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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses
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A commercial and optimistic worldview of the afterlife of the Song people: Based on stories from the "Yijian Zhi"
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A commercial and optimistic worldview of the afterlife of the Song people: Based on stories from the "Yijian Zhi"
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NOTE TO USERS Page(s) not included in the original manuscript and are unavailable from the author or university. The manuscript was scanned as received. 43 This reproduction is the best copy available. ® UMI R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. A COMMERCIAL AND OPTIMISTIC WORLDVIEW OF THE AFTERLIFE OF THE SONG PEOPLE— BASED ON STORIES FROM THE YIJIANZHI by Juying Wang A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS (EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES) August 2004 Copyright 2004 Juying Wang R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UMI Number: 1422406 IN F O R M A T IO N TO U S E R S The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be rem oved, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 1422406 Copyright 2004 by ProQ uest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Com pany 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 81 06 -1 34 6 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ii Table of Contents Abstract iii 1. Introduction 1 2. The Representation of the Underworld in the YJZ 13 3. Death Rituals Contributing to the Salvation of the Dead 32 4. The Agencies Responsible for Ceremonies And the Deinstitutionalization and Popularization of Death Rituals 5 8 5. Conclusion 72 Bibliography 74 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ABSTRACT The afterlife and associated rituals, particularly death rituals, have always been had a deep religious significance in Chinese culture. Along with changes in social and economic structures of contemporary society, the Song dynasty saw the emergence of a revised notion of the afterlife, with the ten kings as the judges who oversaw the underworld, and the surface of a new occupation, unschooled death ritual specialists, thereby the death ritual practices were deinstitutionalized and popularized. This thesis draws on many stories presenting the Song people’s beliefs about the afterlife and the practices of various death rituals in the Yijian Zhi, a miscellaneous note compiled by Hong Mai (1123-1202), and official government documents, Song Huiyao, to reconstruct the Song people's worldview of the afterlife, to trace the deinstitutionalization and popularization of the death ritual in the Song dynasty, and to explicate the underlying reasons driving this phenomenon. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 1 Introduction The Evolution of the Idea of the Afterlife A religious concern with the afterlife has developed since high antiquity in China. Pre-Buddhist Chinese beliefs about a heavenly world above and an underworld below were closely related to the dualistic conception of soul, the hun H and the po @ jt. The dualistic conception of hun and po f 'f / U began to gain prevalence in the middle of the sixth century B.C. At death, the hun soul was thought to go to the heaven while the po 0 JS soul was believed to go to the earth.1 The T-shape silk painting from Ma Wang Dui, dated 167 B.C., testifies to the ancient Chinese notion that at death the hun sit and the po 0 JS went separate ways, the former returning to the heaven and the latter to the earth.2 This painting also presents us with the Han people’s imagination with a heavenly world, the human world, and the underworld and convinces us that the Chinese already had a vivid conception of a heavenly world above and an underworld below. In the Han 1 Yu Ying-shih /T ’ OiH.f," ’ O, Soul, Come Back!' A Study in the changing Conception o f the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China," Harvard Journal o f AsiaticStudies Vol. 47.2 (1987)370. 2 Yu, “Zhongguo Gudai Sihou Sijieguan de yan bian 1 [ '[SI i f f f Yanvuan Lunxue Ji (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1984) 189. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 dynasty, with the surfacing of the quest for physical immortality, the Heaven was conceived to be occupied by the immortals (xian {\\\) who would never die. Then the Mount Tai became the new abode where the hun z$| soul would go after death while the po soul went to the Lower Village (xia li ).3 In the Han culture, we could see a notion of a bureaucratic government in both the heaven and the underworld modeled on the human world. First, in the earliest Daoist canon Taiping jing ^v7 ! ^ ', 4 we find at least four “bureaus” (cao 'ff) in the celestial government. They are the Bureau of the Fate, Bureau of Longevity, Bureau of Good Deeds, and Bureau of Evil Deeds. The term “bureau” (cao Hf), it may be noted, was a direct borrowing from the Han governmental organization. For example, the secretariat of the Chancellor was composed of thirteen bureaus {cao W).5 Second, like the supreme ruler of the human world, its was believed that the Lord of Mount Tai {taishan fujun > > £ | I also had a bureaucracy to assist him in governing the dead. The Lord of Mount Tai was referred as “the grandson of Heaven”, a lower status compared to that of the emperor of the human world who labeled himself as “the son of Heaven”. The term fu jun f \ was a popular 3 Yu 1984: 191, 1987: 394. 4 Abbreviated as TPC thereafter. The TPC C 4 ';tvf is datable to the second century A.D., that is before appreciable Buddhist influence on Chinese life and thought. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 name referring to the provincial governors in Han times.6 Therefore, we can readily perceive that the bureaucratic structures of the underworld and of the heavenly world were closely modeled on the administrative system of the Han Empire. As time went on, the idea of post-mortem punishment also found its way into the Han belief about the afterlife. The TPC of the second century A.D. has the following vivid description of the administration of justice in the underworld. If a man commits evils unceasingly, his name will then be entered into the Register of Death. He will be summoned to the Underworld Government (tufujzjfT) where his body is to be kept. Alas! When can he ever get out? His soul will be imprisoned at his doing in life will be questioned. If his words are found to be inconsistent, he will be subject to further imprisonment and torture. His soul is surely going to suffer a great deal. But who is to blame?7 As historians observe, interrogation and torture were widely used in the imperial and provincial prisons, especially during the second century A.D. Thus 5 Qian Mu f t f j l . Traditional Government Imperial China: A Critical Analysis, trans. George O. Totten et al (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press; N ew York: St. martin’s Press, 1982) 3. 6 Yan Gengwang S tiff H , Zhongguo Difang Xingzheng Zhidu Shi part 1 (Taibei: Zhong yang Yanjiuyuan lishi Yuyan Yanjiusuo, 1961) 216. J T P C ± m $ , 615. Quoted in Yu 1987: 390. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 the new conception of the underworld may well have been an exact reflection of the cruel realities above the earth. 8 Among the Chinese, there was a strong belief in the continuity between this world life and the next (death). Both worlds were governed by bureaucratic principles that mirrored the imperial bureaucracy and kinship organization. The expression of filial piety was linked with death rituals. Asked to define filial piety, Confucius answered: “That parents, when alive, should be served according to propriety; that, when dead, they should buried according to propriety, and that they should be sacrificed according to propriety”9 Death did not end the relationships of reciprocity among the Chinese, but it simply transformed these ties and often made them stronger. Chinese strongly believed that the dead in the underworld required nourishment from the living in this world for their well-being. As researchers have pointed out, “Ancestors depend on food presentations and other sacrifices from their descendents, which gives the descendants a leverage over the dead.”1 0 With the progressive spread of Buddhism from the second century on and the emergence of Daoist religion during approximately the same period, Chinese 8 Lu SimianH SIM , Pin Han Shi 2 vols. (Shanghai: Kaiming shuju, 1947), 2:704-709. Yu, 1987: 390. 9 Lunvu Zhengyi annot. Liu Baonan Zhuzi Jicheng n i f S i h S 8 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju Chubanshe, 1986) 1:25. James Legge, trans. Confucian Analects in Chinese Classics 5 vols. (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1970) 1:11. 1 0 Rubie Watson, “Remembering the Dead: Graves and Politics in Southeastern China”, Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China , eds. James L. Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski (Berkeley: Los Angeles & London: University o f California Press, 1988) 71. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 conceptions of the afterlife were greatly enriched. The Indian concept of the afterlife was typified by the word samsara, an endless cycle of birth and death driven by the effects of a person’s karma. In Teiser’s words, “To an originally fluid and multilocal vision of the afterlife, Buddhism added one more option: that the person could be reborn in another bodily form.”1 1 The Buddhism notion of karma completed a system of judgment after death that had been in place for centuries as we can see in the Chinese Daoism cannon, the TPC With the coming of Buddhism, the underworld and the heavenly world were fully developed as opposing sites of reward and punishment in the afterlife. The dead were conceived to suffer severe punishment in the hell and therefore, the living needed to recruit the monks, who possessed the power to augment the merits transmitted to the dead, to send offerings to the dead to help them obtain a better rebirth. Within the nearly endless cycle of rebirth, special anxiety was attached to the period between death and rebirth, a period called the purgatory by Teiser.1 2 During the Song times, with the widespread circulation of the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (ShiwangJing [ viili), the model of the ten kings as the judges in the purgatory was very popular among the folk. In the scripture, the Bodhisattva Di Zang proclaims that offering to the ten kings is the most effective way to alleviate the 1 1 Stephen Teiser, introduction, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making o f Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 1994) 14. 1 2 Ibid. 1-5. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 suffering of the dead and help them gain a better rebirth in a shorter period after their death.1 3 As these newer ideas gained hold, new death rituals came to be developed and widely practiced, such as the Water and Land Ceremony (shuilu zhai and the Nine Obscurities Offering (jiuyou jiao A ® Si)- Since rebirth was achieved only after a lengthy process of judgment overseen by the ten kings, the remembrance and the diligence of living family members to make every sacrifice demanded by the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing \ ‘+J?.) would have a significant impact on the time between death and rebirth. Thus the living gained some leverage over the dead. The Song dynasty thus saw the emergence of a revised notion of the afterlife and associated death rituals along with changes in social and economic structures of contemporary society, which is the next topic we will address in the introduction and is the important context of this paper. A Historical Context By the eleventh century, paper money and other instruments of credit supplemented the bronze coins, gold, and silver already in use. Much of China’s economy subsequently became commercialized. The Southern Song dynasty 1 3 Teiser 1994: 1-20. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 7 witnessed a rapid growth of cities and a multiplication of smaller market centers in the countryside. Secondly industries grew enormously to serve urban and rural markets. Hangzhou was a market for the entire empire. As interregional trade intensified, farmers and merchants along the Yangzi River, in Sichuan and Fujian provinces became progressively more specialized. 1 4 The availability of wood-block printing technology fuelled the effective dissemination of knowledge through books and paintings during the Southern Song times. The circulation of the new worldview of the afterlife also benefited from the new, cheaper way of producing books and paintings. During the Tang dynasty, the officials were chosen from aristocratic families. This small group was replaced in the Song by a broader and less stable elite, literati, who obtained their positions at the government through passing competitive examinations. The literati actively participated in the community charity work, temple and shrine building, performance of religious and Confucian rituals, and other public works, no matter whether they obtained an official position in their home prefecture. 1 5 At the same time, with the society ever more commercialized, the Song people demonstrated a new and relatively tolerant 1 4 Patricia Ebrey, The Cambrige Illustrated History o f China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 141-144. 1 5 Hartwell, “Demoggraphic, Political, and Social Transformations o f China,” Harvard Journal o f Asiatic Studies 42 (1982): 383-394. Robert Hymes, Statemen and Gentlemen: the Elite o f Fu-chou. Chiang-his. in Northern and Southern Sung (Cambrige: Cambridge University Press, 1986). Bettine Birge, introduction, Women. Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960-1368) (Cambrige: Cambrige University Press, 2002). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 attitude toward trade and merchants, and wealth became an increasingly significant determinant for high status.1 6 Therefore, the society during Southern Song times became more mobile and families began to diversity their activities. The often-quoted advice from Yuan Zai Jfljc (1140-1190) can illustrate how families diversified their activities in the Southern Song: If the sons of a gentleman (shidafu irA A ) have no hereditary stipend to maintain and no permanent holdings to depend on, and they wish to be filial to their parents and to support children, then nothing is as good as being a scholar. For those whose talents are great, and who can obtain advanced degrees, the best course is to get an official post and become wealthy. Next best is to open one’s gate in order to receive a tutor’s pay. For those who cannot obtain advanced degrees, the best course is to study correspondence so that one can write letters for others. Next best is to study punctuating and reading so that one can be a tutor to a children. For those who cannot be a scholar, then medicine, Buddhism and Daoism, agriculture, trade, or crafts are all possible; all provide a living without bringing shame to one’s ancestors. Most sons devote themselves to commerce or to i n agriculture, while a selected few studies full time. Like Confucian officials, Buddhist and Daoist clergy also studied for long years. They studied the Buddhist canon, which included apocryphal Chinese texts and original sutras translated mainly from Sankrist and Central Asian languages. For Daoism, expensive inductions and secret lines of transmission characterized 1 6 F.W. Mote, Imperial China 900-1800 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999) 323- 370. Robert Hymes, 1986: 82-124. 1 7 Patricia Ebrey, Family and Property in Sung China: Yuan Ts’ai’s precepts for social life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 267. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Daoist clerical training. The government administered the examinations for Buddhists and Daoists, who could receive official certifications after passing the examinations. During the Southern Song times, the government had no money, no manpower, and no motivation to supervise all clergy cloisters, and therefore abolished such examinations. Instead, the government began to sell certifications • 1 & to those who want to gain official recognition. But not many people could afford a certification. Therefore, during this time, a group of commoners emerged who also practiced the same religious rituals as did the Buddhists and Daoists. What differed them from Buddhists and Daoists was that most of them were not well versed in the Buddhist sutra or Daoist canon. The fate of this group in the Southern Song dynasty is the focus of this paper. Source This paper draws to many stories in a miscellaneous note, Yijian Zhi (YJZ), compiled by Hong Mai '/jt-jh (1123-1202). Miscellaneous notes (biji ififE) document records about the classics, official life, unusual places, strange tales, and the doings of the gods. The subjects are very diverse, touching briefly on many different topics, yet treating none in depth. However, they provide 1 8 Valerie Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) 42. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. flashes of information appearing nowhere else. 1 9 The extant YJZ includes 207 chapters and totals over 1800 pages in its modem edition, and contains many stories about popular death rituals during the Song times. The YJZ is a faithful record of hearsay about the strange and supernatural, not Hong Mai’s fabrication. Most of the stories document dates, places, and names of the people involved. In several of the prefaces to the different sections, Hong Mai stressed the measures he took to transcribe the tales accurately, saying the YJZ “contains things I have seen and heard with my eyes and ears. Each tale is clearly based on a source.” (YJZ 1:185) The information is certainly only as good as that of the people with whom he spoke. Hong Mai was bom in the prominent Hong family in Poyang, Jiangxi province, during his father’s term of office as a low official in Jiangxi. Hong’s two brothers received advanced degrees (Jinshi ];) in 1142; Hong Mai followed them in 1145. Depending on which faction was in power, Hong Mai was given less desirable posts in the province or appointed to prestigious posts in the capital. Following Qin Gui’s death, he worked in the history office in Hangzhou and 90 eventually attained the rank of Hanlin academician. He received no religious training and did not associate with clergy of any particular sect. Such detachment in a way suggests that his record about religious beliefs in his times is unbiased. 1 9 Herbert Franke, “Some Ascepts o f Private Historiography in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” Historians o f China and Japan, eds. W.G. Beasley and E. G. Pulleyblank (London: School o f Oriental and African Studies, 1961) 116. Hansen 1990: 17. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 11 Unlike the authors of most other miscellaneous notes, Hong Mai talked to people from all social status. Besides contemporary gentry, his informants included “poor people, errant monks, mountain travelers, Daoist practitioners, blind sorcerers, village women, low-ranking clerks, and foot soldiers I f fp > L U i l I: > 1 ® . AI > T 35).” (YJZ 2:537) Many stories record encounters of many different types of people, ranging from lowly cultivator to high officials, with deities and ghosts. The variety of his informants indicates that the YJZ is a good source for us to draw some reliable understanding of the people’s beliefs at large during the Southern Song dynasty. Hong Mai’s stated purpose of collecting tales is to entertain. In 1195, he explained: “Already old, I have no interest in serious reading and only like strange tales as I did when I was younger. The Heaven has been kind to me: my ears are still good, and I can still enjoy the talk of guests.” (YJZ 2:795) However, Hansen contemplates that Hong Mai had a potential intention to challenge the increasingly dominant Neo-Confucian view of reality in the Song dynasty. 2 1 However, numerous examples point to the priority of the didactic function of anecdotes of the hell in the YJZ. Transformation scenes of the hell were intended to provoke a penetrating analysis of the karmic law that lay hidden behind a veil of appearances. In a story, Hong Mai noticed that there were so many similar stories in different regions about the underworld and provided an 2 0 Hansen 1990: 17-18. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 12 explanation that the circulation of such stories was to warn the living of the punishments in the underworld. > 'fW A tft JtAA ! ) (YJZ 1:104) His explanation was confirmed by a conversation between the judge of the hell and Shujie who was led to the hell in a trance, “Now when you return to your home, please tell others what you have seen and heard here (the afterworld including the underworld and the heavenly world in this story) in order to let them know what they should not do. Please do not keep any truth from them.” (AlJd B \|‘ > J'Ljtt r t1 fit JAlfjf > A A A ifi A > fT ItJ c » A If1 liS-frt o ) (YJZ 2:451) In a word, these ghost stories aimed to admonish people to watch what they did in this life, because everyone should be responsible for one’s actions and would suffer punishments for one’s bad deeds and get rewards for one’s good deeds after one died. This paper, based on some stories from the YJZ by Hong Mai, attempts to reconstruct the Song people's worldview of the afterlife, trace the deinstititionalization and popularization of death rituals for the afterlife in the Song dynasty, and explicate the underlying reasons driving this phenomenon. 2 1 Hansen 1990:19. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 13 2 The Representation of the Underworld in the YJZ What does the underworld look like? Hong Mai presents us with an image of the punishments in the underworld through the experience of Gao Jun who, in 1152, was kidnapped by some ghost messengers into the underworld. There was a building, which seemed to be a grand government office. Prisons on the two corridors were almost packed. A woman was hung by her feet on the trussing. The clerk said, "In her previous life she oiled her hair excessively, therefore she was hung in order to drip the oil." Another woman had her hands bound behind her back and her tongue clipped by a clamp. The clerk said, "She liked gossip." Then he found the assistant general he knew was burdened with an iron lock. A prison guard cut his thighs and strip flesh from his bones, and his appearance was dry and lean, even not like a person. Around him there were some people with broken brains, broken shinbones, broken humerus, or hollow chests. And hundreds of clerks surrounded them. The clerk said, "These persons brutally killed the innocence when they were alive." “ $ 0 : TfAAfTAAo $ 0 : “ ” A tpf^A ^, YJZ 1:104-106) This description helps us to visualize what will happen to people after their death. Clearly there was judgment on everyone after one’s death according to what one had done when alive. One detail in the above account is of great significance R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 14 for our purpose: The first woman in the story suffered the punishment of hanging by her feet because she liked to polish her hair with oil in her past life. We can see that the punishments in the underworld were severe. The dead would be punished for the deeds that they committed in their past life, even for small deeds that might not be considered bad deeds according to our common sense. As we will detail later in this paper, the definition of bad deeds was greatly influenced by the notion of karma (ye H ) in Buddhism. The underworld presented by the YJZ was a miserable prison full of punishments and sufferings, and with no signs of any joyfulness. Not only did the Song people perceive the underworld as a place full of pain, but also as a place that was influenced by the expanded commercialization at that time. In the following two stories, a trade device, the cheng, was used as the instrument for judgment in the underworld. Guo Quan was the Director of the Treasury Bureau (jinbu langzhong). Because he had been ill for a long time and thus he went to the underworld in a trance. The head official was dressed in the official garb and stood at the hall. Two big chengs were set up standing opposite to each other in the front of the hall. A clerk came in with a few scrolls of accounts. The official asked the clerk to put the accounts on the cheng at the east side. The tale of the cheng was a little bit higher, saying: "this is the good deeds he has done." At the second time the clerk put the accounts on the cheng on the west side, the tale of the cheng was a little bit lower, saying: "This is his bad deeds." t o w , W m i& , 9 - “J t i m ° ” ( M A M , YJZ 4: 1782) R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 15 This hell shows a judge with a clerk who carried books of accounts. One particularly fascinating point of note is that the cheng A was used to measure the good karma and bad karma of the character, Guoquan. A measuring scale for trade, the cheng f j\ with the expanded commercialization and the development of the trade during the Song dynasty, was used more often in the Song people's daily life, and interestingly became a device to calculate the good karma and bad karma for the deceased in the underworld and helped to mete out judgments to the deceased. Wei zhongda, a native of Huating, Xiuzhou. He went into the underworld in his illness, and waited for the order at the yard... A clerk entered the hall with a plate in his hands. In the plate there were one red card and one black card. The red had a golden “goodness” (shari) on it while the black had a white “evilness” (e) on it. One young boy ordered to use the black card, and the clerk went away with it. After a while, several clerks came into the hall with some books of accounts in their hands. A cheng was in front of them, with a plate hanged on each end of it. The clerk put the accounts at the east plate. It was pressed to the floor and the earth was shaking. .. .After a while, the young boy said, “Please check and measure the good deeds of him.” The clerk went away with the red card. m a , ■ > i m m r ° m±, M# m , - m m m m m m ° - m M H A k / Z 1:136) In this story the red card was used to stand for the good karma that Wei Zhongda accrued in his this life while the black card was used to denote the bad karma he accumulated. His good karma and bad karma were both recorded in the book of accounts by the officials of the underworld. This reminders us of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 16 document clerks in the Chinese bureaucratic system. Again in this story, the cheng was used as a tool to weigh the good karma and bad karma of the deceased in their previous life. In both stories, we do not see the king of the hell but a head official in the previous story or four young boys in this story, but the bureaucracy in these two stories was the same as in the other stories in our following discussion, where the ten kings were the authorities who controlled the judgments of the deceased in the underworld. The tool used to implement the bureaucracy was the cheng f j\ a measuring scale that was widely used in the trade during the Southern Song times. In traditional Buddhism stories regarding the afterlife, the karma mirror was a tool for the judgment in the underworld. The accused sinner was bound by shackles and the cangue, and he was shown his evil deeds and the punishment which the sinner would have to endure in King Yama’s infallible “karma mirror” {ye jing HHt). Replacing the karma mirror with the cheng f-p in the underworld bureaucracy system, the Song people added some humor to the bitterness of the underworld; on the other hand, the use of the cheng ff- carried a sense of fairness and objectivity in post-mortem judgment under the earth, as it did in the supposedly fair trade aboveground. These two stories suggest that the impersonal karma law was seemed to be carried out impartially by the bureaucracy in the underworld. These stories suggest that the penal law and moral retribution were capable of operating in the underworld where people lived after they died. Now the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 17 question is who were in charge of the judgments of the dead. Many stories in the YJZ offered us a good answer. For example, Yang Nianyi |§ [ j'—■ , a native of Raozhou jHjt[ (Poyang in Jiangxi province), in the year of 1198, stayed unconscious for two days. After he woke up, he told his family that he had been mistakenly led to the underworld. The day before yesterday a clerk clothed in yellow and holding an official document chased me after. I followed him and came to a government office. I could tell that was the underworld. I was so terrified, but I could not figure out how to get out of there. I saw one person, wearing yellow kingly garment and hat, sitting in the chamber. Before I was questioned, I saw my neighbor, the Cultivated Talent Xu Zhidao and his younger sister, wearing the cangue and kneeling in the chamber. After a while, two prison guards beat them bitterly with the thorn stick, saying, “When your father was alive, there had been 170 dao of his official salary; where are they now?” fu SfJD'cifo JAL-A#ft> A 3iN ibj, ” (*§tf— A M , YJZ 4:1540) In this story the judge in the underworld came into our field of vision. He held the supreme authority in the underworld, with many officials as his assistants. He was dressed like the king in the living world and sentenced the dead in a palace, as did the king in this world. The portrayal of the sticks used for beating prisoners 2 2 A respectful way to address a Confucian student since the Song dynasty. Luo Zhufeng jHITJH Eds., Hanyu Da CiDian 12 Vols. (Shanghai:Hanyu Da Cidian Chuban She, 1990) 8: 5. 