ABSTRACT
For nearly six centuries from the late Western Jin (266–316) to the Tang dynasty (618–907), more than twenty works were produced that dealt with the Mulian myth. The Song (960–1279) and later dynasties witnessed the appearance of dozens of more such works (Mair 1986–1987: 84). The Mulian myth expresses itself in almost every known genre of traditional Chinese oral performance art (quyi) and performance literature, including but not limited to ‘transformation text' (bianwen), ‘storytelling' (shuohua), ‘drum ballad' (guzici), ‘precious scroll' (baojuan), ‘Manchu bannermen storytelling' (zidishu), ‘plucked-string ballad' (tanci), ‘plain storytelling' (pingshu or pinghua), narrative song suites called ‘all keys and modes' (zhugongdiao) and so forth. 1 All of them have their roots traceable, although not all directly, to popular sūtra lectures (sujiang) prevalent in late medieval China.
