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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral The make-up of an ancestor How to transform a tragic death (malemort) into a good death (bonne mort)? A comparison with the Yili and other sources The Dark Underground Abode, the Blue Sky Above Bibliographie Notes de bas de page Auteur

    All about the Rites

    Ce livre est recensé par

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    Table des matières

    Let the dead bury their dead: the confinement of the tomb in the Eastern Han Period1

    Marianne Bujard

    Traduit par Alice Crowther

    Texte intégral The make-up of an ancestor How to transform a tragic death (malemort) into a good death (bonne mort)? A comparison with the Yili and other sources The Dark Underground Abode, the Blue Sky Above Appendix Bibliographie Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    1Fear and respect characterise the attitude of the ancient Chinese towards death. Literary sources as well as excavated documents provide many examples of the contradictory behaviours prescribed when dealing with the dead. In his time, Marcel Granet (1884–1940) studied the various recommendations that can be found in the chapters devoted to mourning in the Ritual Treatises (above all the Liji).2 This article aims to show that an ambiguous attitude towards death also emerges from the archaeological artefacts discovered in the past and in more recent times. Two different kinds of texts will be examined. The first kind consists of two stories of resurrected men. One is about a man named Dan 丹 who was restored to life three years after his death and made recommendations about the proper way to treat the dead.3 The other is about another resurrected man who was sent to Xianyang 咸陽 in Shaanxi and gave similar advice to the living. Dan’s account is written on six bamboo slips that were discovered in the grave of a local Qin official who died in the second half of the third century BC. The second account is written on a wooden tablet which belongs to the looted manuscripts bought by Peking University; it has no precise date, but two calendars from the same series of manuscripts bear the dates of 216 and 214 BC.4 Professor Li Ling dates the tablet to the Qin dynasty (221–206).5

    2The second kind of text is written on a very different material: dozens of terracotta jars or bottles discovered during the 20th century in tombs of medium-sized or modest dimensions.6 Most of them were found around the former capital cities of Chang’an (Xi’an) and Luoyang, in tombs dated 60 to 193 AD. (Fig. 1)

    Fig. 1

    Image 1000000000000524000004C636C9711CAF79DDA9.png

    One of the five apotropaic bottles found in the tomb M17 discovered in Sanmenxia cemetery, Henan; H: 15,8 cm

    Reproduced from Wenwu, 2009, 3, p. 11

    3The inscriptions on these apotropaic objects refer to the growth of an underworld bureaucracy in charge of controlling the dead, as well as to various procedures to ward off curses. They are very similar to the defixiones curse tablets or to the magical papyri of the Greco-Roman culture.

    The make-up of an ancestor

    4In his celebrated study on “The language of pain,” Marcel Granet develops a close analysis of the chapters dedicated to mourning in the Ritual Treatises. He shows that the two principal objectives of funeral rites were to ensure a definitive separation between the deceased and the living and to install the deceased in his new status as an ancestor. In the case of the death of a father, the transformation of the deceased into an ancestor coincides with the accession of his eldest son to the rank of head of the family and of the ancestral cult. This procedure demands the exercise of a frightening asceticism on the part of the eldest son. The future head of the family is bound, firstly, to imitate the condition of the deceased by mimicking a corpse: “[The practices] consist in a sort of participation in the state of the defunct, this participation implies an almost total exclusion from social life. Cast out from society, like the defunct himself, his close relatives submit to being quarantined.”7 The son, for whom mourning conditions are strictest, lives in a state of confinement, he is “shut up alone in his hut, like the defunct in his coffin.”8 He is even “obliged to have a dark complexion,”9 because “black is the colour of the North and of Winter, the direction and the season of death.”10

    5Why was the deceased to be imitated? Granet explains that the reclusion of those in mourning protects society from the pollution cast by the deceased on those close to him and that the imitation of the corpse functions according to a homeopathic principle. Illness is cured by illness, a real death by a feigned death. Yet, at the same time mourning is manifested through shouts, tears, leaps, and collective actions, which accompany the transformation of the deceased into an ancestor and act out his separation from the living. After all, the best way to protect oneself from the deceased is to transform him into an ancestor: “Through appropriate gestures carried out at the useful times, the deceased, source of impurity, principle of ill ease, enfeeblement and exclusion, will be transformed, thanks to the collective effort of those close to him, into an ancestor, tutelary power, title of nobility, principle of confidence and radiance.”11

    6The recommendations given by the Ritual Treatises for the transformation of the deceased into an ancestor are valid when he has peacefully departed a sort of ideal world where patriarchal order reigns supported by the rules of precedence and filial piety. But what of cases in which the deceased was the victim of a violent death, cut off in the flower of life, or carried off by an unjust fate?

    How to transform a tragic death (malemort) into a good death (bonne mort)?

    7The account of the resurrection of a certain Dan 丹 gives us some answers. The manuscript that recounts his adventure was discovered in 1986 in a tomb dated to 239 BC from Fangmatan 放馬灘 cemetery, near the town of Tianshui in Gansu Province, in North-West China.12 The tomb was of medium size, consisting of a vertical pit with a wooden tomb chamber at the bottom. The manuscripts (A and B) “were placed inside the coffin at the east end by the head of the deceased along with a writing brush in its case”;13 the six bamboo slips (23 cm long) concerning the resurrection belong to the end of the B manuscript.14 According to the quantity and the quality of the burial goods, and to the content of the various manuscripts, the excavators assume that the occupant of the tomb was a local official of the Qin administration.

    8Although the Ritual Treatises provided all the details, Granet needed to explain why the living imitated the dead, the Fangmatan text enlightens us as to the second stage of the funeral rites, i.e., the way in which the deceased became an ancestor or, in a more prudent interpretation of the narrative, as to how to transform a bad defunct, a malemort into a good defunct, that is to say a defunct capable of acceding to the status of ancestor.

    9Whereas the transformation of a mourner into a corpse rests entirely on a carefully dosed asceticism that respects moral and social behavioural norms, the Fangmatan metamorphosis introduces a new underworld authority in the form of a bureaucracy of the dead. The Ritual Treatises do not speak of this authority. This is a first innovation unearthed in the funerary practices preserved in texts originating from archaeological discoveries.

    10In the Fangmatan narrative, this underworld administration is still sparsely populated. It consists of two figures, the Director of the Life-Mandate, the Siming 司命, and his secretary, the Scribe of the Director of the Life-Mandate (the Siming shi 司命史). The former is only implied because of the existence of the latter; he does not intervene in the narrative. In the Ritual Treatises received through history, the Director of the Life-Mandate belongs to the domestic pantheons of the king and the feudal princes.15 Nothing indicates that the Director of the Life-Mandate is at the centre of an underworld administration. It would even seem to be to the contrary, since he is presented as one of the sublunary powers who regulate the ordinary life of mankind.

