Original Text
A certain gentleman from Shaanxi, who earned his jinshi degree in the eighteenth year of the Shunzhi reign, could recall events from his former life. He once said that in his previous existence he was a scholar who died in middle age. After death, he saw the King of Yama presiding over judgments, with large and small cauldrons of boiling oil set out, just as the world commonly describes. On the eastern corner of the hall, several racks were placed, draped with the hides of pigs, sheep, dogs, horses, and other animals. The registrar of names would call out each person's name; some were condemned to be reborn as horses, others as pigs, and each person, stripped naked, would take the corresponding hide from the rack and drape it over themselves. Soon it was this gentleman's turn, and he heard the King of Yama declare: "This man should become a sheep." Thereupon a minor demon fetched a white sheepskin and forcibly wrapped it around him. The registrar then said: "This man once saved a human life." The King of Yama examined the ledger, glanced at it, and instructed: "Exempt him. Though his misdeeds are many, this one good deed can atone for them." So the demon began to peel off the sheepskin. But the hide had already adhered to his body and could not be easily removed. Two minor demons seized his arms, pressed down on his chest, and pulled with all their might, causing the gentleman unbearable agony. The sheepskin tore into shreds, yet still could not be completely stripped away. Finally, the skin came off, but near the shoulder, a patch as large as a palm remained stuck. After this gentleman was reborn, a tuft of wool grew on his back; cutting it off only made it grow back.
Commentary
According to the Buddhist doctrine of reincarnation, all sentient beings undergo constant transformation. Yet how is the technical problem of such transformation resolved—that is, how does a human body transform into that of another animal? The earliest literary exploration of this can be found in the Tang dynasty tale "Cui Huan" from the "Records of the Mysterious and Strange," which describes "using a great iron hammer to pound a person into ore," and so forth. Thereafter, literary works offered varying explanations, each singing its own tune; even within "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio," the solutions are diverse and multifarious. Most involve the soul directly uniting with the animal destined for rebirth, as in the first volume's "Three Lives," where Liu the Honorable Graduate is punished by being reborn as a horse: his ghost is escorted by underworld attendants "until they reached a house with a threshold so high it could not be crossed. Just as he hesitated, the ghostly force struck him, causing such pain that he stumbled. Looking at himself, he found his body already beneath the manger. He only heard someone say, 'The black mare has foaled, and it is a male.'" This tale, however, directly has the human soul don the skin of an animal.
A certain gentleman from the region west of Shaanxi had a patch of wool growing on his back, which, when shorn off, would grow back again. From a biological perspective, this might be explained as a form of atavism, and according to modern genetics, such atavism can be interpreted in two ways: first, that genes which had separated during the formation of a species, necessary for determining a certain trait, may recombine through hybridization or other causes, thus allowing the ancestral trait to reappear; second, that the genes determining this ancestral trait, having been long sealed off by repressor proteins primarily composed of histones during evolution, may, due to some reason, produce specific non-histone proteins that bind with histones, causing the repressor proteins to fall away, thereby restoring the activity of the sealed genes, which then undergo transcription and translation anew, manifesting the ancestral form. The talk of a "patch of wool" is thus but a figment of imagination.