The Legend of Nataku

Note: All the Chinese names in this article are in Hanyu Pinyin, e.g. "Zhou" would be used instead of "Chou".

Nataku is the name Wufei gives to his Gundam Shenlong / Altron.***  Actually a Japanese version of the original name, it is derived from the name of a Chinese mythological figure, a child warrior deity known as Nezha; both "Nataku" and "Nezha" are ultimately derived from the Sanskrit Nata (Natha). Nezha's exploits are told in many stories, most notably in the Romance of the Gods from the Ming dynasty, where they form the basis of at least three chapters. 

For the bulk of the narrative that follows, I will focus on these three crucial chapters of the Romance. I will also use the Chinese form of Nataku's name: Nezha.

***    "Shenlong" and "Altron" are also derived from Chinese, roughly meaning "divine dragon" and "two-headed dragon [er tou long]" respectively. The former name will be familiar to Dragonball fans as it also belongs to the mysterious being that appears after the seven eponymous globes are gathered together.

The Birth of Nezha

Nezha was the third son of Li Jing, a military officer who commanded the garrison at Chentang Pass. He was born in the last decades of the Shang dynasty, when the country was languishing under the rule of the tyrant Zhou (not to be confused with the Zhou dynasty that was to supplant his house). 

Nezha's birth was a miracle story in itself. After giving birth to his elder brothers Jinzha and Muzha, Nezha's mother Yin Shi bore him in her womb for three and a half years, until one night when a Taoist priest visited her in her dreams. "Take this child, foal of the unicorn," he said, and put something into her bosom. Soon afterwards, she felt the pains of labour and gave birth to a huge ball of flesh, which Li Jing sliced open with his sword; Nezha emerged as a radiant babe clad in a long piece of red cloth, a gold bracelet around his right hand. 

The mysterious priest turned up at Li Jing's house the next day; as it happened, he was the immortal Taiyi from Golden Light Cave at Primordial Mountain, whose magical weapons, the Huntian ("Celestial Confusion") Cloth and the Cosmic Ring, had been bestowed on Nezha when he was still in his mother's womb. Taiyi persuaded Li Jing to let his son become his disciple. He had a reason for doing so - Nezha was the avatar of the celestial being Lingzhuzi ("The Intelligent Pearl") and he was destined to help overthrow the armies of the Shang.

As Taiyi was to find out, however, it would not be an easy task.

Havoc in the Eastern Sea

Nezha grew fast, reaching the height of six feet when he was seven years old. One hot day, the restless boy went out for a walk and came across the Jiuwan He ("River of Nine Bends"). He took off his clothes and jumped into the river, swishing his Huntian Cloth in the water. Unknown to him, the cloth had great magical powers - it turned the water of the river red and rocked the foundations of the adjoining Eastern Sea. The Dragon King of the Eastern Sea, Aoguang, sent an attendant Li Gen to investigate; the latter discovered Nezha and when they came to blows, Nezha killed the unfortunate Li Gen with his Cosmic Ring. The third son of Aoguang, Aobing, raised a army and attacked Nezha, who defeated and killed the dragon prince and pulled out his tendons to make a belt for his father.

A grieving Aoguang brought the matter up to Li Jing and threatened to report the deaths of Li Gen and Aobing to the Heavenly Court - an extremely serious affair, as Li Gen had been commissioned by Heaven as head of the Ocean Patrol, while Aobing  was a full-fledged deity. Li Jing could not deny the accusations, for he himself found Nezha in his garden making the dragon-tendon belt for him, and Nezha himself went up to the implacable Aoguang and apologised for his mistake - and offered to give him back his son's tendons. Foreseeing the trouble that would befall on his family, Nezha sought Taiyi for advice. The immortal put a spell of invisibility onto him and told him to wait at the South Gate of Heaven; as it turned out, Aoguang appeared there, intending to make a complaint to the Heavenly Court. Nezha attacked him and knocked him down with his Cosmic Ring, tearing out forty to fifty of his scales before he pleaded for mercy. Nezha extracted a promise from him not to report to the Heavenly Court and as a precaution, brought him back home to his parents (who, to say the least, were not exactly grateful for their son's well-intentioned act). It was only a temporary respite, however, as Aoguang this time threatened to get the Dragon Kings of the three other seas to help him pass judgement on the family.

