ne account as being Yue Huang's
shield-bearer, sixty feet in height, his three heads with nine
eyes crowned by a golden wheel, his eight hands each holding a
magic weapon, and his mouth vomiting blue clouds. At the sound of
his Voice, we are told, the heavens shook and the foundations of the
earth trembled. His duty was to bring into submission all the demons
which desolated the world.

His birth was in this wise. Li Ching's wife, Yin Shih, bore him three
sons, the eldest Chin-cha, the second Mu-cha, and the third No-cha,
generally known as 'the Third Prince.'

Yin Shih dreamed one night that a Taoist priest entered her room. She
indignantly exclaimed: "How dare you come into my room in this
indiscreet manner?" The priest replied: "Woman, receive the child of
the unicorn!" Before she could reply the Taoist pushed an object to
her bosom.

Yin Shih awoke in a fright, a cold sweat all over her body. Having
awakened her husband, she told him what she had dreamed. At that moment
she was seized with the pains of childbirth. Li Ching withdrew to an
adjoining room, uneasy at what seemed to be inauspicious omens. A
little later two servants ran to him, crying out: "Your wife has
given birth to a monstrous freak!"

An Avatar of the Intelligent Pearl

Li Ching seized his sword and went into his wife's room, which he found
filled with a red light exhaling a most extraordinary odour. A ball
of flesh was rolling on the floor like a wheel; with a blow of his
sword he cut it open, and a babe emerged, surrounded by a halo of red
light. Its face was very white, a gold bracelet was on its right wrist,
and it wore a pair of red silk trousers, from which proceeded rays
of dazzling golden light. The bracelet was 'the horizon of Heaven and
earth,' and the two precious objects belonged to the cave Chin-kuang
Tung of T'ai-i Chen-jen, the priest who had bestowed them upon him
when he appeared to his mother during her sleep. The child itself
was an avatar of Ling Chu-tzu, 'the Intelligent Pearl.'

On the morrow T'ai-i Chen-jen returned and asked Li Ching's permission
to see the new-born babe. "He shall be called No-cha," he said,
"and will become my disciple."

A Precocious Youth

At seven years of age No-cha was already six feet in height. One day
he asked his mother if he might go for a walk outside the town. His
mother granted him permission on condition that he was accompanied
by a servant. She also counselled him not to remain