Celestial Huli Jing

The huli-jing (狐狸精) is the fox-spirit of Chinese tradition, attested since ancient times: the Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhaijing) already describes the nine-tailed fox of Qingqiu, and later collections such as the Liaozhai Zhiyi of Pu Songling or the Zi Bu Yu of Yuan Mei collect numerous tales of foxes that take human form. In the Taoist worldview, a fox that lives long enough and practices inner cultivation (neidan) can refine its energy and ascend to the category of celestial fox (tianhu, 天狐) or fox-immortal (huxian, 狐仙). This «celestial immortal» form represents the culmination of that process: the millennial fox that, after centuries of discipline, reaches the pantheon and is counted among the xian, the immortals.

The celestial fox has left behind the predation of vital energy typical of young specimens and sustains its existence through Taoist cultivation and the conservation of its magic pearl (húwán or hújīng), source of its spiritual power and main vulnerability if it is taken from it. The tradition attributes to it the free transformation between human, fox and hybrid form of nine tails, flight between heaven and earth, mastery of mists and messaging between deities. It can grant healing, fortune and success in imperial examinations to virtuous mortals, and it is considered almost invulnerable except before the highest-ranking Taoist talismans. It is associated with sacred mountains, dwelling of immortals, and with occasional service to Xi Wangmu, the Queen Mother of the West.

As huxian, the celestial fox was an object of popular worship in broad regions of China, where offerings were made to it to obtain protection and prosperity. Its iconography is linked to the nine-tailed fox, emblem both of auspice (in its beneficial aspect, sign of peace and good government) as of danger (in its seductive aspect). It is thus distinguished from the predatory forms of the archetype by its benevolent character and its spiritual elevation. It belongs to the same family as the Korean gumiho and the Japanese kitsune, with which it shares the motif of the fox that ascends through longevity and discipline, and represents, within the cycle of the huli-jing, the ultimate goal of the transformation: the passage from the cunning beast to the venerated immortal.