A Study of funerary culture and Notions of the afterlife in early China.

Richter, Matthias L.

Constance A. Cook's book, being the first comprehensive monograph in a Western language on the important tomb Baoshan no. 2, is a major contribution to the study of early China. (Other than the two-volume excavation report Baoshan Chu mu and the one-volume publication of the Baoshan manuscripts Baoshan Chu jian both edited by the Hubei sheng Jing Shatielu kaogu dui and published by Wenwu in 1991, there are two earlier book-length studies: Chen Wei's Baoshan Chu jian chutan [Wuhan daxue, 1996] and Lai Guolong's 2003 U.C.L.A. dissertation "The Baoshan Tomb: Religious Transitions in Art, Ritual, and Text During the Warring States Period [480-221 BCE].") Recent excavations of tombs containing manuscripts have considerably enriched our knowledge of early China and to some extent led to a revision of our views on the political and intellectual culture of that time. There is, however, a discrepancy between the enormous scholarly attention devoted to the manuscripts bearing politico-philosophical texts (most prominently those from the tombs of Mawangdui Guodian and recently the Shanghai Museum Chu manuscripts) and the relative neglect of the arguably less accessible kinds of manuscripts, such as tomb inventories and divinatory texts, although these are probably more representative of early Chinese textual culture than the famous literary texts. This situation is beginning to change, and Cook's recent book is a milestone not just in this process but also in another most needed development, viz., the bridging of the existing divide between archaeology and textual scholarship. The book under review is largely based on a translation of the divination texts and tomb inventories found in Baoshan tomb no. 2 as well as offering a detailed analysis of the design and contents of the entire tomb. The author interprets the manuscript as an integral part of the archaeological and wider historical context. In this sense the book offers much more than the "Tale of One Man's Journey."

The book is organized in six chapters (pp. 1-152), followed by three extensive appendices (pp. 153-264) in which the author offers richly annotated translations of the tomb texts, accompanied by their transcription and photographic reproduction.

In the introductory chapter Cook starts out with a vivid, yet concise description of the historical and geographical context of the tomb of Shao Tuo (the author tacitly normalizes the original graph for Tuo, which is composed of a high-ranking court officer, buried in 316 b.c.E., who claimed descent from the former Chu king Zhao (whose name is written in the manuscripts like the tomb owner's name, Cook introduces the reader to her central methodological tenets and interpretive approach, thus already foreshadowing her main assumptions about the meaning and function of the layout and contents of Shao Tuo's tomb. The aim of the book is not "just" to extract from this tomb information about this particular case, but to place it in a wider perspective and through it understand the development of cosmological symbolism, divinatory practices, and beliefs about afterlife in early China. Just as much as she aims to arrive at them, the author proceeds on certain assumptions about the degree to which Chu culture is consistent with the earlier Zhou culture in the north as we know it mostly through bronze inscriptions or with the contemporary culture in the other Warring States in the vast area that was later to become China.

This problem becomes most apparent in chapter two ("Death as Journey in Ancient China"), where Cook discusses key terms and concepts related to life and death (such as soul, spirit, form, power, etc.) as well as ritual practices. To this end, she adduces a vast array of sources, as diverse as Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, Han dynasty ritual texts, and manuscript texts whose provenances are close in time and space to the Baoshan tomb. The author explicitly shows her awareness of the problem that some of these sources may hardly be comparable in terms of both genre and ideological orientation, yet she seems to assume a high degree of commonality in their worldviews: "The mixed texts and ideologies found in tombs in Jiangling tell us that the educated elite of Chu were familiar with the debates circulating in other local courts at the time and likely followed a variety of practices even within their own elite circles" (p. 25); "while it is unlikely that the idealized ritual procedures ... as described in these [Han] texts were exactly the same as those for Shao Tuo, it is likely that the basic beliefs . . . were quite ancient and shared by those elite who participated to a vast degree in a shared religious culture with roots deep in Shang culture" (pp. 29-30).