    11Let us look at the path of the Fangmatan resurrectee. His story holds in three sentences: a man whose name is Dan 丹 is executed; after spending three years underground, he is restored to life thanks to the intervention of his former employer with the underworld administration; and, thanks to this experience, he expounds the right way to honour the dead.

    12Dan is a malemort in several respects: he is the victim of an injustice (and is therefore filled with bitterness and can only search revenge from the living). He committed suicide by cutting his throat and is therefore one of those dead by means of a weapon, and we know from another manuscript –Jiudian chujian rishu 九店楚簡日書, c. 300 BC– that these dead are so dangerous that the god Wuyi (Wuyi jun 武夷君) was specially appointed to take care of them.16 Finally, his corpse was exposed at the market place (which signifies that, having been tortured, he is an avenging spirit endowed with full power) before being buried outside the South Gate (thus a relegated defunct who has not found a place in the family cemetery).

    13After three years underground, Dan returns to life thanks to an administrative procedure that his former employer engages with the Scribe of the Director of the Life-Mandate, Gongsun Qiang 公孫強 († 487 BC), who may be identified as a historical personage, malemort too, who had caused the ruin of the state of Cao 曹國 two centuries earlier.17 When the claim that Dan should not have died so soon is submitted to him, the Scribe of the Director of the Life-Mandate immediately sends “a white dog” to dig up Dan’s tomb and free him.

    14Afterwards, Dan remains standing on his tomb for three days. Three days is exactly the period prescribed by the Ritual Treatises between death and the encoffining ceremony (Da lian 大斂). Dan then commences his reconversion from dead to living under the direction of the Scribe of the Director of the Life-Mandate who takes on the role of a psychopomp. This transformation takes place in the north, which, as Granet reminds us, is the abode of the dead. The north is also the direction towards which the soul of the dead is called back.18 It happens in a place called Boqiu 柏丘, literally “cypress [Thuja] mound.” This toponym must almost certainly be interpreted as a way of designating a cemetery since traditionally, and still today, grave mounds are surrounded by cypresses. The cypress is regarded as a demon-repulsing tree.

    15Dan thus enters a place intended to house the dead, in contrast to his first burial place which had been a relegation “to the south of the outer gate.” After four years, he is able “to hear the crowing of roosters and the barking of dogs and to eat like the living.” He still retains traces of his stay among the dead: a scar on his neck, thinned eyebrows, an inky complexion, and stiff limbs. Here we recognise the dark complexion evoked by Granet to describe the man in mourning imitating the corpse.

    16But Dan has regained the essential: hearing and taste. Can we go so far as to conjecture that, thanks to the first, Dan will hear the prayers and lamentations that his new status of bon mort entitles him to, and that, having regained the sense of taste, he will be able to appreciate the offerings made to him? The remainder of the narrative allows this conclusion since it discusses the appropriate way of conducting the cult to the dead, and the right way to sacrifice to them without frightening them –that is by weeping– and to nourish them in accordance with their tastes.

    17In order to discuss the recommendations given by the resurrectee to the living, let us look at the narrative of the other man who returned to life three years after he died (Fig. 2). His recommendations parallel (sometimes contradict) those given by Dan. Below is my translation of “The man who died in Taiyuan”:

    泰原有死者,三歲而復産,獻之咸陽,言曰:

    A man who died in Taiyuan was restored to life three years later. He was sent to Xianyang where he made the following statement:

    「死人之所惡,解/予死人衣. 必令産見之,弗産見,鬼輒奪而入之少內.

    “The dead do not like to have clothes given to them torn; it is necessary to have [the clothes] seen by the dead when still alive.19 If they have not seen them, the ghosts will immediately take them away and deposit them in the Lesser Treasury.

    死/人所貴黃圈,黃圈以當金,黍粟以當錢,白菅以當䌛.

    The dead like golden sprouts. Golden sprouts substitute for gold, tassel millet substitutes for metal coins; white woolly-grass substitutes for silk.20

    女子死三/歲而復嫁,後有死者,勿并其冢.

    A young woman has died and after three years is married again, when there is another death (i.e., her previous husband), do not place his grave next to her grave.21

    祭死人之冢,勿哭.須其已食/乃哭之,不須其已食而哭之,鬼輒奪而入之廚.

    When you make offerings at the tombs of the dead, do not weep. Wait until the dead have eaten and weep only afterwards. If you do not wait until the dead have eaten before weeping, the ghosts will immediately seize [the offerings] and bring them to the Kitchen.

    祠,毋以酒與/羹沃祭,而沃祭前.

    When you sacrifice, do not pour any liquor and broth on the offerings, but pour it before making the offerings.

    收死人,勿束縛. 毋決其履,毋毁其器. /令如其産之卧殹,令其[1]22 (魄)不得茖(落)思.」

    When you lay out the dead, do not tie him with ropes, do not damage his shoes, do not break his burial goods. Ensure that he lies in the same position he lay in when alive; ensure that his soul po does not leave [his body].”

    黃圈者,大叔(菽)/殹,[1](剺)去其皮,置於土中,以爲黃金之勉.

    The golden sprouts are soya beans; peel their skin, place them in the soil to stand as gold coins.

    Fig. 2

    Image 10000000000005A300000A910960767BEA1B193A.png

    The Taiyuan tablet; H: 23 cm; L: 4,7 cm

    Reproduced from Wenwu, 2012, 6, p.71

    18Here is not the place to conduct a philological analysis of the two accounts. Suffice it to say that in the narrative concerning the resurrection of Dan, the word ghost (gui 鬼) refers to the dead, while in the Taiyuan story, it designates employees of the underworld administration, the dead being called sizhe 死者 or siren 死人. It is possible to speculate that in the second story the subterranean bureaucracy has developed enough to fully mirror its terrestrial model, including its corrupt practices to increase the wealth of the Underworld Treasury! It is also worth noting that in Dan’s story, the recommendations are more helpful to the malemorts (gui) like him, while those given by the Taiyuan resurrectee are intended for the regular dead (siren, sizhe), hence the discrepancies between the tastes and the wishes of the two kinds of dead.

    A comparison with the Yili and other sources

    19Similarly to the record of the resurrectee, the Ritual Treatises, notably the Yili 儀禮, provide precise procedures to follow when burying a gentleman and explain what kind of offerings to make on his tomb. Several chapters of the Yili are devoted to the various “mourning garments” worn by the mourners according to their relation to the dead23 but also to the “clothes for the dressing of the corpse” and the “funeral offerings.” Further research is necessary to compare term by term the items and gestures mentioned in the manuscripts and in the ritual treatises. Here I shall limit myself to the clothing of the dead, weeping on the tomb, the taste for various kinds of seeds, and the treatment of the burial goods. Ideally, the comparison should include three sources: the ritual treatises, the manuscripts and the archaeological data. This is not always possible. Let us look first at the clothing.

