker 1: of a fiction that sort of exotic sizes other parts
Speaker 1: of the world by imagining like horrific, horrific things that
Speaker 1: might happen there, probably without any evidential basis than now.
Speaker 1: Turning briefly to Greek mythology, of course, we have to
Speaker 1: remember that, uh, this is boiling alive is the way
Speaker 1: that the master artificer uh Datalust kills King Minos, trapping
Speaker 1: him in a bath that boils him alive. Um clever,
Speaker 1: And this it seems like the very sort of revenge
Speaker 1: that data List would use against his enemy. Oh, I
Speaker 1: didn't remember that part of the story. That's interesting. I
Speaker 1: believe it is depicted in one of the Jim Hinson
Speaker 1: Greek storyteller episodes. They have I think two different ones
Speaker 1: that involved data lists. But back to Eastern depictions of Hell.
Speaker 1: So um, there's that line in Big Trouble in Little China.
Speaker 1: I believe it's from the Uh, the character Eddie who says, uh,
Speaker 1: the Chinese have a lot of Hell's um. And indeed
Speaker 1: you'll you find Eastern depictions of Hell. Often they will
Speaker 1: include generally eighteen different um die you or under worlds.
Speaker 1: And the exact nature of these hell's or underworld's vary
Speaker 1: from text to text, but each one has a different flavor.
Speaker 1: They are different, like this is where you encounter the
Speaker 1: hill of knives, or this is the one where you
Speaker 1: encounter the boiling feces, that sort of thing. Several of
Speaker 1: them were listed in that passage I read earlier from
Speaker 1: the story of the Wizard's Lesson, and I actually don't
Speaker 1: know the answer here with these. Also, like in some
Speaker 1: of the classic Christian depictions of Hell, have specific tortures
Speaker 1: for people who's depending on their characteristic sin. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and in case in this case, the the hell of
Speaker 1: of oil cauldrons would be reserved for thieves and a
Speaker 1: few other kind of related transgressions. Now at this point,
Speaker 1: I'd like to come back to that Paul Marabelais article
Speaker 1: Visions of Asian Hell, in which he discusses Asian visions
Speaker 1: of hell at length, and as as mentioned previously, he
Speaker 1: singles out the alchemical nature of cauldrons and Chinese traditions,
Speaker 1: which is, it seems very key here. So on the
Speaker 1: mundane level, it is a piece of technology that allows
Speaker 1: us to transform the nature of various ingredients into food,
Speaker 1: and then on the sacred level, it allows us to
Speaker 1: transform flesh into something befitting of a god. And so
Speaker 1: Marabola discusses examples of boiling cauldrons and the hells of
Speaker 1: Tibetan buddhism Um, which, to remind everyone, does center around
Speaker 1: the continuation of souls within the wheel of sam Sorrow,
Speaker 1: which is a karma based system in which souls tumble
Speaker 1: through incarnations that may be human or animal, but may
Speaker 1: also be incarnations such as you know, hungry ghosts, heavenly
Speaker 1: and powerful davas or in or indeed you might be
Speaker 1: reborn into the hell realms of Naraka. And the goal
Speaker 1: is ultimately, in the grand scheme of Buddhism, to remove
Speaker 1: oneself from this endless wheel and attain freedom from the
Speaker 1: cycle of death and rebirth, because that's the only way
Speaker 1: to just sort of win. I guess you would say, like,
Speaker 1: if you keep playing the game of sam Sara, you're
Speaker 1: just gonna pinball around, you know. So you might, you
Speaker 1: might ascend on high into the form of a demigod adeva.
