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Wangliang (魍魎 or 罔两) is the name of a malevolent spirit in Chinese mythology and folklore. This word inclusively means "demons; monsters; specters; goblins; ghosts; devils" in Modern Standard Chinese, but ''wangliang'' originally meant a specific demon. Interpretations include a wilderness spirit like the ''kui'' 夔 "one-legged mountain demon", a water spirit like the ''long'' 龍 "dragon", a fever demon like the ''yu'' 魊 "poisonous 3-legged turtle that causes malaria", a graveyard ghost also called wanggxiang 罔象 or fangliang 方良 "earth demon that eats the livers or brains of corpses", and a man-eating "demon that resembles a 3-year-old brown child with red eyes, long ears, and beautiful hair". ==Name== In modern Chinese usage, ''wangliang'' "demon; monster" is usually written 魍魎 with radical-phonetic characters combining the "ghost radical" 鬼 (typically used to write words concerning ghosts, demons, etc.) with phonetic elements of ''wang'' 罔 and ''liang'' 兩 (lit. "decide" and "two"). In Warring States period (475-221 BCE) usage, ''wangliang'' was also phonetically transcribed using the character pronunciations ''wang'' 罔 and ''liang'' 兩, and written 蝄蜽 with the "animal radical" 虫 (used to write names of insects, dragons, etc.) or ''wangliang'' 罔閬 using ''liang'' 閬 "dry moat" with the "gate radical" 門 (typically used to write architectural terminology). The earliest recorded usages of ''wangliang'' in the Chinese classics are: 魍魎 in the (c. 5th-4th century BCE) ''Guoyu'', 罔兩 in the (c. 389 BCE) ''Zuozhuan'', 罔閬 in the (c. 91 BCE) ''Shiji'', and 蝄蜽 in the (121 CE) ''Shuowen jiezi'' (or possibly the ''Kongzi Jiayu'' of uncertain date). While ''liang'' 魎 only occurs as a bound morpheme in ''wangliang'', ''wang'' occurs in other expressions such as ''wangmei'' 魍魅 "evil spirits". ''Wǎngliǎng'' "demons and monsters" frequently occurs in the synonym-compound ''chīmèiwǎngliǎng'' 魑魅魍魍 "demons; monsters". Since commentators differentiate between ''chimei'' "demons of the mountains and forests" and ''wangliang'' "demons of the rivers and marshes", ''chimeiwangliang'' can mean either "demons; monsters; evil spirits" generally or "mountain demons and water demons" separately. For example, James Legge's (1872: 293) ''Zuozhuan'' translation syllabically splits ''chimeiwangliang'' into four types of demons, "the injurious things, and the hill-sprites, monstrous things, and water-sprites". Chinese scholars have identified ''wangxiang'' 罔象 and ''fangliang'' 方良 as probable synonyms of ''wangliang'' < Old Chinese *''maŋʔp.raŋʔ'' 魍魎 (citing Baxter and Sagart's (2014) reconstructions). ''Wangxiang'' < *''maŋʔs.()aŋʔ'' 罔象 means "water demon" and the reverse ''xiangwang'' < *''s.()aŋʔmaŋʔ'' 象罔 means "a water ghost" in the ''Zhuangzi'' (which uses ''wangliang'' < *''maŋʔp.raŋʔ'' 罔兩 for the allegorical character Penumbra, see below). The ''Guoyu'' distinguishes ''wangliang'' 罔兩 "a tree and rock demon" and ''wangxiang'' 罔象 "a water demon" (see below). ''Fangliang'' < *''paŋ()aŋ'' 方良 names a "graveyard demon", identified as the ''wangliang'' < *''maŋʔp.raŋʔ'' 罔兩, that is exorcized in the ''Zhouli'' (below). A simple explanation for these phonological data and revolving identifications of demon names is that they were dialectic variations or corruptions of each other (de Groot 1910 5: 521). William G. Boltz (1979: 432-433) gives a more sophisticated interpretation that these were not just a confusion between various similar, but independent, names, but actually all variants of one and the same underlying designation: an initial consonantal cluster * *''BLjang'' ~ * *''BZjang'' "see". Citing Bernhard Karlgren's (1957) reconstructions of Old Chinese, Boltz gives *''mjwang-ljang'' 罔兩 < * *''BLjang'', *''pjwang-ljang'' 方良 < * *''BLjang'', and *''mjwang-dzjang'' 罔象 < * *''BZjang''. Furthermore, if these names derived from a common protoform * *''BLjang'' or * *''BZjang'' "see", that implies that the spirits were not so much "demons" as "specters" (from Latin ''spectrum'' "appearance; apparition") or "visions". Another proposed etymology for ''xiangwang'' < *''s.()aŋʔmaŋʔ'' 象罔 is the Austro-Tai root *''s()()aŋ'' "spirit; god" (Benedict 1975:391, Carr 1988:96). The semantics of ''wangliang'' 罔兩 or 魍魎 are complicated, as evident in these translation equivalents of ''wangliang'' and ''wanggxiang'' 罔象 in major Chinese-English dictionaries. *罔兩 see (). 罔象 an imaginary monster which devours the brains of the dead underground. — 魍() A sprite; an elf. An animal which eats dead men's brains. It fears pine-trees and tigers; hence the former are planted at graves, and stone tigers are also set up. (Giles 1912) *罔兩 () the penumbra. 罔象 an imaginary monster of the waters. — 魍魎 An elf. A sprite. An animal which is said to eat the brains of the dead underground. (Mathews 1931) *罔兩 (1) spirits, monsters of the mountain rivers (2) the penumbra — 魍魎 a kind of monster (Liang 1971) *罔兩 (1) spirits, demons of the wilds (also wr. 魍魎); (2) (AC) the penumbra, fringe shadow. — 魍魎 mountain spirits, demons. (Lin 1972) *魍魎 demons and monsters (DeFrancis 2003) *魍魎 demons and monsters (Kleeman and Yu 2010) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wangliang」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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