A Pig That Hated Only One Man: A Qing Dynasty Ghost Story / 老翁与猪

From Notes from the Thatched Study (阅微草堂笔记), Volume I — Luanyang Summer Records, Tale 1

By Ji Yun (纪昀, 1724–1805) · Translated with annotations

A pig in a Qing dynasty village hated exactly one elderly neighbor. It would charge to bite him on sight — and ignore everyone else. Then the old man realized why.

The Story

Hu Muting, a censor (an imperial inspector who audited other officials), told this story:

In his village, a man kept a pig. Whenever the pig caught sight of a certain elderly neighbor, it would glare with fury, bellow wildly, and charge to bite him — yet it behaved normally toward everyone else.

At first, the old man was enraged. He wanted to buy the pig and eat its flesh.

Then, suddenly, he came to his senses: "Could this be what the Buddhist sutras call a karmic debt from a past life^{[1]Karmic debt from a past life (夙冤, sù yuān): A core Buddhist concept. Sù means "from long ago" or "from a previous existence"; yuān means "grievance" or "unjust treatment." The idea is that unresolved conflicts from previous incarnations carry forward, manifesting as irrational hostility between individuals who may have no present-day cause for enmity. This is more specific than the Western idea of "karmic baggage" — it implies a relationship between two souls that must be reconciled, not merely a residue to be worked off.}? There is no enmity in this world that cannot be resolved."

He purchased the pig at a fair price and delivered it to a Buddhist temple, where it was kept as a chángshēng zhū — a "long-life pig," an animal dedicated to the temple and spared from slaughter as an act of merit-making.

After that, whenever the pig saw the old man, it lowered its ears and nuzzled up to him affectionately. Nothing like its former ferocity.

I once saw a painting by Sun Zhong (a Qing dynasty artist known for Buddhist subjects), Arhat Taming a Tiger, with an inscription by Li Yan of Baxi (an ancient commandery in present-day Sichuan — not the country of the same Chinese name):

The sage rides a fierce tiger, guiding it as though it were a fine steed. Was the tiger ever truly docile? It is the power of the Way that tames its ferocity. Thus we know that in this world, all sentient beings may find accord — guard a heart steadfast as metal and stone, and harbor no needless fear or suspicion.^{[2]The inscription poem: This five-character regulated verse (五言律诗) encapsulates a philosophical position: ferocity is not innate but circumstantial; compassion and moral cultivation (道力, "the power of the Way") can dissolve even the deepest hostility. The phrase 金石心 ("heart of metal and stone") suggests an unwavering commitment to goodwill — an echo of both Buddhist bodhicitta and Confucian rèn (仁, benevolence).}

This poem, I think, serves well as a commentary on the tale.

Translator's Reflection

What got me is the old man's first reaction wasn't forgiveness — it was wanting to eat the pig out of spite. The mercy comes after the anger, not instead of it. That's a much more honest story than I expected from a Qing scholar writing about Buddhist virtue.

The pig's transformation is also more specific than I first realized. The Chinese phrase 弭耳昵就 (mǐ ěr nì jiù) literally means "ears laid flat, drawing close with intimacy." That's not a trained animal — that's an animal that got what it wanted. Its grudge was real, and somebody finally acknowledged it.

Then Ji Yun does something unexpected: he doesn't end with the story. He ends with someone else's poem about someone else's painting. It took me a moment to get it — he never tells you what to think. He shows you a phenomenon, places a lens beside it, and walks away. You pick it up or you don't.

All of this in about 120 characters of classical Chinese. I keep coming back to that.

Next tale: The Fox in the Study — a fox spirit exposes the hypocrisy of a virtuous official, and flees only before a simple, illiterate servant woman. → [Coming soon]