    20The recommendation for the clothing of the dead expresses the fear that his clothes may be damaged or torn, and that the dead may be dispossessed of them. The Ritual Treatises prescribe numerous rules for the dressing of the dead. These organise two grand moments: the Lesser Dressing and the Greater Dressing. The first happens after the corpse has been washed, the second before it is placed in the coffin. In both cases, extremely precise instructions regulate the number and type of clothes that are appropriate, how they should be disposed before the dead is dressed in them and the order in which they are to be put on. The first part of the warning –“The dead do not like to have their clothes torn”– can be linked to these recommendations; not term for term but to their general spirit. For example, in the chapter “Shi sang li” 士喪禮 of the Yili, there is a passage on the care to be taken when laying out the clothes of the dead before the “Greater Dressing.” It reads as follows:

    厥明,滅燎,陳衣于房,南領,西上,綪. [⋯] 凡三十稱. 紟不在算,不必盡用.

    At early dawn the cresset is extinguished, and the clothes are laid out in the chamber, with their collars to the south, and graded from the west, folded (zheng 綪). […] In all, thirty suits, the quilt not being included in the summation. Not all of these are necessarily used.24

    21The tale of the resurrectee of Taiyuan no doubt refers to a defunct of more modest extraction who has been dressed in clothes that he himself chose while alive (“It is necessary to have [the clothes] seen by the living”) and not with the forty-nine suits that the Lesser Dressing (nineteen suits) and the Greater Dressing (thirty suits) prescribe for the burial of a gentleman.25

    22The recommendation on the appropriate moment for tears (“When you make offerings at tombs of the dead, do not weep”) is echoed by similar injunctions in the Ritual Treatises. Too numerous to cite here, they enjoin the mourners when to weep and when to abstain from weeping. However, the Taiyuan manuscript refers more to the cult of the dead at their tomb side than to the funeral, and a comparison with the Han period manuscripts from Xuanquan 懸泉 is more relevant, as noted by Jiang Shoucheng.26 Among the bamboo slips published by Hu Pingsheng and Zhang Defang in 2001 under the title “Daybook About Death” (Rishu si 日書 – 死), we read several similar recommendations on tomb side weeping. These are primarily calendrical taboos:

    辰死者,不幸. [⋯] 以死者,不出三年有五喪.勿以哭泣,以哭泣,不出三月復哭.

    To die on a chen 辰 day is unlucky.27 If the death takes place on such a day, in less than three years there will be five mournings. Do not weep. If you weep, you will weep again in less than three months.

    夏三月寅,不可以哭泣,不出三月復哭.

    In the three months of Summer do not weep on the days which contain the earthly branch yin 寅. (If not), you will weep again in less than three months.28

    23And a more general recommendation:

    其死者,毋持刀刃上冢,死人不敢近也. 上冢,不欲哭,哭者,死人不敢食,去.

    As for the dead, do not hold a sharp knife when you go to the tomb, the dead will not dare to approach. When you approach the tomb, do not weep. If you weep, the dead will not dare to eat and will go away. […]29

    24What is articulated in the Yili in terms of ritual norms translates in “practical texts” as calendrical taboos, but the preoccupation is the same: to determine the favourable moment and the appropriate way to interact with the dead in order to participate in exchanges with them that are profitable and without danger.

    25The recommendation about the value that the dead attach to several sorts of cereals implicitly refers to the underworld treasury.30 It was indeed necessary to make sure that the dead had capital in the form of gold, silver and silk so that they would be able to pay for their purchases in the other world and live there at ease. This precaution is expressed numerous times in the apotropaic inscriptions discussed below. One of the best-known examples is the jar of Zhang Shujing 張叔敬 discovered in Shanxi in 1935. Its inscription unequivocally shows the monetary value of soya sprouts and other grains and their seeds, and their final destination: the Underworld Treasury. “Soya beans and melon seeds are used by the dead to pay taxes in the Underworld” (黃豆瓜子,死人持給地下賦).31 The Taiyuan tablet also explains how to get things cheaply when paying in gold pieces in the underworld: “The golden sprouts are soya beans; peel their skin, place them in the soil to stand as gold coins.” Similar recipes for this sort of substitution can be found in the Zhoujiatai manuscripts, for example when the offering of “a black cow” may be easily replaced by a “head louse.”32

    26As for white woolly grass (baimao 白茅or baijian 白菅), the Fangmatan resurrectee also regards it as precious: “The dead think that white woolly grass is fortunate” (死人以白茅為富). There is a still more ancient example of the deposit of white woolly grass in a tomb: tomb no. 1 of Mashan 馬山, near Jiangling 江陵, in Hubei Province. White woolly grass was placed on the lid of a large round basket, and inside several small and medium rectangular covered baskets, sometimes as part of a layer on the bottom of the basket which also contained animal bones or everyday objects, sometimes alone or with fragments of silk.33 This deposition of silk consisted in 452 silk fragments, all of different sizes (largest 11.2 x 5.8 cm; smallest 1.4 x 0.8 cm), some brocade (jin 錦), some gauze (sha 紗), some raw silk (juan 絹), embroidered or not.34 The authors of the excavation report consider that, as in Mawangdui 馬王堆 Tomb no. 1 and in Tomb 167 of Fenghuangshan 鳳凰山, these pieces of fabric represent a monetary treasure.35 In the Fenghuangshan tomb, from the Han period, three inventory slips confer a fictive monetary value on the contents of two purses and a basket. On slips 54 and 56 we find written, respectively, “an embroidered purse containing 8,000 gold pieces” (繡囊一盛八千金) and “an embroidered raw silk purse containing 19,000 gold pieces” (素綉囊一盛萬九千金), and on slip 57 “a basket of silks, inside of which silk pieces worth 20 million” (繒笥 合中繒直(值) 二千萬).36 The archaeologists have not identified what among the burial goods correspond to the two purses. On the other hand, they have linked the statement on slip 57 to a bamboo basket tightly packed with 35 rolls of silk (fictively worth 20 million), rods to calculate with, a writing brush, a knife, tablets to write on, pieces of money, and needles in a box.37

    27The recommendations on the manner of positioning the deceased’s corpse and on his ritual goods reflect all the ambiguity of the behaviour towards the dead that is required. When the man who died in Taiyuan declares: “When you lay out the dead, do not tie him with ropes, do not damage his shoes, do not break his burial goods. Ensure that he lies in the same position he lay in when alive; ensure that his soul po 魄 does not leave [his body]”, he is referring to practices that he wishes to denounce, and this gives an insight into the possible divergences of funerary practices from the ritual norm. This norm seeks to preserve the life of the deceased by allowing him to rest in his tomb as he rested, when alive, on his bed. But to act to the contrary of this is precisely to protect against the deceased’s return among the living –bound by ropes and without shoes, he is unable to leave the tomb, whilst his broken everyday objects prevent him from using them normally; with his body in a mortuary position and his po soul departed, he is still further from life.