In her third chapter ("Entering the Earth") the author proceeds from the observation that the divination records show how, with the progressing decline of Shao Tuo's health, ritualists shifted their attention from sacrifices to the ancestors toward offerings to deities connected with the earth. Cook describes in broad terms and in a long historical perspective the spiritual and ritual significance of earth worship and sacrifice, and she mentions the various supernatural powers Shao Tuo must have expected to encounter after his burial. The remainder of the chapter is twofold: section 1 ("Shao Tuo's Burial") gives a detailed description of the tomb with its several compartments as well as their contents; section 2 ("Sacred Space: The Inner and Outer") discusses "the concept of sacred space in terms of both the symbolism of the tomb and the texts translated in the appendix" (p. 63). It is a virtue of the book in general that the author includes many high-quality images, allowing the reader to envisage clearly what she describes and interprets.

That some of the assumptions made here about the meaning and function of the funerary goods seem somewhat tenuous is a problem scarcely to be avoided when interpreting archaeological finds. For instance, when Cook claims that the presence outside the innermost coffin of several weapons, some sticks, and "a bronze knife for paring bamboo strips" shows "that Shao Tuo could immediately outfit himself as both a warrior and a scholar" (p. 50), the supposed indication of scholarship seems not particularly well founded. First, it is problematic to interpret in alt cases knives that look like those used in preparing bamboo slips or correcting errors in writing as writing implements, even when there is no additional indication that they were actually used for such purposes. This practice of overinterpreting archaeological evidence is quite common but nevertheless questionable. Second, even if we could be sure that (his particular knife was indeed meant to pare bamboo strips, we have little reason to assume that scholars, especially when they were members of the elite, prepared their own writing material. The co-occurrence of such a knife with a writing brush in the northern compartment of the outer coffin is a much more reliable indication of actual engagement in writing activities.

When the author discusses the religious significance of the sacred space of the burial ground and the tomb (referred to in the tomb inventory as da zhao she synthesizes information from the texts found in Shao Tuo's tomb, evidence from other tombs, as well as transmitted ritual texts. One of her central arguments, viz., that cognate words written with the phonetic represent ''the link between burial, divination, and sacred space" (p. 64), could have been strengthened by giving the Old Chinese pronunciations of the words she discusses. In annotations to the appended translations of tomb texts she does give Old Chinese pronunciations wherever needed, but for this she might have used a less outdated system of reconstruction than that of Li Fang-kuei. For the phonetic reproductions given in the appendix the publisher should have provided the correct symbols [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

Chapter four ("Shao Tuo's Departure"), the longest chapter of the book, leads us from the general description and interpretation of the tomb and its contents to the divination texts and from the tomb owner's presumed afterlife to the illness preceding his death, to divining the causes for this illness, and attempted cures. Here the author analyzes divinatory practices in detail, listing times of divination events, terms for the various rituals, offerings, and spirits, and finally gives a tabular overview in which she relates all these as they occur in the Baoshan texts. Comparing the Baoshan divination practice with that reflected in the some decades older Wangshan divination texts as well as with the one century younger hemerological "Day Books" in the Shuihudi Qin manuscripts, Cook sees "an evolving tendency to calculate ritual events according to changes in patterns of abstract natural forces" (p. 118). The second part of this chapter consists of a detailed description and interpretation of the painting on a lacquer box from the Baoshan tomb, which, Cook suggests, can be read either as depicting an event in Shao Tuo's life and functioning to secure his status in the netherworld or as a symbolic representation of "the deceased's setting off on a journey into the wilds to 'hunt"' (p. 127).

