Table Of ContentExcavating the Afterlife
Excavating the Afterlife
The Ar chaeol ogy of Ear l y Chinese Rel igion
Guolong Lai
University of Washington Press
Seattle and London
This book is made possible by a collaborative grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Support for this book also was provided by a grant from
the University of Florida through its College of the Arts
Scholarship Enhancement Award Fund.
© 2015 by the University of Washington Press
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To my mentors,
Li Ling and Lothar von Falkenhausen,
in gratitude and friendship.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Chronology of Early Chinese Dynasties xi
Introduction 1
1 The Dead Who Would Not Be Ancestors 25
2 The Transformation of Burial Space 55
3 The Presence of the Invisible 99
4 Letters to the Underworld 137
5 Journey to the Northwest 161
Conclusion 189
Notes 193
Glossary of Chinese Characters 235
Bibliography 243
Index 283
Plates follow page 98
Acknowledgments
The scholar of Mesopotamia, Leo Oppenheim, famously claimed that a sys-
tematic presentation of Mesopotamian religion could not and should not be writ-
ten. After this disclaimer, however, Oppenheim, and many scholars following him,
continued to write about the religious history of that dead civilization. This impos-
sibility is not unique to Mesopotamia. The picture of early Chinese religion that I
attempt to present in this book, based on fragmentary archaeological and biased
textual evidence, is admittedly an incomplete one. Faced with these enormous but
fragmented sources of data, we could just throw up our hands and admit defeat. Nev-
ertheless, along with many scholars before me, I have taken a different approach. I
have instead attempted to piece together a picture of early Chinese religious be-
liefs and practices using the interdisciplinary training I received over the last two
decades in art history, archaeology, paleography, phonology, textual criticism, and
religious studies. For this training, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to
my teachers: the late He Linyi, Gao Ming, the late Wang Wenjin, Li Ling, and Lothar
von Falkenhausen. Without their guidance and assistance along the way, this book
would not be possible.
This book has benefited over the past ten years from the feedback of many of
my friends and colleagues. In particular, I am grateful to Lothar, Alain Th te, Yuri
Pines, Th mas Lawton, Don Harper, Tony Barbieri- Low, Amy McNair, Bill Boltz, Bob
Eno, Suzanne Cahill, Marianne Bujard, the late Donald McCollum, David Schaberg,
Miao Zhe, Zhang Hanmo, Miranda Brown, JeffRichey, Mario Poceski, Lori Wong,
Michelle Wang, Cai Liang, Robin McNeal, and Deborah Del Gais, each of whom has
read all or portions of this manuscript or its various incarnations. I also thank Jenny
So, Ed Shaughnessy, Wu Hung, Mark Lewis, Marc Kalinowski, Haun Saussy, Ben-
jamin Elman, Barbara Zeitler, Susan Downey, Hui-shu Lee, Gregory Schopen, Bill
Baxter, Axel Schuessler, Robert Harrist, Chen Wei, Hsing I-tian, Shih Shou-chien,
Hsieh Ming-liang, Chen Pao-chen, Wang Ming-ke, Chen Kwang-tzuu, Liu Shu-fen,
and Tsai Che-mao, who listened to my presentations, answered my inquiries, or gave
me suggestions and encouragement.
ix
It is my pleasure to acknowledge the many institutions that assisted me in bring-
ing this book to fruition. These include the Smithsonian Institution, through its
Library Travel Grant in the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, in Washington, DC;
Columbia University, through its Andrew W. Mellon Foundation postdoctoral fel-
lowship at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities; Stanford University, through
its postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for East Asian Studies; the University of
Florida, through its College of Fine Arts Scholarship Enhancement Fund; and the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, through its Art History Publication Initiative Fund.
I would like to thank the anonymous readers commissioned by the University of
Washington Press for their critical input and positive feedback during the review
process. I express my gratitude to my editors, Lorri Hagman, Jacqueline S. Volin,
and Tim Zimmermann, at the University of Washington Press for their professional
assistance. Lorri annotated a printout of the manuscript as she read it on her bus
commute and gave me invaluable suggestions. I also thank Chris Crochetière of
BW&A Books and my copy editor, Penelope Cray, for their fine job. I thank Zhang
Changping, Zhang Chunlong, Jia Hanqing, Feng Shi, and Elinor Pearlstein for their
assistance in obtaining permissions for the images reproduced in this book. Profes-
sor Qianshen Bai, fellow Chinese art historian and renowned calligrapher, kindly
produced the calligraphic rendering of this book’s subject on page xiv.
I offer my heartfelt appreciation to my friends and family, especially Miao Zhe,
Hanmo, Sam Gilbert, Dou Lei, Yen Shih-hsuan, Yen Shou-chih, my sister Guowen,
and my son Tony and my wife I-fen, for their moral support, encouragement, and
understanding in the long and lonely process of writing a book.
The first long journey I took was across the Pacific Ocean, from Beijing to Los
Angeles, almost two decades ago. That journey began one afternoon at Professor
Li Ling’s apartment in Jimenli, Beijing. We were chatting and the phone rang. Pro-
fessor Li went to answer it. It was a long conversation. When he came back, he ex-
plained that his friend Lothar von Falkenhausen had just taken a teaching position
at UCLA and would be accepting graduate students. Throughout the subsequent in-
tellectual journeys, I have benefited from their erudition, kindness, and generosity.
I dedicate this book to both of them.
Acknowledgments
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