Speaker 1: But then perhaps all that power and wrath that you
Speaker 1: have at your disposal that ends up corrupting you and
Speaker 1: propels your soul back down into the hell realm. So
Speaker 1: the hell's in this case, they're not really It's not
Speaker 1: about permanent suffering like you encounter in some interpretations of
Speaker 1: Western depictions of Christian hell, where it's like, well, you
Speaker 1: screwed up, you went with the wrong side, now you're
Speaker 1: in hell. For let's say, ever, uh No, in this case,
Speaker 1: hell is a place you're moving through. Your soul is
Speaker 1: moving through here, and you'll uh in all likelihood be
Speaker 1: reincarnated into a different incarnation in one of these other realms. So,
Speaker 1: as Miroboli discusses these visions often depicted in art, they
Speaker 1: already have this um this this feel of transformation or
Speaker 1: purging to them. Um So demonic beings might be cooking
Speaker 1: human souls, but to what end? Right, we have to
Speaker 1: remember that cooking is a transformation, and the form of
Speaker 1: cooking in the cauldron of sacrifice is supernaturally so oh interesting,
Speaker 1: So I think I see the connection he's making here
Speaker 1: the same way you might, uh say, in in some
Speaker 1: Chinese traditions use a ding or a cauldron to to
Speaker 1: make a burnt sacrifice um to the gods in order
Speaker 1: to to appease them to improve your fortune. In for example,
Speaker 1: this Buddhist vision of Hell, you may also be put
Speaker 1: into a cauldron yourself, but in this in a similar way,
Speaker 1: are transformed into something potentially holier. Yes, And this ends
Speaker 1: up being reflected in Dallas traditions as well, which Endaoism
Speaker 1: is perhaps more concerned with transformation of the soul or
Speaker 1: self and immortality, but it ends up being influenced by
Speaker 1: Buddhism when Buddhism Uh enters into China from India roughly
Speaker 1: two thousand years ago. Uh And so, in considering images
Speaker 1: of cauldrons in Hell and the Chinese temple of ching
Speaker 1: Hwong in Linza Shoe in western China, Mirabel says quote,
Speaker 1: in fact, we could interpret the dallast Hell as some
Speaker 1: enormous cauldron into which have been poured the ingredients necessary
Speaker 1: to permutate the present state of imperfect beings into their
Speaker 1: possible perfection by long and painstaking alchemical assimilations. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I really love that, uh, that idea. And again
Speaker 1: it comes back to again that question question. You might ask, well,
Speaker 1: if if the if some Europeans were hesitant to take
Speaker 1: take a sort of divine um legacy of the cauldron
Speaker 1: and then place it into pictions of hell, even if
Speaker 1: you're dealing sort of different religious traditions, why would you
Speaker 1: see it in Chinese traditions? And I think it is
Speaker 1: because you have this different view of what what Hell
Speaker 1: is doing, this idea that these depictions of torment are
Speaker 1: not about like in game suffering, they are about changing
Speaker 1: you into something else, which is the purpose of the daying,
Speaker 1: the purpose of the cauldron, whether you're dealing with the
Speaker 1: process on Earth or something more celestial or indeed something
Speaker 1: in one of the hell's And I should also point out, yeah,
Speaker 1: that you also see this this these visions of of
Speaker 1: hell outside of Chinese traditions and and outside of of
Speaker 1: Indian divisions, is also pops up in Japanese views of
Speaker 1: of of Hell and so forth. All Right, we're gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and close out this episode then, but I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there if you have
Speaker 1: additional things you'd like to add about Chinese traditions of cauldrons,
Speaker 1: be they the you know, the nine cauldrons of You
Speaker 1: the Great, or or these various depictions of Dallast and
Speaker 1: Buddhist hell. Uh. I'd love to hear from anyone out there. Likewise,
Speaker 1: any any sort of pop culture and fiction related treatments
Speaker 1: of cauldrons that kind of match up with what we've
Speaker 1: discussed here today totally. In the meantime, if you want
Speaker 1: to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find those episodes and the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we publish
Speaker 1: our core episodes. Those are the main episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind. And then on Monday's we do
Speaker 1: listener mail. On Wednesday's we do a short form monster
Speaker 1: fact or artifact episode. In on Friday's, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we cut loose, We put aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: we just talk about a strange film huge thanks as
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
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