Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

by Ying-shih Yü

  Han writings on ritual.

  62 “o soul , c om e b ack ! ”

  T H E H U N A N D P O S O U L S

  The ritual of fu, as pointed out earlier, is based on the belief in zhaohun fupo, to

  summon the hun- soul to re unite with the po- soul. To grasp the full meaning of

  this ritual practice, we must proceed to trace the evolution of the Chinese con-

  cept of soul from antiquity to the Han times.

  Before the dualistic conception of hun and po began to gain currency in the

  middle of the sixth century b.c.e., po alone seems to have been used to denote

  the human soul. The character po

  (or its variant ba

  ) means “white,”

  “bright,” or “bright light,” deriving originally from the growing light of the new

  moon. The earliest form of the character has recently been found on a Zhou

  oracle bone inscription datable to the eleventh century b.c.e. It is used in the

  term jipo

  , which, according to Wang Guowei, stood for the period from the

  eighth or ninth to the fourteenth or fi fteenth of the lunar month. The term

  jisipo

  may also be found or another piece of oracle bone indicating the

  period from the twenty- third or twenty- fourth to the end of the month.14 These

  two terms were later used repeatedly in early Zhou historical documents as

  well as bronze inscriptions in the standard forms of jisheng ba

  and jisi ba

  , which may be translated, respectively, as “ after the birth of the cres-

  cent” and “ after the death of the crescent.”15

  Since the ancient Chinese took the changing phases of the moon as periodic

  birth and death of its po— its “white light” or soul—by analogy, they eventually

  came to associate, by the early sixth century b.c.e. if not earlier, the life or death

  of a man with the presence or absence of his po.16 Two examples from the

  Zuozhuan

  (Zuo Commentary to the Spring and Autumn Annals), the

  chronicle of the state of Lu compiled prob ably in the fourth century b.c.e., will

  serve to illustrate our point. In 593 b.c.e., a man named Zhao Tong

  behaved

  erratically at the court of Zhou. One offi

  cial made the following prediction: “In

  less than ten years Zhao Tong will be sure to meet with great calamity. Heaven

  has taken his po from him.”17 Fifty years later, in 543 b.c.e., a nobleman named

  Boyou

  in the state of Zheng (in central Henan) had shown a marked de-

  cline in reasoning power and judgment, which also led a con temporary to re-

  mark: “Heaven is destroying Boyou and has taken away his po. ”18 In both cases,

  the po is identifi ed as the soul of the man, something that when taken away, by

  Heaven, causes the man to lose his intelligence. Clearly, the po must have been

  conceived as a separate entity that joins the body from outside.

  Toward the end of the sixth century b.c.e., however, the concept of hun as a

  soul had also become widespread. In 516 b.c.e., Yue Qi

  , an offi

  cial at the

  court of the state of Song (in eastern Henan), had the following to say about the

  Duke of Song and a guest named Shusun

  from Lu because both had wept

  during a supposedly joyful gathering: “This year both our lord and Shusun are

  likely to die. I have heard that joy in the midst of grief and grief in the midst of

  “o soul , c om e b ack ! ” 63

  joy are signs of a loss of mind (or heart, xin ). The essential vigor and bright-

  ness of the mind is what we call the hun and the po. When these leave it, how

  can the man continue long?”19 Here, both the hun and the po are regarded as

  the very essence of the mind, the source of knowledge and intelligence. Death

  is thought to follow inevitably when the hun and po leave the body. We have

  reason to believe that around this time, the idea of hun was still relatively new.

  To the mind of an ordinary Chinese, it was prob ably not very clear in precisely

  what way the hun and po were related to each other. In 534 b.c.e., the state of

  Zheng was deeply disturbed by a series of events resulting, reportedly, from a

  nobleman’s ghost having returned to take revenge on his murderers. This no-

  bleman was the above- mentioned Boyou, who had been not only expelled from

  Zheng but also assassinated by his po liti cal enemies. As a result of the loss of

  his hereditary offi

  ce, his spirit was also deprived of sacrifi ces. The disturbances

  supposedly caused by this avenging ghost terrifi ed the entire state. The wise

  statesman and phi los o pher, Zichan

  , therefore reinstated Boyou’s son in

  his former offi

  ce. Fi nally, as our story goes, the ghost was satisfi ed and dis-

  appeared. Afterward, a friend asked Zichan whether there was any explanation

  for this strange phenomenon: What does a ghost consist of? How is it pos si ble

  for a ghost to disturb the human world? The following answer given by Zichan

  is of central importance to our study because it is the locus classicus on the

  subject of the human soul in the Chinese tradition:

  When man is born, that which is fi rst created, is called the po and, when

  the po has been formed, its positive part ( yang

  ) becomes hun or con-

  scious spirit.

