Zhangfang (长房) | 24 Histories

Overview

The translated histories identify Zhangfang as a diviner and healer. This record brings together 10 passages from 1 chapter across 1 history, with names, dates, relationships, offices, and events preserved as source-backed claims.

Names

Type	English	Chinese	Pinyin
Personal	Zhangfang	长房	Zhangfang
Personal name	Zhangfang	长房	Zhangfang
Personal name		長房	Zhangfang

Identity

Historicity: Uncertain
Identification: Named
Sex: Male

Sex: male
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0246

Roles

Diviner
Healer

Life and dates

Death

Manner: killed by ghosts after losing talisman
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0269

Attested activity

Source Date: Text: 汝南岁岁常有魅 · Western Interval: Start: AD 25 · End: AD 220
Uncertain · houhanshu:093:s0256, houhanshu:093:s0257

Family

Kinship Role: family members · Quantity: unspecified
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0251

Career and standing

Label: exorcist-healer / 方术之士
Strongly inferred · houhanshu:093:s0254

Places and affiliations

Polity: Eastern Han / 东汉 · Relation: lived-under
Strongly inferred · houhanshu:093:s0256
Place: Runan / 汝南 · Relation: active-in
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0256

Learning and skills

Skill: commanding and flogging ghosts / 鞭笞百鬼 · Level: able
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0254
Skill: healing diseases / 医疗众病 · Level: able
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0254
Skill: appearing in many places a thousand li apart in one day / 一日千里数处 · Level: reported
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0268

Works and attributed material

Kind: speech · Role: speaker · Quote: true
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0252, houhanshu:093:s0255, houhanshu:093:s0258, houhanshu:093:s0263, houhanshu:093:s0265, houhanshu:093:s0266

Events and relationships

Kind: legal-ritual · Role: judge · Action: bound Eastern Sea lord three years causing drought then released for rain
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0262, houhanshu:093:s0263, houhanshu:093:s0264
Kind: exposure · Role: exorcist · Action: exposed fox that stole earth god's horse
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0265, houhanshu:093:s0266
Kind: exorcism · Role: exorcist · Action: forced Runan goblin to true form and death
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0257, houhanshu:093:s0258, houhanshu:093:s0259, houhanshu:093:s0260, houhanshu:093:s0261
Kind: return-from-training · Role: returnee · Action: rode bamboo staff home
Explicit · houhanshu:093:s0246, houhanshu:093:s0249

References in the histories

Open any source group to read the Chinese and English passage in context.

Book of Later Han, Chapter 93Volume 82b: Biographies of Alchemists 2 · 10 passages

Open chapter

长房辞归，翁与一竹杖，曰：“骑此任所之，则自至矣。 Zhangfang took leave to return; the old man gave him a bamboo staff, saying, "Ride this wherever you wish to go, and you will arrive of yourself.

長房乘杖，須臾來歸，自謂去家適經旬日，而已十餘年矣。 Zhangfang rode the staff and returned in an instant, thinking he had been gone barely ten days, but more than ten years had passed.

长房曰：“往日所葬，但竹杖耳。” Zhangfang said, "You buried only bamboo."

时魅适来，而逢长房谒府君，惶惧不得退，便前解衣冠，叩头乞活。 One day the creature arrived just as Zhangfang called on the prefect; trapped, it stripped its costume and begged for mercy.

长房呵之云：“便于中庭正汝故形！”」 Zhangfang barked, "Show your true shape in the courtyard!"

长房复令就太守服罪，付其一札，以敕葛陂君。 He sent the creature to confess its guilt to the prefect and gave it a writ addressed to the spirit lord of Ge Marsh.

后东海君来见葛陂君，因淫其夫人，于是长房劾系之三年，而东海大旱。 Later the Eastern Sea god visited Ge Marsh and seduced its goddess; Zhangfang jailed him three years, and the Eastern Sea withered in drought.

长房至海上，见其人请雨，乃谓之曰：“东海君有罪，吾前系于葛陂，今方出之，使作雨也。” Zhangfang walked the shore where priests begged rain and said, "The Eastern Sea deity sinned; I chained him at Ge Marsh and have only now freed him to pour storms."

长房曾与人共行，见一书生黄巾被裘，无鞍骑马，下而叩头，长房曰：“还它马，赦汝死罪。” Walking with a friend he saw a scholar in yellow headcloth and fur cloak riding bareback; the man kowtowed. Zhangfang said, "Give back the horse and I spare your life."

人问其故，长房曰：“此狸也，盗社公马耳。” Asked to explain, he said, "A fox-thief borrowed the village god's mount."