Lady Shiji 

In the meantime, Nezha had discovered the Cosmic Bow and its three Heaven-shaker arrows near his home, magical treasures which had guarded Chentang Pass for generations and had never been used by any human before. He shot one arrow at random to the southwest; so powerful was it that it flew all the way to White Bone Cave at Skeleton Mountain. Now there lived in the cave the rock spirit Lady Shiji, whose servant was out picking herbs that day when the arrow pierced his throat and killed him. Recognizing that the arrow belonged to Li Jing, to whom she had once done a kindness, a furious Shiji mounted her blue phoenix, carried off the innocent Li Jing and held him hostage until he promised to go back and find out who had committed the murder. Nezha admitted his mistake to his father and went with him to Skeleton Mountain, where as a result of a fresh quarrel with the deceased's brother he fought Shiji and had his weapons wrested from him by the powerful Lady.

Thus weaponless, Nezha fled to Taiyi, who shielded Nezha and fought fiercely with Shiji, finally subduing her with his Nine Dragons Net. Shiji was engulfed in flames and transformed back into her original shape as a stone. Having defeated the new foe, Taiyi advised Nezha to make his way home as soon as possible as his parents were in danger.

Death and Reincarnation

Back home, Nezha found that the four Dragon Kings had come to bring his parents to justice and offered to surrender himself to Aoguang in exchange for his parents' freedom. There and then, he hacked off his left arm with a sword, disemboweled himself and scraped his flesh off his bones, thus giving up his soul. Soon afterwards, he appeared to his mother in a dream, asking her to build a shrine for his homeless soul at Mount Cuiping ("Emerald Screen") so that he could be reincarnated after three years of incense offerings. Yin Shi carried out her son's wishes secretly. At the temple, miracles occurred and pilgrims flocked to worship him. When Li Jing discovered the temple, he was furious at what he thought was an act of idolatry by an unnatural son and had the temple burnt down.

Homeless once again, Nezha sought refuge with Taiyi, who recreated his body from the stalks, leaves and blossoms of the lotus plant and armed him with a fiery spear and a pair of wind-and-fire wheels that served as a vehicle. He also provided him with a leopard-skin pouch in which were contained the Cosmic Ring, the Huntian Cloth and a gold brick. Thus garbed, a vengeful Nezha sought out his father.

Father and Son

Nezha found his father and there and then disowned him for burning down his temple, after which he engaged him in battle; Li Jing soon realized that he was no match for his son and fled. Nezha gave chase, meeting first of all his brother Muzha, who tried to defend their father but was knocked out by Nezha's gold brick. In the meantime, Li Jing found refuge in Nimbus Cave at Five Dragons Mountain with his eldest son Jinzha's mentor, the wise deity Wenzhu. The latter subdued Nezha by clamping him against a gold pillar with metal bands and whipping him until fires poured out of his seven apertures. Taiyi came soon after and he and Wenzhu admonished both Li Jing and Nezha to end their mutual strife. Li Jing was to return home and Nezha to his master's abode at Golden Light Cave.

Nezha was not satisfied, however, and upon leaving Five Dragons Mountain renewed his attack on his father. A Taoist priest named Randeng ("Burning Lamp") from Magic Vulture Mountain intervened in the fight, having been sent by Taiyi, and granted supernatural strength to Li Jing; when a desperate Nezha attacked the priest, the latter quite easily blocked his moves, first with a white lotus blossom that sprouted from his mouth and blocked his spear, then with a golden pagoda that trapped Nezha within it and enveloped him in flames. Nezha was freed only when he repented of his wrongs and re-acknowledged Li Jing as his father. As a precaution, however, Randeng gave Li Jing the pagoda and taught him how to use it in case Nezha rebelled against him again. The story of father and son ends with Nezha returning to Golden Light Cave and Li Jing retiring from an increasingly corrupt and turbulent world. 

Epilogue

The story of Nezha does not end here. When the immortal Jiang Ziya descended from his mountain and assembled an army to overthrow the Shang and establish the Zhou, Nezha and his father joined the struggle on the side of the Zhou and after the great war were both canonized as deities (Li Jing himself was to appear as the pagoda-bearing devaraja (god-king) Vaisravana in Chinese Buddhist traditions). As a warrior deity, Nezha continued to take part in many battles against demons and evil spirits, and in the Ming dynasty novel Journey to the West, he was among the deities who were summoned to overcome a rebellious Monkey God.

Bibliography: 

Owen, Stephen, ed., trans. An Anthology of Chinese Literature. USA: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996, pp. 771 - 806. The main source of the narrative in this article.

Werner, E. T. C. Myths and Legends of China. Singapore: Graham Brash, 1984, pp. 305 - 319.

Created 03/05/2000

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