Jiangshi

A source-limited profile of the animated corpse, centered on Pu Songling’s tale in Herbert A. Giles’s 1880 translation.

Quick answer

This profile examines a dangerous animated human corpse through one literary account. In Pu Songling’s story, a dead woman rises and pursues a traveller. Read the selected account.

Source status and naming

The evidence is a literary supernatural tale, not verification of an actual event. Giles’s translation and annotations mediate access to Pu’s work.

The spelling 僵尸 appears in the title 批僵尸颊 in Yuan Mei’s Zibuyu, juan 8, entry 16. That separate collection supplies naming evidence here; its episodes are not merged into Pu’s account. Zibuyu contents.

This is a deliberately narrow profile. It does not establish the earliest attestation, a universal Chinese belief, or a complete history of jiangshi.

record type
creature
tradition
Chinese supernatural storytelling; Qing-period literary accounts
source scope
Pu Songling, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, translated and annotated by Herbert A. Giles, 1880 edition, volume II, story CVI, “The Resuscitated Corpse,” pp. 193–196. Yuan Mei’s Zibuyu is used only to document the term 僵尸.
aliases
["僵尸"]
transliteration
jiāngshī

Source account

Four travellers lodge beside an innkeeper’s dead daughter-in-law. She breathes on the sleepers; three subsequently prove dead. The fourth escapes, and her pursuit ends when her fingers lodge in a tree. Story CVI.

Description and actions

Giles describes a yellowish face and silk head covering. The corpse moves, breathes and grasps; no blood drinking is described. Story CVI.

These observations belong to this individual episode. They should not become a general anatomy, feeding system or catalogue of powers.

Source realm

The setting is Ts‘ai-tien in the Yang-hsin district, followed by a roadside monastery. Story CVI.

These are narrative locations, not evidence of a species habitat or a separate supernatural kingdom.

Bibliography