Reference

Glossary

The working vocabulary of the universe, in one place. For longer explanations, see the Key Concepts guide.

Chuanqi (传奇): 'Tales of the marvellous' — the polished literary short fiction of the Tang dynasty; zhiguai's sophisticated descendant.
Difu (地府): The Earth Administration: the underworld as civil service, with its Ten Kings and ledgers.
Diyu (地狱): The earth prisons — the graded chambers of post-mortem punishment beneath the courts of the dead.
Gui (鬼): A ghost: a human soul that failed to be processed into rebirth and lingers, off the register.
Jie (劫): A tribulation: the ordeal heaven sends to test a being attempting a major promotion in kind.
Jing (精): Essence — refined qi; also a woken thing (a plant- or object-spirit) that has accumulated enough of it.
Lanruo (兰若): A Buddhist temple, from Sanskrit aranya; the classic liminal setting for ghostly encounters.
Long (龙): The Chinese dragon: a water-god and celestial official, ruler of rain, rivers and seas — not a hoarding monster.
Meng Po (孟婆): The Old Lady Meng, who serves the dead her broth of forgetfulness before rebirth.
Naihe Qiao (奈何桥): The Bridge of Helplessness over the river of the dead; the virtuous cross, the guilty fall.
Qi (气): The breath-stuff of which all things, solid and spirit, are made; the single substance of the universe.
Shen (神): A god: an appointed official of the celestial bureaucracy.
Xia (侠): The knight-errant: the swordsman bound by a personal code rather than an institution.
Xian (仙): An immortal: a being self-made deathless through cultivation.
Xiulian (修炼): Cultivation: the deliberate refinement of essence to change one's nature.
Yaoguai (妖怪): Woken beings — animal, plant or object spirits; 'monster' without the Western connotation of evil.
Yinguo (因果): Karma: cause and effect, kept across lifetimes in a literal ledger.
Zhiguai (志怪): 'Records of the strange' — the classical Chinese genre of supernatural reportage this site collects.