    28Here the archaeological evidence offers further points of comparison. The particular positioning of corpses in certain Qin tombs –legs bent and knees tucked in38– is not that of the ordinary rest of the living (“the same position he lay in when alive”). Moreover, to maintain this position, the legs of the deceased were no doubt bound with ropes, another practice disapproved of by the Taiyuan resurrectee: “When you lay out the dead, do not tie him with ropes.” One also thinks of the corpse of the Mashan tomb, dressed in several layers of sumptuous clothes but bound from head to toe with nine brocade ties,39 or of the corpse of the Marchioness Dai 軑 of Mawangdui, similarly trussed.40

    29Over time the deposition in the tomb of mingqi 明器, objects of substitution or replicas, gradually tended towards the creation around the deceased of a material environment similar to that which he enjoyed in his lifetime. Under the Qin and the Western Han, mingqi were mainly ritual vases and, in Qin custom, cooking stoves, as well as some quotidian objects. From the first century AD, real substitutions of animals, buildings, furniture and familiar objects began to be made. In reality, however, these objects were often unusable, being only imitations, of better or worse quality.41 The locus classicus on the subject is to be found in The Book of Rites:

    孔子曰:之死而致死之,不仁而不可為也;之死而致生之,不知而不可為也. 是故竹不成用,瓦不成味,木不成斫,琴瑟張而不平,竽笙備而不和,有鐘磬而無簨虡,其曰明器,神明之也.

    Confucius said: “In dealing with the dead, if we treat them as if they were entirely dead, that would show a want of affection, and should not be done; or, if we treat them as if they were entirely alive, that would show a want of wisdom, and should not be done. On this account the vessels of bamboo (used in connection with the burial of the dead) are not fit for actual use; those of earthenware cannot be used to wash in; those of wood are incapable of being carved; the lutes are strung, but not evenly; the pandean pipes are complete, but not in tune; the bells and musical stones are there, but they have no stands. They are called vessels to the eye of fancy; that is, (the dead) are thus treated as if they were spiritual intelligences.”42

    30The intentional breaking of funerary goods is treated in Ma Liqing’s 馬利清 study of Qin mirrors. She sets out to demonstrate that, contrary to popular opinion, these objects are not broken because they were poorly made but that, in Qin tombs, they were intentionally broken.43 On the basis of a wide-ranging study of burial goods from the end of the Warring States period up to the beginning of the Han, she notes that more than eighty percent of Qin-made mirrors are broken. More interestingly still, she shows that in tombs of the Guanzhong 關中 region, the area of influence of Qin, mirrors of non-Qin provenance are also broken, whereas in the south of the Empire no mirror, whether made in Qin or elsewhere, is damaged. The Henan area offers an intermediary situation with as many intact as broken mirrors. The mirror discovered in the well-known tomb of a local official in the Qin administration at Shuihudi 睡虎地 in Hubei was not damaged. Nevertheless, other aspects of the burial were partly those of Qin (legs bent, manuscripts deposed in the coffin near to the deceased, etc.).44 From this, Ma Liqing concludes that the Qin custom of broken mirrors did not diffuse beyond its zone of origin unless later to the Xiongnu and Xianbei. If the recommendation “do not break his burial goods” of the Taiyuan resurrectee holds true for mirrors, we could read it as the desire of someone originating from a southern region, where the breaking of mirrors was not practised, to oppose a practice in vogue in Xianyang, where he delivered his recommendations.45 This is, of course, only a hypothesis, the archaeological context of the tablet not being known.

    31Let us now look at the apotropaic pottery. We are aware of the jump several centuries forward that this parallel presupposes. Although the Taiyuan manuscript is not dated, that of Fangmatan would appear to be from the second half of the 3rd century BC, while the first apotropaic jars are from no earlier than the first century AD. However, on the one hand, older documents mark the process of the formation of concepts about the afterlife, and, as we have seen with the Xuanquan slips, a certain continuity exists in ritual prescriptions. While not furnishing firm proof, these elements permit the comparison. We are also aware that the materials compared are of a different nature. On the one hand, funerary inscriptions inserted into a literary text, composed on bamboo or wooden supports, and belonging to an assemblage of manuscripts carried into the other world by a local official (at least in the case of the Fangmatan resurrectee); on the other, inscriptions placed on objects with an apotropaic value, no doubt composed by exorcists called in by families to protect them from their dead. However, these documents all express a double and contradictory necessity: to guarantee the comfort of the dead and to seal their irrevocable seclusion, and their comparison throws light on the progressive formation of an underworld bureaucracy.

    The Dark Underground Abode, the Blue Sky Above

    32The recommendations of the Ritual Treatises come to a stop, in a way, at the entrance to the tomb. They aim above all to regulate, down to the smallest details, the conduct of individuals who are in mourning and to stipulate the behaviour of their friends and acquaintances so that society can recover the balance disrupted by death –Durkheim is not far off. If the two accounts of the resurrectee give supplementary information about the preferences of the dead during their stay in the netherworld, the terracotta jars set inside the graves provide more details on the other side, the hidden face –one might say the life of the dead, or at least their life as imagined by the living. In particular these objects offer a considerable development of an organism only referred to summarily in the resurrection accounts: the underworld administration modelled on the worldly administration.

    33Before looking at the apotropaic pottery in more detail, it is necessary to recall that both their presence in tombs and their function are intimately linked to the change in burial method that took place between the second century BC and the first century AD.46 Once placed at the bottom of vertical pits intended to never be reopened, the dead now came to rest in tombs organised horizontally. From this it became possible to reopen the tomb at different moments and to place other coffins into it. It is in this context, and because of the pollution brought about by contact with the dead when the tomb was reopened, that vases were placed in at least certain tombs, with a prophylactic intent.

    34We have previously mentioned the Scribe of the Director of the Life-Mandate (Siming shi) who has no counterpart in the ritual treatises. There is also the “Lesser Treasury” (Shaonei 少內) to which the demons carry off both the clothes of the deceased if he had not already viewed them whilst alive, and the offerings made to the dead when tears have inauspiciously escaped from the mourners.47 Already in the 2nd century BC a vice-prefect in the local administration (Jiangling cheng 江陵丞) informed a “Vice-Prefect of the Underworld” (Dixia cheng 地下丞) of the arrival of a defunct and of the goods he was bringing with him.48 A century later it is to the Lord of the Earth (Tuzhu 土主) that an official announces the arrival of a convict labourer from his jurisdiction.”49 Archaeology attests that post-mortem life was strictly controlled as soon as the first century AD. Not only did an underworld administration, as formidable as that for the living, register and watch over the dead but exorcistic procedures and spatial dispositions based on the theory of correlative cosmology transformed the tomb into an enclosed world.