  In case a man is materially well and abundantly supported, then his

  hun and po grow very strong, and therefore produce spirituality and intel-

  ligence. Even the hun and po of an ordinary man or woman, having en-

  countered violent death, can attach themselves to other people to cause

  extraordinary trou bles. . . . The stuff Boyou was made of was copious and

  rich, and his family great and power ful. Is it not natu ral that, having met

  with a violent death, he should be able to become a ghost?20

  To begin with, it is impor tant to point out that the very fact that Zichan found it

  necessary to off er such a detailed explanation of the relationship between the

  po and the hun indicates that the hun as a concept of soul was not yet familiar to

  the Chinese mind. This point can be further seen from the fact that he took the

  po to be fundamental and the hun, derivative. In his emphasis on physical nour-

  ishment as the foundation of the soul, Zichan’s analy sis strongly suggests a

  materialistic point of view. On the whole, I believe, this interpretation is best

  understood as refl ecting Zichan’s personal view of the subject rather than being

  a common conception in sixth- century b.c.e. China. It is true that Zichan’s

  statement, as quoted above, later became the orthodox doctrine of hun and po in

  64 “o soul , c om e b ack ! ”

  the Confucian (including neo- Confucian) philosophical tradition.21 As we shall

  see later, however, it was not the view to be accepted by the common man in

  China in subsequent, especially Han, times.

  We know relatively little about the origin of hun as a concept of soul. It is

  quite pos si ble that the concept was more fully developed in the south and then

  spread to the north sometime during the sixth century b.c.e.22 This possibility

  fi nds some support in the textual evidence at our disposal.

  According to the “Tangong”

  chapter of the
Classic of Rites, generally

  believed to be a pre- Han text, Prince Jizha

  of the southern state of Wu (in

  Jiangsu) lost his son while traveling in the north in 515 b.c.e. At the burial

  ceremony, he is reported to have expressed the following view about the dead:

  “Destined it is that his bones and fl esh should return to the earth. As for his

  soul- breath ( hunqi

  ), it goes everywhere, everywhere.”23 It is impor tant to

  note that in this passage, the idea of po is conspicuously missing, which seems

  to indicate that it was not as widespread a concept as in the north, for the

  “bones and fl esh” refers to the corpse, not the po- soul. At any rate, there can be

  little doubt that in the southern tradition, the hun was regarded as a more ac-

  tive and vital soul than the po. This is clearly shown in the ancient Chuci

  (Elegies of Chu). Two of the songs, datable to the early third century b.c.e.,

  describe the shamanistic ritual of “soul summons.” The following lines ap-

  pear repeatedly in these two songs: “O soul, come back! In the east you can not

  abide. O soul, come back! In the south you cannot stay. O soul, go not to the

  west! O soul, go not to the north! O soul, come back! Climb not to Heaven

  above. O soul, come back! Go not down to the Land of Darkness.”24 The “soul”

  in each and every case refers invariably to the hun and therefore confi rms com-

  pletely the belief of the southern prince Jizha that the hun- soul indeed goes

  everywhere.

  Prob ably as a result of the fusion of cultures, by the second century b.c.e. at

  the latest, the Chinese dualistic conception of soul had reached its defi nitive

  formulation. A most succinct statement of this dualistic idea may be found

  in the “Border Sacrifi ces” (Jiao te sheng

  ) chapter of the Classic of Rites:

  “The breath- soul ( hunqi

  ) returns to Heaven; the bodily soul ( xingpo

  )

  returns to earth. Therefore, in sacrifi cial off erings, one should seek the mean-

  ing in the Yin and Yang

  princi ple.”25 It may be noted that several dualities

  are involved in this formulation. In addition to the basic duality of hun and po,

  we also see the dualities of qi and xing, Heaven and Earth, and Yin and Yang.

  We shall explain the ideas of qi and xing at a later juncture. Briefl y, the dualism

  may be understood in the following way. Ancient Chinese generally believed

  that the individual human life consists of a bodily part as well as a spiritual

  part. The physical body relies for its existence on food and drink produced by

  the earth. The spirit depends for its existence on the invisible life force called qi,

  which comes into the body from Heaven. In other words, breathing and eating

  are the two basic activities by which a human being continually maintains life.

  “o soul , c om e b ack ! ” 65

  But the body and the spirit are each governed by a soul, namely, the po and the

  hun. It is for this reason that they are referred to in the passage just quoted

  above as the bodily soul ( xingpo) and the breath- soul ( hunqi), respectively.

  The identifi cation of the hun- po duality with the Yin and Yang princi ples was

  a later development, evidently resulting from the rise and popularity of the yin-

  yang cosmology in the late fourth and early third centuries b.c.e. Although in

  the above- quoted statement by Zichan the hun is defi ned as the yang or positive

  part of the po, the po itself, or the remainder of it, is not described as yin. The

  equation of the paired concept of hun- po with that of yin- yang had yet to be de-

  veloped. Now, according to the yin- yang cosmology, there are two basic opposite

  but complementary forces at work in the cosmos. Yin is the supreme feminine

  force, while yang is its masculine counterpart. As two basic princi ples, the yin is

  characterized, among other things, by passivity and negativity, and the yang by

  activity and positivity. But life, whether cosmic or individual, comes into being

  only when the two forces begin to interact with each other. Heaven and Earth, for

  instance, being the highest embodiment of yang and yin, operate in response

  to each other to form cosmic life. It was, therefore, quite natu ral for ancient Chi-

  nese to fi t the hun- po duality into this yin- yang framework. By Han times at the

  latest, as the above- quoted passage from the Classic of Rites shows, it already be-

  came a generally accepted idea that the hun belongs to the yang category and is

  hence an active and heavenly substance, whereas the po belongs to the yin cate-

  gory and is hence a passive and earthly substance.

  This identifi cation led to a new conception of the relationship between the

  hun and the po. During the Han dynasty, there was a widely shared belief in

  both elite and popu lar culture that in life, the hun and po form a harmonious

  union within the human body, and at death, the two souls separate and leave

  the body. This belief may have originated during a much earlier period because

  we already fi nd a clear expression of the idea of “the separation of the hun from

  the po” in the Elegies of Chu of the early third century b.c.e.26

  When the hun and po separate, however, they also go their separate, or more

  precisely, opposite ways. The hun-

  soul, being a breathlike light substance

  ( hunqi), has a much greater freedom of movement. By contrast, the po- soul, being

  associated with the physical body, is conceived as a heavier substance with only

  restricted mobility. Therefore, at death, the hun- soul goes swiftly upward to

  Heaven, whereas the po- soul moves downward to earth at a much slower pace.

  This explains why, in the ritual of fu, it is the hun, but not the po, that has to be

  recalled from the rooftop. For the same reason, the Elegies of Chu speak of

  “summoning the hun- soul” but never “summoning the po- soul.”27

  To clarify the term hunqi, a word may be said about the complex and diffi

  cult

  concept of qi as the “source of life.” The concept has a broad as well as a narrow

  meaning. In its broad sense, qi is a primal and undiff erentiated life force that

  permeates the entire cosmos. However, when the qi becomes diff erentiated and

  individuated to form all the things in the universe, it then varies in purity.

  66 “o soul , c om e b ack ! ”

  Thus, as succinctly summed up by D. C. Lau: “the grosser qi, being heavy, set-

  tled to become the earth, while the refi ned qi, being light, rose to become the

  sky. Man, being halfway between the two, is a harmonious mixture of the two

  kinds of qi.”28 It is in this broad sense that a Daoist philosophical treatise of the

  second century b.c.e. says that the hun is made up of the refi ned, heavenly qi

  and the po the grosser, earthly qi.29 But in its narrow sense, the qi refers specifi -

  cally to the heavenly qi. It is in this narrow sense that the hunqi, or the breath-

  soul, is distinguished from the xingpo, or bodily soul.

  We have seen that it was a general belief in Han China that the hun owes its

  existence to the refi ned qi from Heaven, whereas the po, always being associ-

  ated with the body, is composed of the coarse qi from Earth. But how are the

  t
wo souls, hun and po, distinguished from each other in terms of specifi c func-

  tions? According to Zheng Xuan (127–200), qi or hun- soul forms the basis of a

  man’s spirit and intelligence, whereas the function of the po- soul is specifi cally

  defi ned as “hearing distinctly and seeing clearly.”30 In other words, the hun

  governs man’s spirit ( shen , including xin, mind or heart) and the po governs

  his body (including the senses). It is in ter est ing to point out that a similar dis-

  tinction between the hun and the po can also be found in Han Daoist lit er a ture.

  According to the Heshang Commentary on the Laozi, Heaven feeds man with

  fi ve kinds of qi, which enter his body from the nostrils and are stored in his

  heart (or mind). The fi ve kinds of qi are pure and subtle, and therefore go to

  form man’s spirit, senses, voice, etc. Thus, a man has a soul called hun. The

  hun is masculine; it goes out and comes in through the nostrils and communi-

  cates with Heaven. Earth feeds man with fi ve tastes, which enter his body from

  the mouth and are stored in the stomach. The fi ve tastes are impure and there-

  fore go to form a man’s body, bones and fl esh, blood and veins, as well as six

  emotions. Thus, a man has a soul called po. The po is feminine; it goes out and

  comes in through the mouth and communicates with Earth.31 Although there

  are diff erences between the Confucian and Daoist versions with regard to the

  respective functions of the hun and po, the basic structural similarity is never-

  theless unmistakable. This similarity testifi es fully to the universality of the

  distinction between the hun and po in Han China, the former being a “spiri-

  tual” soul and the latter a “bodily” soul.

  B E L I E F I N A F T E R L I F E

  The above discussion of the changing Chinese conception of soul from antiq-

  uity to the Han Period naturally leads to the prob lem of afterlife. Does the de-

  parted soul continue to possess knowledge and feelings? Can the soul exist as

  an in de pen dent entity forever? Where does the soul go after its separation from

  the body? Admittedly, these are not easy questions to answer owing to the paucity

  “o soul , c om e b ack ! ” 67

  of the sources on the subject. Thanks to recent archaeological discoveries, how-

  ever, it is now pos si ble to attempt a reconstruction of a general picture.