The next chapter ("The Topography of the Afterlife") shifts the focus back very close to that of chapter three, viz., Shao Tuo's imagined movements after the funeral. The author envisages the journey of the deceased, based on a detailed description and interpretation of funerary items. Her interpretation is supported by comparisons with figures found in other tombs of the Chu cultural sphere (most notably the funerary banners from Mawangdui tombs nos. I and 3), but it is likewise inspired by textual sources such as the Chuci rhapsody "Zhao hun" as well as material now found in the Liji and Yili Cook refutes Wu Hung's interpretation of the Mawangdui banners as depicting a symbolic journey of the spirit that takes place within the tomb, which functions as a safe permanent home for the deceased. She insists instead that the Chu people believed in an actual postmortem journey of the transcendent spirit that went beyond the tomb, led through dangerous foreign realms, and ended in an ascent "into the astral landscape of ancestral spirits and cosmic deities" (p. 146). Cook finally relates this idea of spirit travel to accounts of spirits and ghosts and strange creatures in the narrative and religious literature of many centuries later as well as with the actual, natural environment of the Chu people. This is, again, indicative of her general belief in a high degree of cultural consistency over vast stretches of time and space.

In the final chapter ("Epilogue") the author briefly reiterates the decisive points of the preceding chapters, stressing her conclusion that the Baoshan and Wangshan tombs "reveal a world in transition--moving from the certainty of a clear Four Regions scheme to a world of Yin-Yang natural agents, one not yet settled into a clear Five Phases scheme" and that the layout and furnishing of the tombs reflect the central concept of Inner and Outer that informs the idea of "the movement of oneself at death from the deepest inner core out through the many walls of body, coffin, and tomb into the Wild" (pp. 150-51). I basically agree with the author's conviction that "the people of the Yangzi River valley did not belong to a fringe culture but were indeed active members of a vibrant larger Warring States-period culture based firmly within the evolving current of what we understand as Chinese civilization" (p. 18). Yet. the extent to which Cook bases her interpretation of the artifacts from the Baoshan tomb on textual and non-textual material from vastly different areas and periods suggests that she already proceeds on the assumption of a high degree of cultural consistency between fourth-century B.C.E Chu and these other areas and periods. In this regard, she has to some extent constructed a circular argument.

The three appendices present the Baoshan divination text, the Baoshan inventory text, and the badly fragmented Wangshan divination text, respectively. Despite their status as "mere appendices," these parts of the book alone are immensely valuable material and reflect an enormous amount of scholarly work. It is one of the virtues of this book that the author gives so much room (well over a third of the volume) to primary source material. The translations are presented in a very reader-friendly fashion, as they facilitate checking the translations against the transcriptions of the manuscript text and (with the exception of appendix three) even against the original characters, whose photographic reproductions are, despite their small size, quite clearly legible. Generally. Cook presents her reading of the original characters in modern standard orthography. This is the most sensible method for the purpose of such a book, but it would help to have adhered to this method consistently. For instance, the transcription is misleading, when the text actually reads "going in and out" (chu ru P- 154 and passim). Also, is repeatedly transcribed as (p. 154 and passim), which is unfortunate, since the two characters stand for distinct, albeit functionally equivalent, words. The difference between the two is significant, since the character in early Chinese manuscripts often indicates quotations of older textual material or at least use of archaic phrases. The author is right to assume on grounds of the formulaic nature of the text that at the beginning of slip 205 should read Nevertheless, it would be appropriate to use brackets to indicate the addition of characters omitted in the original. Cook's decision to reflect the punctuation of the original manuscripts only in the transcription of the inventory text and to punctuate the divinatory texts after modern fashion is understandable. But she should have consistently reflected the spacing, at least where it is clearly an important layout feature. In the transcription of slip 198 (p. 155), for example, it is entirely ignored. Text divided by a space that could accommodate twenty to thirty characters is here represented in the transcription as a continuous sentence, divided only by a comma. Of the two spaces on slip 204 only one is indicated. The practice is carried on in this inconsistent manner for a few more slips, and then the indication of spacing is entirely given up.

Greater terminological consistency in translation would likewise be desirable. For example, shi [+ or -] is variously rendered "knights-errant" (p. 3), "man of rank" (p. 29), or "elite man" (p. 30), and ming either as "life-span" (p. 23) or "Fate" (pp. 46, 198, passim). There may be good reasons for translating the same word differently in different contexts, ut in a book with as strong a philological focus as this one, the author should explain such points.