    35The most informative materials for this subject are the dozens of terracotta jars or bottles discovered during the twentieth century in tombs of average or modest dimensions. These pottery vessels, most often designated by the name zhenmuping 鎮墓瓶 “tomb-securing jars” or jiezhuping 解注瓶 “tomb-purifying or –exorcising bottles,” are small containers 15–20 cm high. On the body of the jars are short inscriptions. Their length ranges from less than 10 to, at the longest, 200-odd characters. On a dozen of these jars the inscription is accompanied by a fu 符 talisman of unclear meaning. The majority of the 230 jars –of which 91 bear an inscription– were discovered in the area of the former capitals Chang’an (Xi’an) and Luoyang in tombs dating from between AD 60 and AD 193. A few contained crystals from various metals (shenyao 神藥, wushi 五石) and, inside or alongside, lead figurines identified by the inscription as funerary servants (in the manner of the Egyptian oushebti funerary figurines). We must, of course, keep in mind that these are a small number of objects found in a limited geographical region and over a period of a century and a half. Regardless, the spirit which presides over their use is, I believe, more generally present.

    36When the grave goods have not been too disturbed by looters (who, fortunately, are not very interested in these crude pottery containers) we frequently find that the bottles are placed at the tomb’s entrance and, in a few exemplary cases, at the four cardinal points and in the centre of the pit. The apotropaic power of these objects lies not only in their inscriptions but also in the place they occupy in the pit. This is the case for the tomb M17 discovered in Sanmenxia 三門峽 cemetery, in Henan, in 1998 which belonged to a powerful lineage dating from the end of the Eastern Han.50 By placing beneath the paving of the tomb, at the four cardinal points and in the centre, recipients filled with materia medica of the colour corresponding to their position (each cardinal direction, as well as the centre, corresponds to a different colour);51 by tracing inscriptions on the bottles that indicate the portion of space which they are protecting and the quinary divinity that presides over it; and by placing these divinities under the patronage of the Big Dipper, Beidou 北斗, a higher celestial power who is depicted on each of the bottles, the tomb is made into a completely controlled place (Fig. 3).

    Fig. 3

    Image 1000000000000572000004F5184E78DF3E0DEE20.png

    Fire (South) overcomes metal; metal (West) overcomes wood; wood (East) overcomes Earth; Earth (Centre) overcomes water; water (North) overcomes Fire. The disposition for securing the tomb by means of the system of the domination of elements (wuxing xiangsheng 五行相勝). Tomb M17 discovered in Sanmenxia cemetery, Henan.

    37This system seems capable of functioning by itself, with each bottle controlling through its position, its content, and its inscription, the portion of space that it dominates by virtue of the principles of correlative cosmology. But not all the jars and their inscriptions function on this model. There are other possible ways for the surviving to protect themselves from the return of their dead.

    38There is, firstly, according to the inscriptions of the apotropaic bottles, the date of the ritual. It has been carefully chosen for its hemerological efficacy and itself possesses an apotropaic force. This is generally followed by the evocation of an envoy (shizhe 使者) who acts as a messenger of a higher divinity –sometimes the Heavenly Emperor (Tiandi 天帝), or the Yellow God (Huangshen 黃神), or else the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi 黃帝). In this capacity he addresses, or even orders, the underworld powers. The action of this intermediary is similar to that of the interventions of the fangxiangshi 方相氏 exorcist known to us from the received texts. Whilst the fangxiangshi descends into the tomb to expel the monsters who devour the heads of corpses,52 the envoy of the apotropaic inscriptions has a variety of methods at his disposition. He may use his own skill and knowledge of the names of demons to perform an exorcism without passing by the administration and the infernal courts.53 He may also use performative utterances. Often rhyming, these aim at delimiting the spaces occupied by, on one side, the dead –Mount Taishan, the tomb, the Dark Underground Abode (dixia mangmang 地下茫茫), and, on the other side, the living –the capital Chang’an, the house, the Blue Sky Above (shangtian cangcang 上天蒼蒼).

    39Performative utterances were also intended to liberate the deceased, the living, or the other occupants of the tomb from the harmful consequences of faults they had committed in the past. This process was often immediately followed by the expression of wishes for good fortune: abundant posterity, good fortune, and peace for the living. These wishes establish the relation of independence that will exist from then on between the living and the dead, with each one believing himself quits with regard to the other.

    40The comfort of the deceased is another preoccupation for the living, who mean to ensure that he does not return to haunt them. Substitutes in the form of lead figurines are put at his service in order to spare him from routine tasks and corvées in the afterlife. One inscription from AD 17 assures that, “These servants are most capable, they know how to husk rice and to cook, to drive a chariot and to wield a pen.” (鉛人池池,能舂能炊,上車能御,把笔能書).54 The deceased may also benefit from a permanent rent that protects him from want and reassures the other occupants of the tomb who might have worried about welcoming a potential supplicant: “As soon as the bottle arrives may all the dead be at peace, the clan chief [who arrives in the tomb] will himself enjoy a rent of 20 million pieces” (瓶到之後, 令母(每)人為安,宗君自食地下租稅二千萬).55

    41However, the exorcist alone cannot contain the harm that the dead could cause. In our corpus, on a bottle dating from 122, a Vice-Prefect of the Burial Mound (Qiucheng 丘丞) is presented as the parallel alter ego of the administrator of the capital (生人自屬長安,死人自屬丘丞).56 Two decades later (147), the underworld administration is composed of two distinct departments: one is in charge of the registers of the living and the dead, under the direction of the Director of the Life-Mandate (Siming 司命) and of a Director of Registers (Silu 司錄); the other, under the Prefect of Songshan (Songgao zhang 嵩高長)57 assisted by Patrollers of the Paths (Moshang youjiao 陌上游徼), is in charge of watching over the souls of the dead and preventing them from leaving the realm of shadows.58 After this the underworld administration and the pantheon in charge of the dead proliferate to the point of saturating the tomb with agents posted to particular spaces. Agents are posted to the top of the tomb, to the bottom, to the centre, to the left, and to the right of the tomb (墓上,墓下,中央,墓左,墓右).59

    42Our corpus of inscriptions attests not only to a chronological complexification of the underworld pantheons, but also to the coexistence of several traditions of exorcism characterised by common points and borrowings. Certain practices are anchored in an intellectual cosmological tradition –the Five Agents, yin and yang– and act according to a performative mode whilst also having recourse to materia medica, or to funerary servants and treasures. In a later development, the exorcist proceeds via the intermediary of an administration which he addresses in the name of a higher divinity (Huangdi, Tiandi, Beidou) in order to command obedience. The final formula “act in accordance with the statutes and ordinances” (ru lüling 如律令) adds a comminatory value to the procedure, which is borrowed from the bureaucratic order. The underworld administration comes, in a way, to interpose itself between the higher divinity and the exorcist.

