White Snake Legend

But the Buddhist monk Fahai saw the marriage as an abomination — a spirit deceiving a mortal, defying the natural order. He told Xu Xian that his wife was a snake demon and urged him to test her with realgar wine during the Duanwu Festival.

When Xu Xian offered the wine, Bai Suzhen drank it — and lost control of her transformation. She reverted to her snake form. Xu Xian, seeing the enormous white snake, died of shock. In one of the myth's most powerful sequences, Bai Suzhen risked everything to steal the herb of [immortal](/gods/buddha-shakyamuni)ity from heaven, revived Xu Xian, and tried to rebuild their life — but Fahai would not relent.

Bai Suzhen, desperate to protect her family, fought a catastrophic battle with Fahai. She flooded Jinshan Temple with water from the West Lake, endangering innocent lives — an act that turned public sympathy against her. Fahai finally captured her using his alms bowl and imprisoned her beneath Leifeng Pagoda in Hangzhou.

The conditions of her release, as Fahai declared: the pagoda would fall, or the West Lake would dry up, or Leifeng Pagoda would be illuminated — conditions that seemed impossible. Bai Suzhen's son, Xu Mengjiao, eventually grew up, passed the imperial exams, and offered sacrifices to his mother, eventually freeing her.

The White [Snake](/zodiac/zodiac-snake) legend is one of the most complex stories in Chinese mythology. Is Bai Suzhen a demon who deceived a mortal, or a woman whose love was punished by rigid dogma? Is Fahai a righteous defender of natural law, or a fanatic who destroyed a family out of intolerance?

Over the centuries, the story has shifted — early versions were cautionary tales about snake spirits, but later versions increasingly sympathized with [Bai Suzhen](/gods/bai-suzhen). Today, she is widely seen as the heroine: a being who loved deeply, sacrificed everything, and was punished not for doing wrong, but for being different. The legend continues to inspire films, operas, and TV dramas — most recently in the 2019 animated film [White Snake](/myths/white-snake).

Primary classical texts: Shanhaijing (山海经, Classic of Mountains and Seas, c. 4th-2nd century BCE) · Fengshen Yanyi (封神演义, Investiture of the Gods, c. 16th century) · Journey to the West (西游记, Xiyouji, c. 16th century) · Records of the Grand Historian (史记, Shiji, by Sima Qian, c. 91 BCE) · Classic of Mountains and Seas commentary (郭璞注 Shanhaijing, c. 4th century) · Bamboo Annals (竹书纪年, c. 4th century BCE onwards)

Classical translations: Legge, James (trans.). The Sacred Books of the East (1879-1910, 50 volumes covering Chinese classics) · Girardot, Norman J. Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism (University of California Press, 1983) · Werner, E.T.C. A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1932)

Modern academic references: Birrell, Anne. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993) · Yang, Lihui, and Deming An. Handbook of Chinese Mythology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005) · Strassberg, Richard E. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)

Digital encyclopedias and online resources: Wikipedia — Chinese mythology portal (continuously updated, citations to primary sources) · Encyclopedia Britannica — Mythology and Religion section