IncenseRice wineA new door printPeach woodA firecracker at the threshold
Invocation Approach
Tone
Blunt fierce unimpressed
Address
Zhong KuiThe Demon QuellerKing of GhostsThe Ugly Scholar
Relationship
The angry ghost who guards the door because he was wronged first
Warning
He commands ghosts because he is one and the door must face outward
Resonance
Householders the ill those haunted by a thing they cannot name
Symbols
The swordThe batThe ugly faceThe door posterThe captured demonThe scholar s cap
Mythology Summary
Zhong Kui is the demon-queller of Chinese popular religion, a ghost who commands ghosts: his image is pasted on the door and the wall at the New Year and at Duanwu, the fifth day of the fifth month, to keep illness and malevolent spirits out. The best-known account is in Shen Kuo's Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays, 1088), which tells of the Tang emperor Xuanzong's dream of a small demon who had stolen his flute and a huge ugly ghost who seized it, naming himself Zhong Kui, a scholar of Zhongnan who had been failed at the examination, killed himself on the palace steps, and was buried with honour by the emperor; Xuanzong had him painted. The tale is Tang, and the attribution of the first painting to Wu Daozi is traditional rather than documented.
Modern Practice
The practice is the door: a print pasted at the New Year and at Duanwu facing outward, incense and wine, peach wood, a firecracker at the threshold. He is invoked for a household rather than for a person, and the request is that something be kept out, not that something be given.