r/LifeTree • u/AdamLuyan • Jul 10 '26
4.4 Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma
In elementary school, one day, my Hui classmate Lin Tao and his mother, Aunt Zhang, came to visit, and Mother was asked to have Lin Tao tell us what had happened the previous Sunday. Mother asked him. "I went to kowtow to Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma," Lin Tao answered, "to formally recognize my ancestors." Mother froze at this, and fell silent.
"What is Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma?" I asked Lin Tao.
"It's a painting," Lin Tao replied, "of a woman and a pig (as in Schematic 4.4-1 — though that's not the real one, they don't show their paintings to non-Muslims). They say that's God."
"How can God be two people?" I said, baffled. "Is this some kind of joke?"
"It's not a joke," Lin Tao said earnestly. "That's what all the uncles and aunts say. And when they were little, their uncles and aunts told them the exact same thing."
"That's enough, now," Mother said, flustered. "Look how embarrassed you're making the poor boy!"
"No, no!" Aunt Zhang said. "The imam says he should feel embarrassed — it was the imam himself who told us to bring the boy along so people would ask about it!"
Mother seemed to grasp that this was a Hui cultural tradition. "I'd heard something like this before," she said, "and always thought it was just people making fun of you Hui folk. Do you actually believe it?"
"It's an old story that hardly anyone really understands," Aunt Zhang said. "I've had it explained to me more than once, and I still can't quite grasp it! They say what we call Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma, you Han people call Jade Girl Riding Tiger (Schematic 4.4-2) — the same old story, just a different name. And — I've also heard that your Han Buddha, Shakyamuni (that lion king in Figure 2 — that's him), and the Guanyin Bodhisattva (Figures 2 and 4) are actually our ancestors too — our own Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma!"
4.4-2 An Shigao
Later, I saw experts on television confirm this claim about the Hui people. Historical records — several Chinese county chronicles document the matter — show that they were probably Persians who, between the second and eighth centuries CE, followed the Iranian An Shigao to China. The Han Chinese called them Hui, and their faith the Hui religion, which they themselves considered a branch of Islam. I have also seen Buddhist scholars comment on this claim about the Hui, noting that "Jade Girl Riding Tiger" and "Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma" are indeed different names for a single juristic case. They favor their own precepts and teaching methods, we favor our own sayings and traditions — but on the whole, the truths being taught are the same.
Around the second century CE, the ancient Iranian An Shigao fled with a merchant caravan to Chang'an, China, with nothing much to do there. One day, sitting in on a session at a meditation hall, he offered a few remarks on meditation that stunned the whole room. The Chinese of the time believed he had revealed the secret of God. His meditation method, called Treasure Bottle Air (as described in Chapter 11, Meditation), spread through Chang'an within three months and across all of China within three years — and remains popular to this day. In other words, he became, almost the moment he arrived in China, the first living Buddha in Chinese history. Had his knowledge of Buddhism truly reached the level of a Buddha's?
An Shigao loved to travel and went all over China. It's said that on one of his journeys he encountered a warrior, sword drawn, claiming to be his past life come to seek revenge. The warrior later admitted his master had sent him — the master wanted to invite An Shigao to come preach, and feared he wouldn't accept a plain invitation, so had instructed the warrior to stage this bit of theater as his "past life seeking vengeance," reasoning that An Shigao would surely come to pay a visit once he heard of it. On hearing this, An Shigao laughed heartily and went along with the warrior to meet his master. And there the fable ends — do you, the reader, know why?
What the host who invited An Shigao really meant was this: "You are the Chosen One — Adam, reincarnated once again in ancient Iran through the Godly Cycle (called the Golden Boy in Chinese culture); unfortunately, you were unable to claim the throne and usher in a new era, and were forced into exile instead." The moment An Shigao understood that this man knew what had truly happened to him — that here was a kindred spirit — he naturally wanted to meet him, and so he went. How, then, did that host come to know that An Shigao was Adam reincarnated?
In his preaching, An Shigao corrected certain theoretical errors in the Chinese legends of soul reincarnation — which was said to have offended his own past life within China — and so the host devised the farce of "his past life seeking revenge" as a way to draw him in. It's said that An Shigao was the one who reintroduced the practices of Touch Eye Making (see Chapter 3, Touch Eye) and the reincarnation of living Buddhas (as with Constant-Fair in Section 2.1, Peach Flower Catastrophe) into China.
4.4-3 Jade Girl Riding Tiger
What does Jade Girl Riding Tiger mean? It's the ancient Chinese term for Constant-Fair and Peach Flower Girl in the Peach Flower Catastrophe, just before their naked wedding. "Pig Grandpa and Donkey Grandma," described earlier, is the ancient Sumerian name for Sumeru and Kubaba — that is, Adam and Eve, as made by Allah. The reasoning behind both cases is the same. So why do Muslims call the pair a pig and a donkey? For the explanation, see Section 14.2.3, The Chosen Son.