    43As we saw in the narrative of Dan’s resurrection, the “bureaucratic metaphor” predates the imperial period. But in the first two centuries AD it fills out and becomes more complex to become a true mirror of the administration of the living. As for the underworld pantheon, two phenomena are discernible: as in the case of the Director of the Life-Mandate, its members take on new tasks; as with the Vice-Prefect of the Burial Mound (Qiucheng), the Earl of the Tomb (Mubo 墓伯), the Guardian of the Soul Gate (Hunmen tingzhang 魂門亭長), and many others, a new pantheon not mentioned in the Treatises is created.

    44In conclusion, we can try to situate our examples in a wider context. Anyone at all familiar with defixiones or magical papyri will be struck by the similarities between the apotropaic rituals and healing rites of the ancient Chinese world and those of Greco-Roman Antiquity.60 We find the same attention paid to specific gestures and postures, the use of materia medica, the care taken in the choice of a favourable moment and place. It would not be useful to search for influences or contaminations. Yet, it is evident that the relationship between what we will call, for sake of simplicity, “magical practices,” and the religious practices prescribed by the Ritual Treatises is comparable to that between magical practices and public cult in the Greco-Roman world. Indeed, the first is private, secret and searches for personal benefit; the second is collective, public and aims at the common good. A term-by-term comparison would be meaningless because the social, political and religious contexts are so very different (in Ancient China, we find neither city-state nor citizen but Empire and subjects). But rather than envisaging magical practices as belonging to the popular classes or to certain set-apart categories of individuals, or else as customs particular to a region or period or even to a particular church, it would be better to recognise an ensemble of methods that exist in parallel to the rituals conserved and sanctioned by the scholarly tradition. As a matter of fact, curse formulas (zuchuwen 詛楚文), healing rites (bingfang 病方) and bewitchments (gu 蠱) exist among all levels of society, from the humblest to the emperor, not omitting princesses, eunuchs and even certain literati.

    Appendix

    45Adapted from Donald Harper, 1994, “Resurrection in Warring States Religion,” Taoist Resources 5.2: 13–28; Chinese text, see Chen Wei 陈伟, 2015, Qin jiandu heji 秦简牍合集, Wuhan: Wuhan daxue, vol. 4, 202–207 (transcription), 343 (bamboo slips).

    46Day jisi of the eighth month of the eighth year, the Assistant Magistrate of Di, Chi, dares to inform the Chief Prosecutor about a man from Daliang, Wangli Village [1], the convict-labourer named Dan. [1] Seven years [ago], Dan injured a man by stabbing him in Yuanli Village, and because of this he killed himself with his sword. [1] He was exposed in the market for three days, then buried outside the south gate of Yuanli. Three years later Dan came back to life. The reason that Dan came back to life was because he was our Xi Wu’s retainer. Xi Wu disputed his retainer’s life-mandate considering that Dan was not yet fated to die. Therefore he made a declaration to the Scribe of the Director of the Life-mandate, Gongsun Qiang, who then had a white dog dig up the pit to let Dan out. Dan stood on the tomb for three days. Then he departed northwards to Zhao, accompanied by the Scribe of the Director of the Life-mandate, Gongsun Qiang, and went to Boqiu in the North Territory. Fully four years later he then heard dogs barking and roosters crowing, and he ate human food. His body had a scar on the throat and sparse eyebrow hair, (his face) was inky, and his four limbs were useless.

    47Dan says: “The dead do not want many clothes. The dead think that white woolly grass is fortunate; while the ghosts (consider) receiving something else as (more) fortunate.”

    48Dan says: “Let those who offer sacrifices at tombs not dare to weep. If they weep, the ghosts will depart and flee in fright. Once the offering is over, collect the sacrificial food and bury it; in this way the ghosts will not eat forever.” Dan says: “Those who offer sacrifices must carefully sweep and purify (the place of the sacrifice). Do not wash [1] the place of the sacrifice. Do not pour the broth over the sacrificial food, for the ghosts will not eat.”

    Sun Zhanyu 孫占宇, 2013, Tianshui Fangmatan Qin jian jishi 天水放馬秦簡集釋, Zhang Defang 張德芳 ed. Lanzhou: Gansu wenhua chubanshe.

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    Notes de bas de page

    1 I would like to thank Alain Thote, Marc Kalinowski, Donald Harper and Benjamin Ringard for their valuable advice, as well as Alice Crowther for her remarkable translation, and Joseph Ciaudo for his editorial work.

    2 Granet 1922. Granet most often cites chapters I “Quli” 曲禮, II “Tangong” 檀弓, XVIII “Zaji” 雜記, “Sang daji” 喪大記, XXXII “Wen sang” 問喪, XXXIV “Jianzhuan” 間傳, XXXV “Sannian wen” 三年問, XLVI “Sangfu sizhi” 喪服四制.

    3 See Chen 2015, vol. 4, 202-207 (transcription), 343 (bamboo slips).

    4 See “Beijing daxue cang Qin jiandu gaishu” 2012, 65.

    5 Li 2012.

    6 The best study of these artefacts remains Seidel 1987.

    7 Granet 1922, 98.

    8 Granet 1922, 100.

    9 Granet 1922, 113.

    10 Idem.

    11 Granet 1922, 105.

    12 The date of the tomb has been deduced from the “eighth year” given at the beginning of the resurrection account, considered by the authors of the excavation report to be the eighth year of the First Qin Emperor, or 239 BC (Wenwu 1989.2, 10–11), but other dates have been proposed. For further discussion, see Thote 2017, 24-25.

    13 For a detailed description of the tomb, see Thote 2017, 21-24.

    14 See Sun 2013, p. 59-60 (bamboo slips) and 269-276 (transcription and notes); Chen Wei 2014. For the English translation, see Harper 1994; for an amended translation, see Appendix 1 below.

    15 These pantheons consist of seven and five gods, respectively. For the king these are the god of the Life-Mandate, the god of the Impluvium (Zhongliu 中霤), the god of the Capital (or Kingdom) Gates (Guomen 國門), the god of the Capital Roads (Guoxing 國行), the god of the Wandering Souls of his [the king’s] Predecessors (Taili 泰厲), the god of the Doors (Hu 戶), and the god of the Stove (Zao 竈). The feudal princes had only the first five (see Legge 1885, part. IV, 206–207; « Jifa » 祭法 in Liji jishuo 1985, vol. 2, 254-255.