The entire book shows the author's impressive familiarity with related literature both in China and the West and to some extent also includes Japanese scholarship on the subject. The extensive bibliography includes over seven hundred titles and will be a great help to readers interested in doing future research into the book's subject matter. It is all the more unfortunate, then, that it contains an unacceptable amount of inconsistencies and errors, some of which seriously affect its reliability and hence its usefulness as a research tool. (To a lesser degree this problem exists also in the preceding parts of the book, especially in the footnotes.) Considering the rather high price of the volume, one might expect the publisher to have provided the service of a competent proof-reader. To give only a few examples of the sorts of mistakes that affect the reliability of the information: "Chen, Gongruo should be "Chen, Gongrou the entry for Giele 2003 ("Using Early Chinese Manuscripts as Historical Source Materials," in Monumenta Serica 51: 409-38) is missing, although this article is referred to repeatedly (pp. 9-12); the title of He Linyi's book is Zhanguo guwen zidian not "Zhanguo guwenzi zidian the entry for the most basic source, viz. the excavation report, is misplaced under "Hubeisheng Jingzhou bowuguan" instead of under Hubeisheng Jingsha (better: Jing Sha) tielu kaogudui; the article by Jao Tsung-i (not "Jao Tsung-yi") and Zeng Xiantong is not in the title of Kalinowski's article should be the late Ma Chengyuan's name is written not the title of Liu Xinfang's article is to be read "Wangshan Chujian jiaoduji" not "Wangshan Chujian xiaoduji" (likewise, jiaoshi for Wang Hui 2003); Sima Guang's famous work is titled Zizhi tongjian not Zizhi tonglun Wu Hung's name is misspelled "Wu Hong" throughout the book; "Yi Zhou shu should be "Yi Zhou shu and Zhang Shouzhong's name is not There are also many cases of inconsistent transcription principles of the kind "Chu mu" vs. "Chumu" and, eventually, another point related to bibliographic reference must be mentioned: the author quotes transmitted literature from early China after the traditional Chinese fashion, i.e., by chapter titles. In the case of meaningful actual titles this may seem preferable to reference by chapter number. But in cases like the Analects, where quotation by number has long been established as common practice, it seems unnecessarily confusing to refer to a chapter by its first two words.

The book shows a certain repelitiveness in some places: compare, e.g., "Tomb design should also be considered as an extension of the mortuary ritual practiced above ground before his death" (p. 14) with "The tomb functioned as an underground extension of the above-ground sending-off feast" (p. 48). This is not necessarily a disadvantage, as long as it serves to underscore important ideas. But when it comes to statements such as "Shao's tomb . . . was buried under a tumulus of eight layers of different colored clays" (p. 6) vs. "The tomb was buried under six layers of different colored clays" (p. 48), the author should have explained this detail more clearly. In a sense, both of these numbers are correct: the tumulus alone consists of six layers, while the coffin chamber lies under a seventh layer and is embedded in an eighth one.

Despite these quibbles, this book is, all in all, an impressive achievement and a most welcome addition to the discussion of early Chinese funerary culture, divination practices, and concepts of the afterlife, as well as to manuscript studies in a broader sense. Chapters three and, especially, four are clearly the strongest and most substantial of the book. The other chapters, serving to contextualize the texts and other findings in the tomb, must necessarily in some points be more tentative. Yet they are indispensable for the book and inspiring for further scholarly discussion of Chu culture and of the intricate question of cultural consistency or diversity in the pre-imperial period. Death in Ancient China is most certainly engaging and immensely profitable reading for anyone interested in early Chinese religion and funerary culture.

This is a review article of: Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man's Journey. By Constance A. Cook. China Studies, 8. Leiden: BRILL, 2006. Pp. viii + 292. $146.

MATHIAS L. RICHTER

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO