法苑珠林 63.41

63.41

漢中平年內有物處于江水。其名曰蜮。一曰短狐。能含沙射人。所中者則身體筋急頭痛發熱。劇者至死。江人以術方抑之。則得沙石於鹵中。詩所謂為鬼為蜮。則不可得也。今俗謂之谿毒。先儒以為南方男女同川而浴。塗氣之所生也。

During the Zhongping reign era of the Han, there was a creature living in the waters of the Changjiang whose name was the *yu*, also called the short fox. It could hold sand in its mouth to shoot at humans. Those struck by it would suffer tense sinews, headache, and fever, and in severe cases would die. When the people of the river suppressed it with ritual arts, they would find sand and gravel in its belly. This is what the *Classic of Poetry* refers to by: “To be a ghost or a *yu* is impossible.” Nowadays, it is colloquially called the “ravine poison.” Earlier Confucian scholars believed that it was generated from the foul vapors when men and women of the south bathed together in the same river.