    16 Lai 2005, 5-6.

    17 See Legge 1872, 814-816; Yang 1981, Duke Ai, 7th and 8th years, 1644-47; Shiji 1982, vol. 35, 1573; Harper 1994, 16.

    18 See “Shi sang li” 士喪禮 in Yili 1936, vol. 2, 179; Steele 1917, vol. 2, 45.

    19 Jiang Shoucheng姜守誠 believes that the repetition marker = is missing after the character yi 衣 and that it should read 死人之所惡,解予死人衣. = (衣) 必令產見之, nonetheless he reads the phrase in the same sense as Li Ling; see Jiang 2014, 149. Donald Harper suggests punctuating after 解 and reading “The dead hate exorcism” (personal communication); this is also the reading proposed by Huang Jie 黃傑 (Huang 2013, 443-444). The meaning of this statement remains in any case obscure.

    20 Li Ling reads the last graph as yao 䌛, meaning “silk” chou 綢 (Li 2012, 82); Jiang Wen suspects a scribal mistake and reads it as mian 緜, which designates a better quality of silk than chou (Jiang 2019, 43).

    21 It would be an anachronism to translate “do not place him into her grave,” because in Qin at this period tombs were vertical pits and could not be re-opened to house a new corpse, as would be the case later. See the contribution of Alain Thote in this volume.

    22 The number in between square brackets indicates the number of missing Chinese characters.

    23 “Sangfu” 喪服, chapter 11 and “Shi sangli” 士喪禮, chapter 12 in Yili 1936; Steele 1917, vol. 2, chapters 22-25.

    24 Steele 1917, 61; Yili 1936, vol. 2, 187.

    25 Yili 1936, 184 (nineteen suits) and 187 (thirty suits).

    26 Jiang 2014, 157.

    27 That is to say a day whose binome contains the earthly branch chen.

    28 Hu & Zhang 2001, 178-179.

    29 The end of the last phrase is broken off. Hu & Zhang 2001, 183.

    30 For a detailed discussion on this matter, see Jiang 2019.

    31 See Zhang & Bai 2006, 160.

    32 See the “Recipe for dental decay” in the manuscripts of Zhoujiatai (Guanju Qin Han mu jiandu 2001, 129, slips 326-328); see also Bujard 2017, 329.

    33 Mashan Tomb no. 1 dates from around 300 BC. It contains 18 bamboo baskets of different shapes, one round and 17 rectangular, these last in three different sizes. See Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 86-93. I would like to thank Alain Thote for indicating this reference to me.

    34 See Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 28; plate XLVI-4 and XIX-2, coffin 8-11.

    35 See Jilin daxue lishi xi kaogu zhuanye 1976, 41.

    36 And not 繒一笥值千金 as is written in the Mashan report (Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 28).

    37 See Fenghuang shan yiliuqi hao Hanmu fajue zhengli xiaozu 1976, 37 and Hubei sheng kaogu yanjiusuo 2012, 171-72.

    38 See Falkenhausen 2004, vol.1, 125 & 135‑141.

    39 Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, colour plate no. 2.

    40 Mawangdui Han mu wenwu 1992, 41. I thank Donald Harper for indicating this parallel to me.

    41 On the use and production of these objects, see Sterckx 2009, 857-858, and, in Qin in particular, Falkenhausen, 2004, vol.1, 152-153.

    42 See Legge 1885, part. III, 148; “Tangong” 檀弓 in Liji jishuo 1985, vol. 2, 40.

    43 Ma 2009.

    44 See Thote 2017, 25-29.

    45 Archaeologists believe that the group of manuscripts to which the tablet belongs comes from the south of China, from the commandery of Nan (南郡) in present day Hubei Province, see “Beijing daxue cang Qin jiandu gaishu” 2012, 65.

    46 Pirazzoli t’Serstevens 2009, 341-43.

    47 For the clothes and for the offerings, the phrasing is in fact parallel: “the ghosts will immediately take them [the clothes] away and deposit them in the Lesser Treasury” 鬼輒奪而入之少內; “the ghosts will immediately seize [the offerings] and bring them to the Kitchen” 鬼輒奪而入之廚.

    48 “Jiangling Fenghuangshan yibailiushiba hao Hanmu” 1993.

    49 “Jiangsu Hanjiang Huchang wu hao Hanmu” 1981.

    50 “Henan Sanmenxia Nanjiaokou Hanmu” 2009; Sanmenxia Nanjiaokou 2009, 278-98.

    51 In fact, chemical analysis has demonstrated that only two bottles actually contained the substances mentioned in their inscriptions. See Yang & al. 2009.

    52 Wang 1982, vol. 2, 574.

    53 Inscription dated 156 on a bottle discovered near to Luoyang in 1980; see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 150-53.

    54 Inscription of 147 composed on behalf of the Jia family for a deceased 24-year-old woman, see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 142-43.

    55 Ibid., vol. 1, 182-83.

    56 Ibid., vol. 1, 107-109.

    57 The Songgao zhang, from the name of the Central Peak, situated near to the capital Luoyang, where souls reside, an equivalent to Mount Taishan in the east of the Empire.

    58 Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 142-43.

    59 Bottle held in Japan, probably discovered in Shaanxi and dated 175, see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 162-64.

    60 See Graf 2004. His chapter “Defixiones et images d’envoûtement” (139-198) contains many references, in particular note 4, 286.

    Auteurs

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    • Alice Crowther (trad.)
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    1 I would like to thank Alain Thote, Marc Kalinowski, Donald Harper and Benjamin Ringard for their valuable advice, as well as Alice Crowther for her remarkable translation, and Joseph Ciaudo for his editorial work.

    2 Granet 1922. Granet most often cites chapters I “Quli” 曲禮, II “Tangong” 檀弓, XVIII “Zaji” 雜記, “Sang daji” 喪大記, XXXII “Wen sang” 問喪, XXXIV “Jianzhuan” 間傳, XXXV “Sannian wen” 三年問, XLVI “Sangfu sizhi” 喪服四制.

    3 See Chen 2015, vol. 4, 202-207 (transcription), 343 (bamboo slips).

    4 See “Beijing daxue cang Qin jiandu gaishu” 2012, 65.

    5 Li 2012.

    6 The best study of these artefacts remains Seidel 1987.

    7 Granet 1922, 98.

    8 Granet 1922, 100.

    9 Granet 1922, 113.

    10 Idem.

    11 Granet 1922, 105.

    12 The date of the tomb has been deduced from the “eighth year” given at the beginning of the resurrection account, considered by the authors of the excavation report to be the eighth year of the First Qin Emperor, or 239 BC (Wenwu 1989.2, 10–11), but other dates have been proposed. For further discussion, see Thote 2017, 24-25.