2 2 Ibid., 8: 76. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 18 and the cangues put around their necks reflected life aboveground, both of which were specified in Tang and Song codes of penal law23. As Teiser puts, "The space of purgatory also has an existential impact beyond its objective delineation. Magistrates always appear fully and formally dressed, positioned behind an elevated bench. Their prisoners are clad only in undergarments, shackled at the neck, hands, or ankles, and usually assume a cringing posture beneath guards and officials". 2 4 In one word, the underworld had similar bureaucratic and social structures as the living world. As a result, the journey of the dead in the underworld was regarded as a bureaucratic experience. The bureaucratic structure of the underworld was modeled on that of the human world in the Song dynasty. In the story "Ms. Cao Entering into the Underworld" (U ? ft A K ), her mother-in-law summoned Ms. Cao, in the year of 1159, to the underworld when she was very sick. The story continues, "then they arrived at an official house. There were four departments in the house, and I only remembered that one of them was Southern Military Office." (M W iff, p ft] ftJIAW, rin d Tt—| -[“[PidP' rT J’’-) (YJZ 1:181) This story suggests that there are four departments in the underworld. In the story the "Jiao of Daoist Huang" (M'ift the general at the celestial government also asked Shujie to address 2 3 Teiser 1994: 34. 2 4 Teiser, introduction, 1994: 2. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 19 him as the General of his office name, not by his surname. The term Office (si T i]), may be a direct borrowing from the Song governmental organization. For example, Song finances were administered by "three offices" (san si H r ] ).25 A s the Song dynasty continued, the prestige of these offices grew. In the reform advocated by Wang Anshi I (1021-1086), his first measure of reform was to create a Finance Planning Commission, which could help the Chief Ministers firmly control finances. The three offices were very important in the Song administration. This partly explains why in the Song people's imagination, the office (si W [) was always used as the model of the governmental organization in both the underworld and the heavenly world. In the Southern Song popular belief, the tenure of the office for the judge in the underworld was limited to three years. Two stories from the YJZ confirmed such a belief. Sun Dian, a native of Zhengzhou (in present-day Flenan province), in the seventh month of the year 1130, was the Prefecture of Jinjiang county, Quanzhou prefecture (in present day Fujian province). He was an honest official. .. .(When he was sick), Dian looked at the door, saying, "Who is coming with a dispatch?" All others in the room did not see any guest. After a while, Dian looked as if he was reading. The clerk asked him, "what book?" Dian answered, "A dispatch appointing me as the King of the Mount Tai." He looked around his clerks, saying, "Are Shi Ni and Xu Kai natives of our region?" The clerks answered, "The professor Shi lives in a nearby village. There is no one called Xu Kai, but a 2 5 Qian 67. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 Cultivated Talent (Jieyuan, fHxi)26 Tu Kai." .. .Sun dian died after three days. m & , m A , » ( A , £n jU'ifttm ...iAnms:'mf# m x rw m M t • a* • m m j t - " B A c K/Z 1:178) The story continues to give us more information of Shi Ni and Tu Kai. Shi Ni died in the seventh month of the year 1133. Tu Kai died in the seventh month of year 1136. The informant of this story or Hong Mai commented, "All of the three died at the seventh month, and there was a three- year interval between their death. It is possible that the term for the King of Mount Tai is also limited to three years." ( A A A A A , m m : f t , ° ) {YJZ 1:178) As implied in the following story, the term of office for the King of the First River was similarly confined to three years. I am Wang Shiliu. When I was alive, I was loyal, filial, and honest; I was not greedy for others’ property; Neither did I worship the rich nor did I look down the poor, and I did not kill living creatures, therefore, the officer of the underworld appointed me to be the King of the First River for one term during my first three years in the underworld. mmxmm, t #i a a m a , iu h a M B > ° ( YJZ 1:220) . 2 6 A respectful way to address a Confucian student since the Song dynasty. Luo Zufeng jjHtTJH ed., Hanyu Da CiDian fj|f§ A ;i5 |j|-12 V o ls ., 10:1363. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 21 These two stories suggest that the term of office for both the King of Mount Tai and the King of the First River in the underworld was restricted to three years. Such a constraint on the tenure of the office echoed the new personnel policy developed in the Song dynasty. From five dynasties (907-960) onwards, local government had been in the hands of military men, but Emperor Tai Zu (r.960-976) reduced his generals of their commands and consequently never again exercised local authority. The administration of the areas these generals had controlled was turned over to civilian officials, called Prefectural Administrators (zhi fu, zhi zhou Alj'H). They were officials of the central government, holding official ranks, 97 and they were assigned to administrate a Prefecture for a limited time. Such new personnel policy in the Song dynasty was reflected by the appointment and a three- year term for the officials underground. One amusing story even tells us that the recent civil service examinations in the underworld took place at the same time that they did on earth. It is very clear that a relatively new government system inspired the Song people's rationalization of the underworld. Like the bureaucracy in this world, corruption was very much an inherent problem in the officialdom in the underworld. The YJZ offers us some interesting examples. In the story “Ms. Cao Entering into the Underworld” (W A AK-), her 2 7 Qian 76. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 22 mother-in-law told Ms. Cao why she requested that Ms. Cao visit the underworld, saying, My oldest daughter killed her maid out of jealousy and therefore had been imprisoned in the dark hell for a long time. The clerks asked for some hush money (if I want to set her free from that hell). I have no way to get any money in the underworld and thus I turn to you for help. A B - b k ^ Z o (W R A H , YJZ 1:181) The mother-in-law then requested that Ms. Cao bum some spirit money to the clerk in the underworld on behalf of her daughter. The corrupt officials in the hell could be “bought off’ through the burning of the spirit money and the sutra chanting, much as public officials were dealt with in the real world. Although according to the notion of karma in Buddhism the karma mirror in the hell was supposed to reflect one’s action of an individual objectively and everybody was treated according to the same standards regardless of status, class, age, or sex of the individual, the Chinese native political system was powerful enough to transform the equality and to manipulate the supposedly impersonal karma law. The following story indicates that there were ten kings in the underworld. Yu Yilang a commoner of jingnan was terribly ill in the year 1192 and was dragged into wild and then came into a building. "In the hall, he saw ten men seated in a row in the palace, wore the costume of a king. When Yu asked 2 8 Wolfram Eberhard, Guilt and Sin in Traditional China (Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1967) 44. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 23 where he was, he was told, "These are ten kings of the underworld." + 0 : ”) (YJZ3:1331,) The ten kings and their assistants questioned Yu Yi about what he had done in his previous life and decided to add two decades to his lifespan as a reward for his setting free of many animals and sent him back to the living world. Here we get a vague idea of the ten kings in the underworld although we are not told whom they are. The domain of the hell, through which each person was doomed to travel between death and rebirth, was henceforth administered by an imposing succession of ten kings, whose authority in the underworld mirrored the earthly bureaucracy managed by the Son of Heaven. The idea of the ten kings was not fabricated by the storyteller or Hong Mai. We can find Buddhism scriptures, the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing \ ‘ AIM), to corroborate the prevalence of such an idea during the Southern Song times. According to Teiser, in the most common enumeration, the names of the ten kings were: The Far-Reaching King of Qin (qin guang wang fS/AA), 2. The King of the First River (chu jiang wangty] i l £ ) , 3. The Imperial King of Song (song di wang T'lf/ I:), 4. The King of the Five Offices (wu guan wang Ti'g' T.), 5. King Yama (yan luo wang IN A T: ), 6. The King of Transformation (hian cheng wang A A C), 7. The King of Mount Tai (tai san wang A lA C ), 8. The Impartial King (ping deng wang A A C), 9. The King of the Capital (du shi wang M A A ), and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 24 10. The king who Turns the Wheel of Rebirth in the Five Path {wu dao zhuan lun wang ffcTi).2 9 Teiser argues that the model of the ten kings was the most popular construction of the afterlife during the Song dynasty. The Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing [ preaches that each king takes over one hell and the dead person has to go through the ten hells consecutively before he or she could be reborn. Doubts about the authorship of the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing-f3f$§) seemed to remain unresolved by the Southern Song times, but a Tang monk named Daoming MtyJ was associated with the Bodhisattva Di Zang in a story entitled Record o f a Returned Soul (Huanhun Ji jgtltnci) and the teaching of the ten kings was said to have began with Daoming jfftlf|.3 0 However, none of the concerns of illegitimacy stopped people from sending offerings to the ten kings. According to Teiser, the extant sources only make us to see a gradual process of evolution of the system of the ten kings, beginning with single figures such as King Yama and Di Zang Bodhisattva and culminating in the system of the ten kings, not 29 Teiser, The Ghost Festival in Medieval China. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988) 433- 434. Teiser, 1994, appendix 1, 223. Teiser, “The Growth o f Purgatory”, Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung China, eds. Patricia Ebrey and Peter N. Geogry (Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 1993) 122. 3 0 For a detailed analysis o f the origin legends on the ten kings, please see Teiser 1994: 62-74. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 25 a precise reconstruction of all of the subjects described in the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang .Jing [vTjTT3 1 This change of the notion of the hell is as well revealed in many anecdotes in the YJZ. Although it is hard to establish an exact date when people developed the new notion based on the YJZ, because some stories do not detail or give readers any hint on the number of the kings in the underworld, the prevalence of the stories on the ten kings in the YJZ without doubt bears witness to the popularity of the modified notion of the afterlife in the Southern Song times. In the YJZ, we never obtain a detailed illustration of all the ten kings; however, we do encounter a particular king in some stories. For instance, in the story “Guo Er Returns to Life” (iP-HxEsji), Guo Er, a native of Chizhou tttl'j'H, was led to the underworld in his dream in the ninth month of the year 1196. He saw a king, with a fish tale hat on his head and in full official clothes, sat straight in his seat M M > ). Later the king told Guo Er that he was the King of the First River. It is possible that Guo Er only encountered the King of the First River in this particular hell and he could meet other kings if he went to other hells (YJZ 3:1456-1457). The King of the First River takes charge of the judgment on the dead in the second hell. We can discover many detailed descriptions of the First River in the YJZ. "Then (they, the clerk and the hero) reached a river. He saw many people 3 1 Teiser 1994: 19-84, 171-195. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 26 were coming and all of them crossed the river through water. Only he made it through a bridge.”( (YJZ 3:1331) In another story of "The Ceremony of the Daoist Huang" "Then the clerk led the son Shujie to a gray river. Shujie saw that the innocent people went to the other side of river by a bridge. Those who committed heavy sins took off their clothes and crossed the river only in their pants through the water." ° ) (YJZ 2:451) Here we see how the King of the First River carried out his judgment: Crossing the river through the bridge in the second hell was a reward for the innocent among the dead while crossing the river through the water was a punishment for those of heavy sins. After crossing the river, the dead continued to undergo the punishments hell by hell in the rest nine hells. In like manner, King Yama was very popular when talking about the judges in the underworld prisons through which all people must pass before their rebirth. In the anecdote “Yama’s City” (tM jiftM M c), Zhangtian '/MM, a medical practitioner contemporary with Hong Mai, in the year of 1148, entered a city not far from his native home of Xiangyang (in present-day Hubei province). The gatekeeper told him that he had entered the “Yama’s City” and soon after he entered a waiting room. The story continues: R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 27 After a while, a person came out of the curtain of the hall. He wore a yellow piece across his back. He put his hands behind his back, gazed at the rafters of the hall, and walked back and forth very slowly. He seemed engrossed in thought and walked into the hall after quite a while. Tian asked who he was. The clerk in crimson waved his hand and whispered to him: "He is King Yama, the Son of Heaven.” mz, -A g fim a, mmm, mm, w m m m , ^ xmua ° mrmmmmAmn ■ * > ” m m m , y j z 2:679-680) Here the King Yama was referred to as the “Son of Heaven” (tianzi ;7 v {-). The King Yama was delineated as very humane, just as an official who was in the middle of a decision-making process in this world. Because both the King Yama in the underworld and the official in this world were authorities in their respective territories, the Song folk were ready to model the King Yama on an official in this world. As Teiser points out, such identification is very common in Chinese popular culture.3 2 The appellation of king and the process of the judgment on Yu Yi confirmed the bureaucratic structure of the underworld prisons. According to Teiser, ten kings were regarded as a synthesis of Indian, Central Asian and Chinese conceptions of the afterlife, which happened in the Song dynasty following the decline in the institutional strength of Buddhism. The gods of the underworld had their origins throughout Asia: King Yama in pre-Buddhist India, Di Zang in India or Central Asia, the Impartial King perhaps in the Manichean traditions of Iran, the 3 2 Teiser 1994: 175. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. King of Mount Tai and other gods in China. For example, the King of Mount Tai is of unmistakably Chinese origin, since Mount Tai (in modem Shandong) was recognized as the seat of the administration of the dead even before the Han dynasty as analyzed in the introduction of this paper. Yet the fact that their cultures of origin were different did not impede their cooperation in administering a singly bureaucracy. The Indian notion of karma and the Chinese principle of bureaucracy formed a seamless administrative net. Through one’s own actions, each person accumulated karma that determined one’s retribution in one’s next life. The bureaucrats of the underworld simply assisted to administer the allegedly impersonal law of karma: they kept records of every person’s actions, forwarding the logbooks at death to the appropriate court of hells and assigned the judgment to the dead objectively.3 4 However, as Arthur F. Wright observes, “Before Buddhism divine retribution was believed to fall upon families; Buddhism then introduced the idea of karmic causation, but it was on an individual basis. Finally the two were interwoven into the view that has prevailed since the Song period; that divine retribution works on a family basis and through a chain of lives.” 3 5 Because of a strong kinship belief in Chinese culture, the living families members of the dead made offerings to the ten kings to transmit good karma to the dead. Therefore, the 3 3 Teiser 1994: 171-195. Teiser 1993: 117-119. 3 4 Teiser 1988: 459-461. 35 Arthur F. Wright, Buddhism in Chinese society (Stanford: Stanford university press, 1959) 105. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 29 ten kings made a final judgment based on the sum of the merits from the descendents’ offerings and the personal karma of the dead. This apparently was a new invention in Chinese Buddhism, not an original Indian Buddhism notion. The formal characteristics of representations of the hell preserve a similar combination of both Indian and Chinese influences. The ancestral cult made its presence felt simply in the great profusion of pictures of the underworld. Given the perennial Chinese concern with ancestors, and the fact that one’s forbears, however illustrious, were required to dwell at least some time in the purgatory, the portrayal of the hell could hardly have been a minor component of medieval Chinese culture. The logic of representations of the underworld attributed much to the traditional Chinese worldview. The most common terms for the underworld—“Yin residence” (yinzhai “the dark regions” (mingjian HfHJ), “the underworld prisons” (diyu fMIO — left no doubt that the hell was part of the mysterious world, the unseen half of the experience that so often threatened to disrupt of the living world. Buddhism similarly made its own contribution to the formal characteristics of representations of the hell. As we have discussed in our introduction, neither the requirements of the Chinese kinship system nor the categories of Chinese cosmology were inherently opposing to Buddhist offerings to the dead. As noted above, karma and bureaucracy together formed a perfectly rationalized system of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 30 justice. Buddhism emphasized the suffering of the dead, thereby making the demand for the salvation much more intense. A final observation here is how the idea of the miserable underworld was transmitted among the Song people. First it owed greatly to the invention of the new printing technology at the Song dynasty. During the ninth and tenth centuries, books were printed on wood blocks for the first time. At the end of the thirteenth century, the widespread use of printing and less expensive paper lowered the cost of books considerably. The circulation of the YJZ was indebted to the new printing technology. In the year of 1166, Hong Mai wrote in his preface to the YJZ, “Once the first section of the YJZ was finished, it was circulated among the literati. Now it was printed in Min (in present day Fujian province), in Shu (in present day Sichuan Province), and Lin’an (in present day Zhejiang province). Every family is likely to have one copy.” We can tell that the YJZ was very popular among the Song people, especially in the Min, Shu and Lia’an regions. These stories about the underworld were widely spread among the Song people with the invention of the printing technology. With the circulation of these stories, more and more people got familiar with the idea of the underworld. The YJZ thus helped to permeate the idea of the ten kings of the underworld into Chinese culture. 3 6 Hong Mai # ti2 , “The preface to the second section o f the Yijian Zhi”, Yijian Zhi TI ^ - iv 4 vols. (Taibei: Mingwen Shuju,1994) 1: 185. In Chinese, , A f l t t i R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 31 Secondly, the artistic painting was another efficient way to disseminate the idea of the ten kings. We can find some examples of the artistic presentation of the underworld in the Song dynasty in the YJZ. In the story “Yama’s City” when Zhang tian looked at the Yama king, he found that the Yama King looked different from the way he was painted in the human world. Instead, he took very much after the True Lord of Clear Origin (qingyuan zhenjun in T 7 appearance. In another anecdote “Guoquan Entering the Underworld” (f P® AH:), Guoquan discovered that the floating prison was very much like that 10 which was presented in the human-world paintings. Clearly the Song people had access to the paintings about the underworld prisons and the judges who were in charge of the punishments for the dead. These pictures were painted on the walls of the temples, sold on the market, and used at the occasions of the death rituals. As a result, the pictures of the ten kings could even reach the illiterate audience. The paintings were used to convince their audience of the truth of a new worldview, to entertain them with gruesome sights of the dark regions, and to persuade them into performing the rituals needed to escape the punishments that awaited most people after death. 3 7 YJZ 2:679, in Chinese “M T O M , T C j t ® * • ” 3 8 YJZ 4: 1782, in Chinese 31 A T O t S M t f r M f g . ” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 32 3 Death Rituals Contributing to the Salvation of the Dead From the analysis above, we can see that the dead in the underworld were not completely cut off from the living. The living family members could visit the underworld when ill, in dreams, or through other supernatural ways. For example, both Gao Jun and Yang Nianyi were mistakenly led to the underworld by the ghost messengers and thus had a chance to observe what was happening there. Pain was the most salient characteristic of the dead in the underworld. And the sufferings the dead had to bear in the underworld were proportional to their bad karma they had accumulated in their past life. The circulation of stories from the YJZ and paintings on the ten kings helped to promote the idea of the purgatory and severe postmortem punishments, thus making the Song people more convinced of the necessity and efficiency of the death rituals, which in the long time had been expressing a Chinese ambiguous feeling toward ancestors: on the one hand, the ancestors needed to continued to be venerated after death through; on the other hand, they should be kept in the proper place and not to bring damage to the living. Buddhism enriched the Chinese notion of the afterlife by introducing the idea of rebirth. However, as revealed in the above-mentioned stories from the YJZ, rebirth was not a fact of nature; instead it R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 33 was achieved only after submitting to judgment overseen by the ten kings in the underground. And the time between death and rebirth was dependent on the remembrance and the diligence of the living family members. Accordingly Buddhism provided a new means for expressing such ambiguous sentiments of the fear for the dead and the respect for the ancestors. In the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing [ Di Zang Bodhisattva encourages descendents to provide offerings to the ten kings because this practice transmits the most numerous merits to the their ancestors, and therefore, their ancestors could gain an 39 earlier, and better rebirth than by submitting offerings in any other ways. Regarding the ghost festival, Teiser argues, "descendants were enjoined to make offerings to aid their ancestors as a way of 'repaying the kindness' that parents show to children by bringing them into the world and nurturing and supporting them through childhood."4 0 The practice of death rituals contributing to the happiness of the dead in the underworld was also a way for the living to express their gratitude to the dead for their kindness. There is conjugal love between husband and wife; there is blood love between parents and kids; there is brotherly love between friends. When one in these relationships left this world earlier, the other would always try to display one’s sorrow, memory, and care to the dead. As the underworld was imagined to be a suffering world, people certainly would think 3 9 Teiser 1994: 1. 40 Teiser 1988: 200. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 34 of some ways to relieve the sufferings of their loved ones in the underworld. As death rituals with the offerings to the ten kings were perceived to be the most effective way of transferring merits to the dead, these death rituals gained popularity soon during the Song times as evident from the stories in the YJZ. The most popular death rituals during the Song times were the Water and Land Ceremony (shuilu zhai sutra chanting, offering of spirit money as indicated in the Buddhism sutras and the Nine Obscurities offering (jiuyou jiao A ftlffi) publicized in the Daoist canon. The Water and Land Ceremony (shuilu zhai /Rl^.frf), was only one, if the most extravagant one, of the many Buddhist rites of “universal salvation” (pudu W lW practiced in Song China. Buddhist tradition attributes the creation of the shuilu zhai zK I^ ^ to the sixth century monk Baozhi If/S , who was encouraged to do so by Emperor Wudi of the Liang in the Gold Mountain Monastery (Jinshan Temple in modem Nanjing) in 538.4 1 In the eleventh century, its popularity became manifest. The monk Zunshi (964-1032) observed that throughout the Southeast China, monasteries maintained separate cloisters devoted entirely to the performance of the shuilu 7RH and other rituals for feeding hungry ghosts.4 2 The Water and Land Ceremony {shuilu 7jc|§) was a distinctively Song phenomenon. 4 1 Edwards L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China (Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 2001) 236. 42 Ibid. 236. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 35 And the name of the rite might have been derived from the fact that the food offerings for the gods were placed in running water and those for ghosts were placed on land. The Water and Land ceremony {shuilu 7jcHi) was truly egalitarian and universal in its promise of redemption. “This promise was not extended not merely to the nine generations of ancestors of the Avalambana feast or to the hosts of hungry ghosts of the many “feeding rituals”, but to notorious figures from China’s past and to representatives of all the social classes of her present as well.”4 3 The Nine Obscurities Offering (jiuyou jiao j I ft HI) and the Retreat of the Yellow Offering (huanglu jiaopj)\tj^jj were practiced by Daoists. Jiao, in Daoist texts is referred to as Retreat {zhai Hf). We can find the earliest enumeration of Daoist zhai fjjf, including the Retreat of the Yellow Offering for the salvation of ancestors, in Dongxuan Lingbao Wugan Wen M3C18If JjLWXC composed by Lu Xiujing WiMWi in 454 C.E.4 4 The Nine Obscurities Offering, another ritual for the salvation of ancestors, was well documented in the numerous ritual compendia complied during the Song times. For example, in Jin Yunzhong’s version Shangqing Lingbao Dafa (HY 1212, early thirteenth century), the Daoist priests light the lamps at nine prison-alters in order to illuminate the nine obscurities (jiuyou X f t ) of the purgatory and reveal the souls within. After 4 3 Ibid. 236. 44 Davis 228. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 36 burning talismans at each of the nine directions, the souls of the deceased are released from the earth prisons.4 5 The popularity of the Water and Land Ceremony during the Song dynasty is evident in the YJZ. In the winter of year 1195, Hu dafu, a folk of Town Stone, set up a Water and Land Ceremony at his house. ■ mmM, YJZ 3:1259) Hu Fengyuan, a folk of Leping, set up the Water and Land Ceremony for three days at his house in the year of 1183. (IM Uff, YJZ 3:1464) Yuan Gongming sighed, saying, “I have been a ghost for a long time. Because I had not used up my natural life span when I died, the netherworld would not allow me to access it. I was detained in the Chenghuang in the daytime and stayed in the dry well in Wu Mountain.” .. .“I still have ten years before I can have a chance of rebirth. I will appreciate your help if you write to my father and ask him to set up a Water and Land Ceremony on my behalf, which can reduce my detainment for six to seven years. T t& m m B - ■ » u ° ° ”....... M±§ ’ ° ” (Tt& W , YJZ 3:988) “Originally I was the concubine of the Zhang Dafu and lived in the next room. I was oppressed by his wife and was not allowed to live; therefore I ended my life in this room. I have not been able to be reborn till now, therefore I have appeared several times in this room. Hope you can be compassionate toward my situation and grant me some good karma, which 4 5 Ibid. 233. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 37 will enable me to have a rebirth.” The lady Jiao says, “When Zhong yuanjie4 6 comes, there will be a Water and Land Ceremony in the Yongning temple, and I will buy a seat for you. Please do not appear again to frighten the old and the weak.” n n r n m , w o j , f?m si M , 0 ’’ ( i i R M - # , YJZ3:1456) In the story Yuan Gong Ming we see there are two levels of judgment after death: one is in the office of the local city god (cheng huang W ll) above the earth and the other in the underground. A punishment received aboveground was only a part of the punishment to be received by personal soul. After death, the personal soul was brought to the office of the local city god (cheng huang ±$|i!l). The sinner then arrived by different ways in the first hell to receive further punishments. Sinners were assigned to different places on the basis of a verdict in a trial. As Eberhard observes, during the Song times, popular belief had two places for judgments: the hall of the city god and the first hell.4 7 This particular idea clearly was a synthesis of the Chinese notion of the local city god and the Indian concept of the ten kings. Therefore, the story of Yuan Gong Ming is a very representative example of the Song people’s belief about the afterlife. And 46 A Daoist ritual equivalent to the Yulan Peng in Buddhism. Ren Jiyu fEUSlIt ed., Zhongjiao Cidian (Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu chubanshe, 1981) 625. 47 Eberhard 30-31. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 38 the way to facilitate the rebirth requested by the dead was to set up the Water and Land Ceremony. In addition to expressing filial piety toward ancestors, the threat from the fearsome and malicious ghost (ligui M.$L) was another component contributing to the practices of death rituals as demonstrated in the previously quoted stories. Those malicious ghosts are “those who had died violently or unjustly, or have not been properly sacrificed by their families”, and because they “have not found rightful place in the multi-dimensional family system”, they will “cause trouble by seeking revenge”48. As demonstrated in the story “Yuan Gongming” for such dead, even access to hell was denied. Those dead could be a threat to the living, as we can imply from the conversation between lady Jiao and the late concubine of Mr. Zhang in the story “Lady Jiao Meeting Lady Hu” In the story “The Nine Obscurities Offering in Wujiang County” those died of the sea accidents were considered orphan souls, who were left in the hell with no offspring to pray for their rebirth. So the Magistrate set up the Water and Land Ceremony to help them gain their rebirth. Those dead who were denied entrance to the hells, which meant that they were not in the normal cycle of death and rebirth, somehow had to be avoided at all costs in order to secure the life of the living. As demonstrated above, to benefit those unfortunate dead, some powerful 4 8 Daniel L. Overmyer, “Dualism and Conflict in Chinese Popular Religion,” Transitions and Transformations in the History o f Religions: Essays in Honor o f Joseph M. Kitagawa, eds. Frank E. Reynolds and Theodore M. Ludwig (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1980) 175. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 39 ways were to set up the Water and Land Ceremony and the Nine Obscurities Offering. The significance and the efficiency of the Water and Land Ceremony are illustrated in the following stories from the YJZ. In the story "Shouchang Xianjun" ( 0 H Jr® ), the wife of Ding Su, Madam Shi died in the official house. After fourteen days, the son Yu dreamed that his mother told him, “I am going to be reborn in south of the river Huai. However I will still be a woman, and my lifespan still will not last forever because my previous sins have not been repaid yet. You ask your father to do some meritable deeds immediately because they will enable me to be reborn as a male." M + 0 0 . 1 0 : & , y j z i -ah - 423) The story continues with the grandson's experience in the underworld in his dream. The magistrate told him that his grandmother was granted the permission to be reborn as a male at his request. What the family should do was to chant the Buddha sutra in order to help her accumulate enough merits to be reborn as a male. The grandson notified his grandfather of what he had seen and heard in his dream. Ding Su bought those two sutras from Qian Ming Yuan 011^, employed some talented Buddhist monks, ordered all the servants, daughters, and sons to practice vegetarian life and chant sutras up to thousands of volumes, and set up the Water and Land Ceremony (mingyang shuilu hui N lil/klljzL) to accumulate the merits R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 40 for his wife. On the one-hundredth day, Ding Su dreamed his wife to address him, "The Buddha sutra's merits is inconceivable. Thanks to your remembrance of my kindness in the previous days, I am bom as the son of the Huo family in Luzhou (in modem Jiangxi Province)." f t T > H fq ii. IB M J ' {YJZ 2:422-423) In this story, we should pay special attention to three details. Firstly, Madam Shi couldn't be reborn as a male for she had not reconciled her previous sins. Secondly, Madam Shi died and thus she was not able to repay her previous sins by herself in the underworld. Thirdly, she had to ask her husband and her families to set up some meritable ceremonies, such as sutra -chanting engaging her sons and daughters, and the Water and Land Ceremony {shuilu hui as indicated in this story, to transmit some merits to her to assist her to obtain a better rebirth. No information is available regarding the religious orientation of the sons and daughters of Madam Shi. We can tentatively conclude that, with filial piety, even the descendants without any Buddhism or Daoism affiliation could transfer merits to their ancestors through sutra-chanting. These two stories suggest that the living now had various methods available to manipulate the fate of the dead through performing religious rituals. The story “A Woman of Jinshan” (<fe[ I \W s A ) also exemplifies the efficacy of the Water and Land Ceremony. The wife of a Confucian scholar died in a storm when the couple was on their trip to his new position. After three years, he fulfilled R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 41 his appointment and went home. He again visited the old place and set up the Water and Land Ceremony (,shuilu hui /K Iftj« ) in a nearby Buddhist monastery to help his wife attain a rebirth soon. The efficacy of the Water and Land Ceremony was unbelievably remarkable. His wife returned to life after the ceremony, attributing her second life to the marvelous salvation power of the Buddha (YJZ 3:1209-1210). One main activity the monk did on the Water and Land Ceremony for the benefit of the salvation of the dead was chanting sutras. However, sutra-chanting itself can transmit merits to the dead. In the story "The Wife of Zhang Cishan" ill # ), after she died, the wife of Zhang Cishan suffered from her jealousy and indulgence in wine in her previous life. Different from the stories mentioned above, this time the bureaucratic experience of the dead was not told in the form of a dream of the living, but the dead wife came to this world again and the living husband eye-witnessed the suffering of his dead wife in this world just as watching a ghost play. And the story continues as Zhang acted as an eyewitness of the punishment on his wife. "(The ghost clerks) hit his wife with their long forks and cut her head off in front of the hall. Moreover they chopped her limbs into about ten sections. Having suffered all these tortures, his wife came back to life again. She was beaten and interrogated gravely.” ( is K X > » R-l'/f K: E lfii . f i ft-; > K ll iRlS fi. o ) She told her husband that she had to endure the same terrible punishment every day and said, "You must invite the ordained R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 42 Buddhist clergy around the Great and Holy Pagoda in Sizhou to read and chant the Diamond Sutra for me. Only that can help me exempt such punishment." (M in ) The next day, the punishment on her was mitigated. When he was transferred to a new position in Sizhou, he set up a ceremony of Buddha sutra -chanting for his wife. Having done all the ceremonies, he went to the old place for the previous execution of his wife but he couldn't see anything any more; at that night he was told in his dream that his wife was reborn to be a son of one literati family (YJZ, 980-981). Hence, sutra- chanting itself produced incredible merits for his wife and helped his wife acquire a better rebirth. In this story we can see the incredible efficacy of the sutra-chanting. Although the main activity of the Water and Land Ceremony was sutra chanting, but here the wife explicitly requested not Water and Land Ceremony, but the chanting of The Diamond Sutra by the monks in a temple. Therefore sutra chanting itself was considered another efficient way to transmit merits to the dead in the Southern Song times. As the story indicated, the accumulation of such merits to a certain degree could lead to a happier rebirth for the dead. The Buddhist notion of karma occurred frequently in the stories in the YJZ so that we have to admit that the notion of judgment after death during the Song times was indebted heavily to the Buddhism notion of karma. The dead were penalized for their bad karma in their previous life. However, the door to pay off the bad karma thus to alleviate the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 44 conducted when one is alive.4 9 When a person is alive, one is encouraged to participate in performing death rituals to accumulate merits for one’s next rebirth, because doing so is the most effective way to reduce the time residing in the purgatory as proclaimed by Di Zang ftflii Bodhisattva. A prostitute Yang Keren sent a message to her former client in his dream, saying, "I am seriously ill and dying. Through my whole life, I have been chanting the Scripture o f Lotus, therefore I will be able to avoid the fate of being trapped in the hell for ever and more so I will be reborn as a male." (YJZ 3:1213-1214). The implication of her words was that, if she had not done the sutra-chanting thing, she had to suffer a worse fate after her death. The moral balance of one’s past life determined the quality of one’s next life. The Scripture o f Lotus is a guide for religious salvation through practice.5 0 Yang Keren's chanting of such sutra helped her accumulate good karma for her next life. Therefore, a person was even able to predict his or her fate after death according to his or her good karma while alive. Next to accumulating merits while alive, the merits transfer during the first forty-nine days after death is perceived to be second effective. As we have analyzed above, the purgatory, an intermediate stage of existence, lasts from the moment of death until the soul of the deceased is reborn in anther bodily form, a 49 Teiser 1994: 20-30. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 45 period lasts as short as seven days or as long as three years (i.e. 27 months in Chinese calendar). As Di Zang Bodhisattva advocates in the Scriptures on the Ten Kings (Shiwang Jing f ' [ 'If!), during the first forty-nine days after death the dead person passes a critical judgment every seven days. So the timing of the “seven sevens” rites derives from Buddhism. On every seventh day the deceased, pictured as a prisoner, must undergo a trial administered by a judge.5 1 In the stories from the YJZ, the dates when to carry out the death rituals are also clearly defined. In the stories discussed above, we have encountered some significant dates, such as “fourteen days", “fourth sevens”, “fifth sevens” and “one-hundredth day”.5 2 During this period, the merits the living sent to the dead would aid the dead to avoid the evil paths of existence and be reborn in the human world or in one of the heavens. Recalling the bureaucratic nature of the underworld as illustrated in the first part, the dead would suffer the judgments in the ten hells before being assigned a rebirth. Consequently the stage between the pervious life and the next rebirth, ranging from seven days to three years, became the focus of the attention. In 50 Theodore De Bary, Sources o f Chinese Tradition 2 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960) 1: 310. 5 1 Teiser 1994: 1. 5 2 More examples are available in the YJZ, such as “after forty-nine days, monks are summoned perform the seventh sevens ceremony. ( YJZ 3:1415) and “After died, his family members offered the Retreat o f Yellow Offering on the sixth sevens day. A A , H j f l i i l ” (YJZ 1:385). 5 3 Mariam Levering, “Ta-hui and lay Buddhists: Chan Sermons on Death,” Buddhist and Taoist Practice In Medieval Chinese Society . ed. David Chappell (Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 1987) 191. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 46 Teiser's words, "The wheel of the six paths continued to supply the basic understanding of where the dead might soon be found, but attention shifted from the spokes of the wheel to the spaces in between. The purgatory was that uncertain interstice where the spirit of the deceased awaited assignment to a new spoke".5 4 The new notion of the afterlife was an Indian-Chinese combination, so were the practices evident in the system of the ten kings. Such synthesis was palpable in the timing of performing death rituals. The first seven sacrifices are to be conducted during the first forty nine days after death, with the offerings destined for the first seven kings: the Far-Reaching King of Qin (qin guang wang H f " H) during the first week, the King of the First River (chu jiang wang 'i)] if T: .) during the second week, the Imperial King of Song {song di wang StS^Ti) during the third week, the King of the Five Offices (wu guan wang TtH'Ti) during the fourth week, the King Yama (yan luo wang P fE) during the fifth week, the King of Transformation (bian cheng wang ic MoY) during the sixth week, and the King of Mount Tai {tai san wang 0 |J L | 3i) during the seventh week. These seven rites are dictated in many Buddhism sources. For the last three rites, on the one hundredth days after death, the eighth ritual is sent to the Impartial King {Ping deng wang -Y #Ti); One year after death, the ninth rite is addressed to the King of the Capital 5 4 Teiser, introduction, 1994: 5. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 47 (du shi wang ^ T f/ £ ), and three years (27 months) after death, the offering is sent to the king who Turns the Wheel of Rebirth in the Five Path (wu dao zhuan lun wang $£7E). As we have known, the timing of the seven sevens rites derives from Buddhism. However, the last three rites are usually referred to Confucianism as their source. Since the latter Han dynasty (25-220) the three commemorations were all identified with state-sponsored ritual. The rite held on the one-hundredth day after death could be traced to imperial pronouncements by emperor Ming (r. 57-75). The ritual on the one-hundredth day is generally known by its Confucian name, “the memorial of the end of weeping”. Confucians buried the body in its final resting place on this day, and on the following day they placed the memorial tablet of the deceased in the ancestral hall. In the Confucian usage this ritual marked a transition from awareness of misfortune to hope for good for fortune: On this day, the deceased officially became an ancestor from whom his family could expect help.5 5 A Confucian ceremony of xiao xiang chlH was usually held in the thirteenth month after death, thus marking the elapse of one year; da xiang zfcW was held in the third year after the passing of the deceased. These two observations are stipulated in the Rites and Ceremonials (Yi Li fjjiijS), a Han dynasty compilation 5 5 Mariam Levering, “Ta-hui and lay Buddhists: Chan Sermons on Death,” Buddhist and Taoist Practice In Medieval Chinese Society . ed. David Chappell (Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 1987) 191. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 48 of materials originating in the fourth or third century BCE. 5 6 Confucius said, “It is not till a child is three years old that it is allowed to emerge from the arms of its parents.” 5 7 That is why children must reciprocate with the three-year mourning. We can conclude that the notion of making merits for the ancestors was instrumental in synthesizing the rituals and symbols of Buddhism with Chinese ancestral religion. From the story above, the living were able to transmit some merits to the dead and help them achieve a better rebirth. The fate of the dead was under some ritual manipulations. The Buddhism rituals were not the exclusive way the living descendant could use to improve the fate of the dead. Many stories in the YJZ document the Daoist death rituals. The most popular ceremonies were the Nine Obscurities Offering Qiuyou jiao and the Retreat of Yellow Offering (huanglu jiao SlffticBI). In the year of 1167, Zhao Boxu was the County Magistrate of Wujiang county (in present day Jiangsu province). He thought of many stuck souls (po) in the darkness have no way to seek salvation. He called some Daoist priests together to set up the Nine Obscurities Offering at the county seat in order to set them free from the darkness. m m ° YJZ2:443-444) 5 6 On the Xiao X iang/Y W and Da XiangjJXL services, see Yili Zhengvi. annot. Zheng Xuan (127-200), ch. 33: 60-62, Guoxue Jiben Congshu ed., Hu Peihui (1782- 1849) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshu Guan, 1968). Teiser 1994: 28. 5 7 James Legge 1: 192. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 49 Ms. Zhao, the wife of the Vice Grand Councilor Wei Daobi, died of illness on the sixteenth day of the tenth month in the year of 1183. On the fourth-seven day her son-in-law invited the Daoist Huang Zaizhong to perform the Nine Obscurities Offering, which turned out to be very powerful. On the fifth- seven day, they again asked Daoist Huang to set up the Retreat of Yellow Offering. m , m n m m , w z w m z » h ^ h , ( f t & i m YJZ 2:448-450) mnp Zhang Xun was the Consultant of the Military Commission at in the year of 1148. He lodged at the Great Happiness Temple in Shaoxing prefecture (in present day Zhejiang province). .. .(After he died), on the one-hundredth day, his family employed some Daoist priests to set up the Retreat of Yellow Offering. mm, mmz a w a ° A ^ u ^ m ± t m n m ° y jz 4:1704) On the sixteenth day of the second month in the year of 1198, the Daoist priests at the Tianqing Abbey at Raozhou (in present day Jiangxi province) established the great Retreat of Yellow Offering. They called up people to make sacrifice to the dead. The price for each is 1200 and about one thousand people participated in the ceremony. H A H , I t f f A ” YJZ3:\3\9) In the year of 1174, Xiao cunli, a native of Ningyuan county in Daozhou (in present day Hunan province), and the old clerk Ouyang Xuan together went to the Jiuyi Abbey to set up the Retreat of Yellow Offering. mmytsf, it'jfm m m g m a « mm tiA m m m m m °m M .m ,YJz2:746) In the year of 1151, Wei Daobi’ s wife died. On the fourth-seven day and fifth-seven day, he invited a Daoist priest Huang to perform the Nine Obscurities R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 50 Offering (jiuyou jiao and the Retreat of Yellow Offering (huanglu jiao ^ H ) . Later his wife was seen to bow to express her gratitude to Daoist Huang, claiming that she was set free from all her past bad karma, and then she ascended to the heaven (YJZ 2:448-451). The Daoist cosmos is modeled at significant points on the generic ten kings of purgatory in Buddhism. Although we are not sure when Daoism borrowed the notion of karma from Buddhism, a mid-sixth-century text entitled the Scriptures on Karmic Retribution and Causes and Conditions o f the Most High Numinous Jewel That Penetrates Mystery (Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Yebao Yinyuan Jing describes the Daoist basic belief at some length. In that book the Highest Lord of the Way (taishang laojun fz h ^ j- \j explains how gods oversee all aspects of life and death. Human beings are bom into this world in accordance with their past karma. The balance of good and evil is affected not only by one’s deeds but also by acts of offering; sacrifices to the gods both before and after death are beneficial. The Highest Lord of the Way (taishang laojun ) states:5 8 Thus at death during the first seven, the second seven, up to the seventh seven and the one hundredth day, relatives of the deceased will be reborn in a good place and be able to experience happiness. Making this merit is most essential. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 51 The most complicated version of the Daoist administration is described in a liturgy entitled the Ceremonial for Deliverance o f the Ten Kings o f the Dark Prefects (Shiwang Badu Yi [v probably dating from the twelfth century. The text presupposes that its audience is already familiar with the standard set of deities described in the scripture on the ten kings, and it explicitly links each of the major Daoist gods to the standard ones with the locution “whom people in our time call”. For example, when the text talks about the Daoist god in the first court, the True Lord of Great Plainness and Mysterious Breadth, it is referred to as “whom people in our times call the Great King of Qin Guang”. Daoist gods are organized by rank. For instance, the true Lord is assisted by two Celestial Venerables (tianzun J fS f).5 9 The Buddhism death ritual market had been proved very profitable by the twelfth century; in order to take some market shares from Buddhist temples, Daoists certainly tried to justify their legitimacy of practicing in the death ritual market by constructing their own deities controlling the punishment in the other world. In such a notion of the afterlife and the practice of death rituals we can find an assumption that there is an intimate connection between the living and the dead, without which all the religious service would be fruitless. The dead and the living communicate with each other in the form of the visit of the dead to the living in 5 8 Quoted in Teiser 1994: 28. 5 9 Teiser 1994:29. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 52 their dreams or the journey of the living to the underworld in trance and other supernatural ways. What is more noteworthy to our discussion is the great role the living play in this intermediate stage between the previous life and the next one for the dead. Although the underworld is overwhelmingly frightening and painful, the living still have the capacity to change the fate of the dead. Moreover, only the living are able to change the fate of the dead. A person is able to predict one’s fate after death and improve the chance of a happier rebirth when one is still alive through some special meritable practices. But once one dies, one loses any capacity to empower oneself but has to turn to one’s living family members for help to transmit some merits to redeem one’ past bad karma. Because the most important focus of the above-mentioned death ritual was to secure for the deceased a good rebirth, there was provided within popular religious belief a positive alternative to the eternal salvationistic ideal. The Song people in the YJZ never sought an eternal deliverance away from this world, but a better rebirth, which, in original Indian Buddhism, would not guarantee an eternal salvation, but made people eternally trapped in the painful rebirth cycle. That good rebirth might indeed take pride of place is noted by an observer: The Buddhists have a western heaven presided over by Amitabha.... This appeals to some very devout Buddhists, but not to the Chinese people in general. They want to enjoy the present life or to accumulate merits so as to enjoy a happy and fortunate existence after rebirth. The Chinese., .prefer life in this world.6 0 60 David Crockett Granham, Folk Religion in Southwest China (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Press, 1961), 184. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 53 The tone of the afterlife in the YJZ echoes such this-worldly orientation and demonstrates the practical mindset of the Chinese. By performing the death ritual and transfer merits to the dead, the Song people were changing the fate their ancestors in the other world. Therefore, they displayed compassion toward those in less fortunate circumstances than themselves, the dead who lived in the underworld as the prisoners. Merits sent to the dead through religious practices will in return bring blessings to the living family members. As Teiser puts, "Merits implies both spiritual and material blessings. Merits describes the future happiness or liberations to be attained as a result of a meritorious action, and it also refers to the concrete blessings-long life and wealth-that flows from good acts".6 1 Such sentiment again reveals that the Chinese are of this-worldly orientation. From the stories discussed above, we can tell that people practicing such death rituals believed in or were willing to believe in the efficacy of their practice in aiding the salvation of their ancestors. However, these practices, especially the Buddhist rituals, and their assumed efficacy invited ardent criticism from some Neo-Confucian scholars. Ebrey provides us with an example of Yu Wenbao (1200-1260), a Neo-Confucian scholar who cited what Sima Guang (1019-1086) had argued two centuries ago to refute the practice of the Buddhism death rituals. 6 1 Teiser 1988:210. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 54 It is the current customs to believe the falsehoods of the Buddhists. At the moment of death, at each seventh day until the seventh day, at the hundredth day, and at the first and second sacrifices of good fortune (on the first and second anniversaries of the death), everyone performs services to gain merit, obliterate sin, and be bom in heaven, (they believe) that if they do not, (the deceased) will enter hell and be sliced, roasted, pounded, and ground. Yet with death the body decays and the spirits disperse. Even if it were sliced, roasted, pounded, and ground, how would it know of it?6 2 Sima Guang i TJj47, c criticized the Buddhist services for being useless in transferring merits and aiding the salvation of the dead. Buddhist death rituals in fact could not accomplish anything since the body of the dead decays and cannot suffer punishments. However, no matter how bitter the criticism was, what we get from the YJZ is that many Confucian scholars did not share such criticism; to the contrary, they readily practiced the Buddhist death rituals. In a story, a Confucian student set up the Water and Land Ceremony for his recently deceased wife to transmit some merits to her. On a later night, he dreamt that his wife came happily in new and clean clothes. She took off her shoes to the ground and gradually flied to the sky. And the Buddhist clergy told him that it indicated his wife had ascended to the heaven {YJZ 2: 496). In this story, the Buddhist service was immediately followed by proof of its efficacy. This definitely demonstrated that a Confucian 6 2 Patricia Ebrey, “The response o f the Sung State to Popular Funeral Practices,” Religion and Society in Tang and Sung China, eds., Patricia Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory ( Honolulu: University o f Hawaii Press, 1993) Quoted in 213. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 55 scholar not only practiced the Buddhist rituals, but also marveled at the efficacy of those practices. The Confucian scholars not only observed the Buddhist death rituals for the benefit of his dead relatives, but also asked their friends to employ the Buddhists to perform death rituals for their own salvation. In the story “Yuan Gongming” we have discussed above, Yuan was a Confucian student, but after he died, he visited his friend one day and told his friend about his unfortunate situation. At the end he asked his friend to inform his family to set up the Water and Land Ceremony for him (YJZ 3:988). The vast gap between the theory promoted by the class of Confucian scholars and the reality can be interpreted as an indication of the prevalence of the Buddhism death rituals in the Song times. Liu YanShi passed the examination, he and his brother set up a Water and Land Ceremony at the Sizhou cloister of Yong Ning Temple. mmm&mm, - mm YJZ 2:456) In this story, the Confucian scholar set up a Water and Land Ceremony as a filial act toward his parents. In the story “The Nine Obscurities Offering in Wujiang County” LL)T jlffifit, the Magistrate (also a Confucian student) himself summoned Daoist priests to perform the Nine Obscurities Offering for the universal salvation of the Song people died on the sea accidents in Wujiang Country in the Jiangxi province where he took office. As we have said in our introduction, the expanded commercialization during the Southern Song times, the decline of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 56 aristocracy, and the emergence of the gentry and wealth elite not only made the Southern Song society more mobile, but also less stable. Both the gentry and the wealth elite concentrated their efforts on securing their position in local areas. Participation in religious activities aimed at remembering their ancestors and keeping the ghosts in the proper place became very popular among the elites. Death rituals such as the Water and Land Ceremony and the Nine Obscurities Offering, although not a Confucian origin, were useful in preserving the awareness of the continuity of the family structure. These practices strengthened the ties between the living and the dead, and between an individual and a community, thereby enhancing the solidarity and stability of families in an increasingly changing society. This helps to explain the enthusiasm numerous Confucian scholars displayed toward the Buddhism and Daoism death rituals during the Song dynasty. In sum, although the dead had to suffer from their karma after their death, various ways to reconcile their sins and relieve their pains in the underworld were available. People were able to predict and manipulate their fate after death. At any point along the way—during one's lifetime but especially after one's death, many death rituals could be employed to "bribe" any of the ten kings that would reduce one's sufferings in underworld and help to secure a happier state of rebirth. Death did not sever the link between family members. It simply changed the way in which older and younger generations fulfilled their obligations to one another. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 57 Merits were transferable between the living and the dead, therefore it opened a door for the salvation of the imperfect virtue and the unworthy after they died. Echoing Hong Mai's comments on the wide circulation of the underworld stories, the portrait of the underworld was also important for didactic purposes: by showing the torments suffered by the dead, it supplied unequivocal justification for performing the key rituals and activities defined by Buddhism and Daoism, which were designed to secure a pleasant rebirth. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 58 4 The Agencies Responsible for Ceremonies And the Deinstitutionalization and Popularization of Death Rituals With the development of the revised notion of the afterlife and associated death rituals, another big change surfaced: new agencies performing death rituals. More and more religious practices were conducted outside of the institutional temples, and more and more non-ordained religious specialists engaged in the religious ritual practices as demonstrated in the YJZ. Buddhist monks surely held the high profile in the death ritual performance. In the story "Shouchang Xianjun" (M m M-ff), when Ding Su planned to set up the ceremony for his late wife, he asked those capable Buddhist monks to carry out the ceremony ( # f e ii'M ). In this case the monks involved in the ceremony were the ordained monks from an institutional temple. In the story "Wife of Zhang Cisan", the wife openly requested that the ordained monks from a particular temple ($9 j'H K itScfrfs) perform the death ritual in order to transmit merits to her. Daoist clergy also actively took part in the death ritual performance. In the story “Master Huang's Ceremony”, Master Huang was called as "the genuine ordained Daoist from the Yandong abbey (5 $ ^ A-Vilffl)”. In another story, "a R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 9 Daoist priest from the Tianqing Daoist abbey" (AlfAMiif A ) performed the death ritual. These titles indicate that they were from institutional Daoist abbeys. An interesting phenomenon revealed in the YJZ is of great importance for our discussion. In Hong Mai's times, there was a newly emerging class of ritual specialists outside the institutional religion temples. Talented young men in Po Yang liked to form societies to chant sutras and perform Buddhist services. Ten persons were organized into one society. If any family in their society held a wedding, funeral, or other blessing ceremonies, they all went and set up the ceremony, fasting, chanting sutra, striking the bell, hitting the drum. They began from the early night and ended until fourth drum, exactly as same as the Buddhist ritual. Each of them tried to be diligent and sincere and there were no expense for donations or gifts (as there are to monks). If some families were not the member of their society but requested their service with a letter invitation, they also would go there. In this region there were indeed many followers. Because they always wore white clothes, they were called "white clothes society". A commoner Jiang Er probably was the most talented one among them. He usually made a living by manufacturing and selling incense a , M S A # - 4:1512-1513) The following points could be generated from the story. First, these commoners didn't get any special training in dealing with the Buddhist services including death rituals. Second, these unschooled practitioners were very skillful R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 60 and diligent in their performances. Third, their services charged much less than those of the monks. Finally, they were very popular among the Song people. In a similar manner, Laymen Daoists participated in the death ritual market in the Song dynasty. In the YJZ, we can find a number of such anecdotes. “In a village, there was a person called Daoist Tan. He was a common folk (suren), but he was able to practice the “Rites of Maoshan” (Maoshan Fa if ill S ) 6 3. Although he was not a Daoist priest (Daoshi'), he gained such an appellation (i.q. fashi)” mum)(YJZ3-.\n\). As this account demonstrates, by the second half of the twelfth century, the appellation “fashi” was understood to be a title for a Daoist priest, but it was no longer an exclusive title for those ordained Daoists and was usurped by a group of lay practitioners. The following story presents another interesting point. Unschooled practitioners were very common in ritual practices partly thanks to their lower charges that made their services more affordable to economically disadvantaged people during Southern Song times. Within the Yongjin Gate in Lin’an( i.e. Hang zhou), Wang fashi practiced the Rites of Celestial Heart (Xiawcin fa), carried out the purification ceremony (jiao) for offering the memorials to Heaven on others' behalf. He wore a star hat and was clothed in ritual garments. However, he was not a Daoist priest (daoshi). 63 By the eleventh century, Daoism “was epitomized in the official and popular mind not so much by its urban temples as by its great mountain centers o f pilgrimage and ascetic practice” (i.e. Maoshan in Jiangsu and Gezaoshan and Longhushan, both in Jiangxi). Quoted in Davis, p.31. It is understandable that folks refer to the Daoist ritual as the rite o f Maoshan R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. The Song people (minsu) regarded him as competent as real Yellow Cappers (huangguan) 6 4 , and also because he charged one-third less than the ordained Taoists, many folks hired him. m s s . w e & = Z - > (A & ffl, K/Z3:1101). The two most important types of Daoist initiations in the Song times were those of the Orthodox Rites of the Heart of Heaven (Tianxin Zhengfa A A iT A) and of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao Dafa MfEzA'/A)- The latter specialized in the rituals of universal salvation and the various rituals for the salvation of the ancestors; the former dealt with the souls of the dead only in an exorcistic context. Numinous Treasure Daoists were as likely as not to be monks living in an abbey, and Heart of Heaven priests to be country priests.6 5 Therefore, the lay practitioners without formal training in the practices of the Rites of the Heart of Heaven were still able to practice the most popular Daoist rituals. In the YJZ, many stories tell us about the family ritual activities without any involvement of religious specialists. The family carried out the ceremonies on their own rather than turning to any religious specialists for help. In the story "Injustice to Concubine Ma" (A A A ), the wife bought some spirit money and burned it to the ghost concubine at home on her own rather than turning to any specialists for help. Family death rituals were not a new development in the Song dynasty. 64 An alternative name for a Daoist preist. Zhongjiao Cidian 933. 6 5 John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History. (New York: Macmillan; London: Collier Macmillan, 1987) 171-172. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 62 Rather, they were an expression of the most long-lasting and diffused form of religious activity in China, the ancestors worship. Often the location of services held for the ancestors in the Yellow Spring (huangquan w j^ ) was the home, not the Buddhist or Daoist temples.6 6 The numerous stories narrating these ritual specialists tell us that the ritual specialists were powerful and popular in the ritual practices. The emergence of layman ritual priests is also recorded in the Song Hui Yao The government realized that many people turned to Buddhism for a career choice besides being a scholar, a farmer, a worker, or a businessman. For example, many in today’s Fujian province started Buddhism practices without an official certificate or even ordination.6 7 So what forces drove the emergence of this occupation in Hong Mai's times? Before the Song dynasty, the well-known story of Mu Lian preached that only relying on the power of Sangha could attain freedom from sufferings. Therefore all filial sons should provide offerings of food and clothes to the monastic order. Monks were critical to the circuit of benefits that flowed between living descendants and their ancestors because only the monks could transfer and even multiply the merits the living offered to the dead.6 8 At that time, 6 6 C. K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society (Berkeley, University o f California Press, 1967) 296- 298. 67 Yang Jia luo ed, Song Hui Yao Jiben A # i c l i i X , 16 vols. (Taibei:Shijie Shuju, 1964) 14: 6563. In Chinese “ A > fta , S # t) lA ,f fa F f iA A ;® A W m m m a s audm i, i m i , 6 8 Teiser 1988: 203-208. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 63 wealthy families usually donated a large amount of money or land to the Buddhist temples as a way to accumulate merits for their ancestors and themselves. The official ceremonies to transfer merits to the deceased should be held in the Buddhist temples, not in one’s houses. However, by the Southern Song times, monks and Buddhist temples were no longer the center of death rituals as in previous dynasties when the Buddhist temples (to a lesser extent, the Daoist abbeys) were the mediator in the exchange between the living and the dead. As Chikusa points out, the number of officially ordained Daoist and Buddhist clergy declined between the Northern Song and the Southern Song, but at the same time, the number of unlicensed lay Buddhist and Daoist practitioners increased.6 9 The Song government stopped to administer strict examinations to those who wanted to become monks, and began to sell ordination certificates in the 1060s, but the price of the certificates was out of reach of ordinary people in the twelfth century. Consequently many lay practitioners began to perform death rituals without an official certificate. The death ritual practice was thus deinstitutionalized. There was a tendency that the Song people began to turn to other kinds of specialists, who bore less exclusive ties to Buddhist and Daoist institutions, for help, though the ordained Buddhist and Daoist priests still carried out the rituals for relieving the pain of the dead in the underworld in Hong Mai's times. In dealing 69 Hansen, rev. o f Studies in the Social History o f Chinese Buddhism. Bulletin o f Sung-Yuan Studies 2 0 (1 9 8 8 ) 102. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 64 with death in the Song times as revealed in the YJZ, families had greater choices, just as the Buddhist and Daoist priesthoods faced keener competition from other kinds of ritual specialists. Offerings sent directly to the ten kings in the underworld in aid of the salvation for the dead facilitated the direct communication between the living and the dead and diminished the value of a mediator. The emergence of the new ritual specialist occupation helped to decrease the cost of the death ritual practice. The availability of the cheaper death ritual services became a blessing to the poor, to whom the unschooled specialists were an inexpensive alternative. Another interesting alternative as indicated in the YJZ was that the management of the official death ceremony was of great flexibility. In previous dynasties, we are told that the ceremony for salvation of the dead was very expensive and that only wealthy people could afford such ceremonies. The monks and Daoist priests who performed the death rituals were fed vegetarian meals, and the relatives and guests who came to observe were also fed, making these services an expensive activity. The poor could not secure a better rebirth because their poor descendents were not able to set up such a fancy ceremony. But a new tone emerged as we can tell from the story of "Wu Wang's Report of His Wrong" YJZ 2:465-466). In 1145, Wu Wang, who was wrongly executed to death, became an unsettled ghost and possessed the granddaughter of the Chen R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 65 Zhu'an. He begged Chen Zhu'an to set up a Water and Land Ceremony in order to aid his rebirth. Chen answered, "I am so poor that I cannot afford a Water and Land Ceremony." Wu Wang responded, "Then just to register a seat for me in a Water and Land Ceremony, sending a person to go to the stone pagoda and secretly call my name on the ceremony so that the underworld knows that someone is making offerings for me. Thus I will get some merits, which will enable me to be reborn soon." ma: ” 0 : “ m m is a it l u ® n M B f ; K/Z2:465-466) Chen’s answer implied that the fare for the Water and Land Ceremony was expensive. However, Wu Wang proposed an affordable alternative for Chen to transmit merits for Wu’s salvation through the Water and Land Ceremony. No matter whether a person was rich or poor, he or she was able to provide some merits to the dead in aid of the salvation for the dead. Thus the door for salvation was wide open for everyone. Similar anecdotes are quite common in the YJZ. This new alternative for the performance of death rituals also applied to the Daoist death rituals. The mother of Ye Wuzhong died a few years ago. One time Zhong Demao of Leping set up a Nine Obscurities Offering and permitted others to participate in the ceremony to make offerings to their own ancestors. Ye Wuzhong bought some paper clothes and went to the tan, the practitioner Cheng Guoqi prayed and then burned them (i.e. paper clothes). ’ mm * m m m m * £ 0 ( ^ # # , YJZ3:1422) R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 66 Therefore, although he could not afford a Nine Obscurities Offering to transfer merits to his ancestors by himself, Ye Wuzhong could make his small offerings to his ancestors through the death ritual set up by other families. This tendency of popularization of death rituals was paralleled by the new development of the Pure Land and Chan Buddhism in China, among which the participation of the less educated people was encouraged. Ignorance was no longer an obstacle to salvation. Accordingly in the death ritual practice, being poor and illiterate was no longer an obstacle to the aid of the salvation for the dead. Although the final salvation of the dead was not thereby assured, help for the dead and solace for the living could at least be attained by far greater numbers of people and at a lower price. However, the qualifications of the unschooled ritual specialists provoked some Neo-Confucian scholars' fervent criticisms. These Confucian scholars argued that these specialists were not well versed in the sutras and were not capable of 70 chanting sutra, thus unable to transfer merits to the dead. Therefore, these Confucian scholars cast doubt on the qualifications of the death ritual practitioners. We need to find out whether the general public shared such a criticism. Thus the question is this: to the general public, what were their criteria for a qualified death ritual specialist? When the Song people planned setting up the death rituals for the salvation of the dead, how did they choose between making offerings at home on their own and turning to rituals specialists, including ordained Buddhist monks, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 67 ordained Daoist clergy, unschooled Buddhist practitioners, and unschooled Daoist practitioners? And how did they choose between ordained religious priests and unschooled ritual practitioners? Let us turn to the stories in the YJZ for some insights. The rules of purity and correct procedures applied to the self-trained fashi just as they did to Buddhist and Daoist clergy. Buddhist monks and Daoist priests were punished for their inattention to such rules or details. In the story "Ma Shuyin" (-^iT ?1 '), the mother summoned the ordained monks to set up the sutra- chanting ceremony to transfer some merits for her dead son, Ma Shuyin's happiness in the underworld. Ma Shuyin possessed the maiden Li and she complained on his behalf, saying, "some monk did not finish the whole sutra-reading, and some monk stopped at some passage, so merits were not complete. It was such a pity." ( S ts I t ® {YJZ2:426) Hence the title of the ordained monks and learned monks cannot guarantee the diligence of their performances and the efficacy of the ceremony. In like manner, unschooled practitioners were rebuked for their carelessness to purity and appropriate procedures in performing death rituals. In the story "Daoist Wang" (i'ftjlfji), the Daoist Wang, an unschooled specialist, who always asked his neighbor Li to write the memorial for him (an indication of his illiteracy), was condemned by the celestial official because Li wrote the memorial after a meat and wine dinner rather 7 0 Ebrey 1993: 214. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 68 than as required after a vegetarian period (btPff # W w ]» t Pfsflt ® I^ J In ^ ?) {YJZ 3:1101). Therefore, the criticism from the dead and the judge in the other world were not based on the identity of the practitioners and their poor training in ritual performance, but on their diligence and piety to the judges in the other world and on the final efficacy of their performances. In these two cases, the carelessness, not a lack of formal training in sutra chanting, adversely affected the efficacy of the ceremony. For this reason, the general public during Southern Song times did not share the criticism of the Neo-Confucian scholars on the unschooled practitioners. The reputation of the different groups or different individual service practitioners, particularly the efficacy, the cost, and the availability of their services, might be all their concerns when the Song people decided which group they should employ to carry out the services. We can infer that the Song people did not care the identity of the ritual specialists as long as the ceremony proved the expected efficacy and brought related benefits to the dead and the living. This orientation reflected the pragmatic aspect of the Chinese mind-set. Neo-Confucian scholars again found difficulty with the idea of transferring merits to the dead as advocated by Sima Guang This criticism was shared by Yu Wenbao a Neo-Confucian scholar two centuries after Sima Guang but very close to the time of Hong Mai. They were not comfortable with this practice on the ground that it tended to reward the rich rather than the worthy, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 69 since the Buddha could be bribed in the sense that if the descendents could spend much, their wicked parents could obtain a better rebirth. Thus the sinners in their past lives would be treated favorably in the other world. This, in my view, on the one hand, actually provides hope for the imperfect virtue and unworthy person, even though fairness of the salvation is still a big controversy since corruption is seen in the underworld {YJZ 1:181,4:1540). On the other hand, it reflects the influence of the commercialization of the Southern Song on people's belief systems. As Teiser points out, "Economy and religion do not form two separate spheres. Good acts pay off debts, offering of money get rid of sin." Material offerings to the dead had religious values because they were part of a cycle of exchange at once economic and religious.7 1 In Hong Mai's times, the emergence of unschooled religious specialists prompted the deinstitutionalization and popularization of the religious practice; such a process in turn produced more occupations and new uncertainties of the economy, thereby creating new religious beliefs and practices, especially a belief in the popular deities. As Hansen demonstrates, in the twelfth century, a deity worshiped by the Song people began to demonstrate the sophisticated commercial talents, such as providing price information to the worshippers and encouraging them to trade in order to make fat 7 1 Teiser 1988: 210. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 70 profit.7 2 In one word, the religious beliefs and practices were quite commercialized. With more and more unschooled religious specialists participating in the death ritual practices, the death rituals carried out in the organized temples became fewer and fewer in number, even the ordained Buddhist and Daoist clergy were more often invited to practice the ceremony in their clients' homes. Without doubt, the deinstitutionalization of the death ritual practices concerning the salvation of the dead does not mean that the Buddhism and Daoism began to exert lesser influence on Chinese culture. On the contrary, Buddhist ideas and practices, which had been gradually adapted to the Chinese culture, were woven more effectively into the fabric of the social life for the Chinese. For example, Guan Yin gradually became a popular deity among the Song people. She responded to people's daily needs. As demonstrated in the YJZ, she could cure the commoners' diseases (YJZ 1:89, 3:969), and even acted as the safeguard of a lonely old woman ( YJZ 1:67). Thus the decline of Buddhism as an institutional religion coincided with the greatest diffusion of Buddhist influence throughout Chinese society. Death rituals were primarily an expression not of Buddhism or Daoism but of that other category—religion in its diffused form as the largest class of people, the folk, practiced it. Offerings were always made in a form in which the teachings of both Buddhism and Daoism were thoroughly mixed. The same family always invited 72 Hansen, Changing Gods in Medieval China. 1127-1276 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990) 10. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 71 Buddhist clergy, Daoist clergy, and other specialists to perform death rituals at different times. If the first hired religious practitioners failed to meet their expectations, they would turn to the second group of specialists for help. Sometimes they even turned to two different teachings and practices for help at the same time. In the story "Qi Xuange Saved His Mother" (fr'n. IF I # # ) (K/Z 3: 1330), the religious specialists recommended both Buddhism sutra and Daoism canon to Qi Xuange at the same time. Both were considered very powerful. More important, for most people, making offerings at a Daoist abbey in no way precluded making offerings at a Buddhist temple, as both were believed to be efficacious in bringing aids to the ancestors. The efficacy was the most important criterion for their preferences. And this is also argued by Hansen as the most important reason 7 - 5 for the proliferation of the local cults in the Song dynasty. To conclude, the Song dynasty witnessed the commercialization and the emergence of new occupations related to the religious practices, which acted as a facilitator to the deinstitutionalization and popularization of the death ritual practices. The Song people ' preference for religious specialists depended on the efficacy, cost and availability of the practitioners’ religious services, not on the practitioner’s religion affiliations. However, the more pervasive influence of Buddhism on Chinese society should be seen in domains that were not distinctively Buddhist. 7 3 Hansen 1990:10. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 72 5 Conclusion As revealed in the stories from the YJZ, the ten kings became the definitive model for imagination of the afterlife in the Song dynasty. The ten kings operated within the broad context of a general mix of Chinese religious ideas, in which Buddhist concepts were an important ingredient but not necessarily the determining factor. The experience of the deceased in the underworld before their rebirth was depicted as a bitter journey through the punishments in the ten hells headed by the ten kings. The punishment and the time between one's death and one's next life were open to the manipulation of the religious rituals by the living. With the emergence of new occupations, particularly the emergence of the self-trained religious specialists and other new occupations related to the death rituals, plus commercialization in the Song dynasty, the practices of death rituals were on the one hand, deinstitutionalized; on the other hand, popularized. The Buddhist and Daoist temples lost their privilege as mediators in the death rituals. Although the medieval ideal of conspicuous expenditure and the donation of land never disappeared entirely, they were certainly surpassed in popularity by other less costly religious practices. The death rituals could be either fancy or simple, which meant salvation was not limited to the rich anymore. The poor could also transmit R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 73 merits to their ancestor by hiring less costly religious specialists or even by burning the spirit money on their own. People were equal before the ten kings in terms of the same opportunity to be able to relieve the sufferings in the underworld. The new notion of the afterlife and the practice of death rituals revealed a new morality, commercial in tone and optimistic in outlook. This new morality strengthened ties between the living and the dead; it provided hope for all imperfect virtue; it offered a new answer for the Chinese people to the religious concerns about death, which has began since high antiquity; and it validated the secular structures of everyday life. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 74 Bibliography Birge, Bettine. Women, Property, and Confucian Reaction in Sung and Yuan China (960-1368). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 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Eds. James Watson and Evelyn S. Rawski. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1988. 203-227. Weinsten, Stanley. Buddhism under the Tang. Cambrige: Cambrige University Press, 1987. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 77 Wolf, Arthur P. “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors.” Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society. Ed. Arthur P. Wolf. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974. 131- 182. Wright, Arthur. Buddhism in Chinese society. Stanford: Stanford university press, 1959. Yan, Gengwang Zhongguo Difang Xingzheng Zhidu Shi 1 f part 1. Taibei: Zhong yang Yanjiuyuan lishi Yuyan Yanjiusuo, 1961. Yang, C.K. Religion in Chinese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967. Yang, Jialuo ed. Song HuiYao Jiben 16 Vols.Taibei:Shijie Shuju, 1964. Yoshinobu, Shiba. Commerce and Society in Sung China. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1970. Yu, Ying-Shih. " 'O, Soul, Come Back!' A Study in the changing Conception of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China." Harvard Journal o f Asiatic Studies 47.2 (1987): 363-395. . “Zhongguo Gudai Sihou Sijieguan de Yanbian L f J Yanyuan Lunxue Ji Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1984. 177-196. Zheng Xuan JH 1 3 C , annot. Yili Zhengyi, {fSiMlIfff. Guoxue Jiben Congshu Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu Yinshu Guan, 1968. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission.
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A commercial and optimistic worldview of the afterlife of the Song people: Based on stories from the "Yijian Zhi"
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