Ròu Pútuan 肉蒲團
The Carnal Prayer Mat by 李漁 Lǐ Yú (attributed)
About the work
Ròu Pútuan 肉蒲團 (The Carnal Prayer Mat) is a Qīng-dynasty erotic novel in approximately 20 huí 回, traditionally attributed to 李漁 Lǐ Yú 李漁 (1611–1680). The Kanripo text (KR4k0213) preserves 10 chapters (2,857 lines), representing approximately the first half of the novel. It is thus a partial text. The full novel has been widely circulated in clandestine manuscripts and later printed editions.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The novel opens with a long authorial preface arguing, in a quasi-medical register, that sexual desire properly moderated is beneficial to health, and that the story is intended to warn against excess by dramatizing its karmic consequences — a conventional framing device for Ming-Qīng erotic fiction. The first chapter’s title reads “止淫風借淫說法 談色事就色開端” (Stopping licentiousness by preaching through licentiousness; beginning with sexual matters to open with sexual matters), signaling the didactic-erotic double register characteristic of the genre.
The attribution to 李漁 Lǐ Yú 李漁 (1611–1680; CBDB id 65737) has been accepted by many scholars but disputed by others. Wilkinson (§31.2.1) records the work as “Li Yu 李漁 (1610–80). 1657. Rou putuan 肉蒲團.” Patrick Hanan, the foremost authority on Ming-Qīng fiction, accepted the Li Yu attribution in his 1990 translation but noted that the evidence is circumstantial. The 1657 date derives from internal textual evidence. No preface or colophon in the Kanripo text identifies the author.
The narrative follows the scholar Weiyangsheng 未央生, who abandons his chaste wife in pursuit of sexual adventure, undergoes surgical “enhancement,” seduces a series of women, and ultimately is brought to ruin and Buddhist repentance. The karmic retribution framework — sexual transgression leading to calamity and eventual enlightenment — aligns with the Buddhist-inflected moral universe common to Qīng fiction of this type, and echoes the framing of Xù Jīnpíngméi 續金瓶梅 (KR4k0218).
The 10 chapters preserved in this Kanripo file cover the novel through the protagonist’s initial career of seduction. For the complete novel readers should consult modern critical editions or Patrick Hanan’s English translation.
Translations and research
- Hanan, Patrick, tr. The carnal prayer mat. Ballantine Books, 1990. Rpt. University of Hawaii Press, 1996. The standard English translation, with introduction on the attribution question.
- Hanan, Patrick. The Chinese vernacular story. Harvard University Press, 1981. Background on the genre.
- McMahon, Keith. Misers, shrews and polygamists: Sexuality and male-female relations in eighteenth-century Chinese fiction. Duke University Press, 1995.
Other points of interest
The novel’s opening medical-philosophical argument on the beneficial effects of regulated sexuality — drawing on the Bencao Gangmu 本草綱目 as a satirical foil — is one of the most elaborately argued prefaces in the Chinese erotic fiction tradition. The framing device of Buddhist karmic retribution is sustained throughout: the novel ends with the protagonist taking monastic vows, his wife having done the same independently.
Links
- Wikipedia: Rou Putuan
- Wikidata: Q7372209