    13 For a detailed description of the tomb, see Thote 2017, 21-24.

    14 See Sun 2013, p. 59-60 (bamboo slips) and 269-276 (transcription and notes); Chen Wei 2014. For the English translation, see Harper 1994; for an amended translation, see Appendix 1 below.

    15 These pantheons consist of seven and five gods, respectively. For the king these are the god of the Life-Mandate, the god of the Impluvium (Zhongliu 中霤), the god of the Capital (or Kingdom) Gates (Guomen 國門), the god of the Capital Roads (Guoxing 國行), the god of the Wandering Souls of his [the king’s] Predecessors (Taili 泰厲), the god of the Doors (Hu 戶), and the god of the Stove (Zao 竈). The feudal princes had only the first five (see Legge 1885, part. IV, 206–207; « Jifa » 祭法 in Liji jishuo 1985, vol. 2, 254-255.

    16 Lai 2005, 5-6.

    17 See Legge 1872, 814-816; Yang 1981, Duke Ai, 7th and 8th years, 1644-47; Shiji 1982, vol. 35, 1573; Harper 1994, 16.

    18 See “Shi sang li” 士喪禮 in Yili 1936, vol. 2, 179; Steele 1917, vol. 2, 45.

    19 Jiang Shoucheng姜守誠 believes that the repetition marker = is missing after the character yi 衣 and that it should read 死人之所惡,解予死人衣. = (衣) 必令產見之, nonetheless he reads the phrase in the same sense as Li Ling; see Jiang 2014, 149. Donald Harper suggests punctuating after 解 and reading “The dead hate exorcism” (personal communication); this is also the reading proposed by Huang Jie 黃傑 (Huang 2013, 443-444). The meaning of this statement remains in any case obscure.

    20 Li Ling reads the last graph as yao 䌛, meaning “silk” chou 綢 (Li 2012, 82); Jiang Wen suspects a scribal mistake and reads it as mian 緜, which designates a better quality of silk than chou (Jiang 2019, 43).

    21 It would be an anachronism to translate “do not place him into her grave,” because in Qin at this period tombs were vertical pits and could not be re-opened to house a new corpse, as would be the case later. See the contribution of Alain Thote in this volume.

    22 The number in between square brackets indicates the number of missing Chinese characters.

    23 “Sangfu” 喪服, chapter 11 and “Shi sangli” 士喪禮, chapter 12 in Yili 1936; Steele 1917, vol. 2, chapters 22-25.

    24 Steele 1917, 61; Yili 1936, vol. 2, 187.

    25 Yili 1936, 184 (nineteen suits) and 187 (thirty suits).

    26 Jiang 2014, 157.

    27 That is to say a day whose binome contains the earthly branch chen.

    28 Hu & Zhang 2001, 178-179.

    29 The end of the last phrase is broken off. Hu & Zhang 2001, 183.

    30 For a detailed discussion on this matter, see Jiang 2019.

    31 See Zhang & Bai 2006, 160.

    32 See the “Recipe for dental decay” in the manuscripts of Zhoujiatai (Guanju Qin Han mu jiandu 2001, 129, slips 326-328); see also Bujard 2017, 329.

    33 Mashan Tomb no. 1 dates from around 300 BC. It contains 18 bamboo baskets of different shapes, one round and 17 rectangular, these last in three different sizes. See Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 86-93. I would like to thank Alain Thote for indicating this reference to me.

    34 See Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 28; plate XLVI-4 and XIX-2, coffin 8-11.

    35 See Jilin daxue lishi xi kaogu zhuanye 1976, 41.

    36 And not 繒一笥值千金 as is written in the Mashan report (Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, 28).

    37 See Fenghuang shan yiliuqi hao Hanmu fajue zhengli xiaozu 1976, 37 and Hubei sheng kaogu yanjiusuo 2012, 171-72.

    38 See Falkenhausen 2004, vol.1, 125 & 135‑141.

    39 Hubei sheng Jingzhou diqu bowuguan 1985, colour plate no. 2.

    40 Mawangdui Han mu wenwu 1992, 41. I thank Donald Harper for indicating this parallel to me.

    41 On the use and production of these objects, see Sterckx 2009, 857-858, and, in Qin in particular, Falkenhausen, 2004, vol.1, 152-153.

    42 See Legge 1885, part. III, 148; “Tangong” 檀弓 in Liji jishuo 1985, vol. 2, 40.

    43 Ma 2009.

    44 See Thote 2017, 25-29.

    45 Archaeologists believe that the group of manuscripts to which the tablet belongs comes from the south of China, from the commandery of Nan (南郡) in present day Hubei Province, see “Beijing daxue cang Qin jiandu gaishu” 2012, 65.

    46 Pirazzoli t’Serstevens 2009, 341-43.

    47 For the clothes and for the offerings, the phrasing is in fact parallel: “the ghosts will immediately take them [the clothes] away and deposit them in the Lesser Treasury” 鬼輒奪而入之少內; “the ghosts will immediately seize [the offerings] and bring them to the Kitchen” 鬼輒奪而入之廚.

    48 “Jiangling Fenghuangshan yibailiushiba hao Hanmu” 1993.

    49 “Jiangsu Hanjiang Huchang wu hao Hanmu” 1981.

    50 “Henan Sanmenxia Nanjiaokou Hanmu” 2009; Sanmenxia Nanjiaokou 2009, 278-98.

    51 In fact, chemical analysis has demonstrated that only two bottles actually contained the substances mentioned in their inscriptions. See Yang & al. 2009.

    52 Wang 1982, vol. 2, 574.

    53 Inscription dated 156 on a bottle discovered near to Luoyang in 1980; see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 150-53.

    54 Inscription of 147 composed on behalf of the Jia family for a deceased 24-year-old woman, see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 142-43.

    55 Ibid., vol. 1, 182-83.

    56 Ibid., vol. 1, 107-109.

    57 The Songgao zhang, from the name of the Central Peak, situated near to the capital Luoyang, where souls reside, an equivalent to Mount Taishan in the east of the Empire.

    58 Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 142-43.

    59 Bottle held in Japan, probably discovered in Shaanxi and dated 175, see Zhang & Bai 2006, vol. 1, 162-64.

    60 See Graf 2004. His chapter “Defixiones et images d’envoûtement” (139-198) contains many references, in particular note 4, 286.

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    Bujard, M. (2023). Let the dead bury their dead: the confinement of the tomb in the Eastern Han Period (A. Crowther, Trad.). In A. Cheng & S. Feuillas (éds.), All about the Rites (1‑). Collège de France. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.cdf.13024
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    Bujard, Marianne. « Let the Dead Bury Their Dead: The confinement of the tomb in the Eastern Han Period ». All about the Rites, édité par Anne Cheng et Stéphane Feuillas, traduit par Alice Crowther, Collège de France, 2023, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.cdf.13024.

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