Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 2

by Wm. Theodore de Bary

  When the frenzy of the fire walking has receded, the priest captures any lingering dangerous spirits or pestilential airs, wraps them in paper, and confines them in a cooking pot filled with glowing coals and ash from incense sticks. The pot is then carried out of the village along a route that is kept secret from neighboring villagers and buried, the demons confined within it. Having returned to the site of the ceremony, the priest leads the lineage heads, the spirit-medium, the incense master, and the remaining participants around the dying embers of the fire one last time, to thank the spirits and send them on their way back to the spirit world. This is called “Thanking the Fire and Seeing Off the Gods.” Finally, the many ghosts who have come to watch the ritual must be bribed with offerings so that they will leave the village. Six bowls of rice, with one stick of incense inserted in each, and three bowls of rice gruel are placed on a table that is set up near the fire altar. After the priest chants two final prayers, two gong bearers lead a procession out of the village. Incense sticks have been planted every two or three feet along the road, and people in the procession burn spirit money and sprinkle rice gruel along the ground as they go in offering to the orphaned souls. At the edge of town, any food remaining is left for wandering ghosts.

  [Adapted from Williams, “The Refining Fire,” pp. 34–53—DJ]

  Domestic Ritual

  Most villagers made regular offerings at an altar, usually quite simple, in the central room of the house, on which were placed symbols of the family’s ancestors and other gods. Other rituals, such as offering incense before a woodblock print of the stove god, were performed every day, and images of gods and sacred symbols could be found throughout the house in the form of woodblock prints, decorative carvings, and designs on clothing, bedding, eating utensils, and the like.4 Of the rituals that were carried out on a regular basis, the most important were the sacrifices to the ancestors, which were supervised by the head of the family. But there also were special rituals that were performed only when required. Of these, funerals were by far the most significant, and virtually every family engaged a ritual specialist to supervise them.

  Death rituals were important on two levels: first, they were an essential expression of the filial piety of the household head; not to carry out proper funeral rituals was to fail one’s parents and ancestors and invite the contempt of the community. That is why families often spent more than they could afford on funerals, to the dismay of some local officials. But on another level, death rituals were needed because they protected the living against the possibly malevolent spirits of the dead. This tension between Confucian reverence toward parents and ancestors and the pre-Confucian—indeed, anti-Confucian—terror of ghosts can be traced through all Chinese popular funerary ritual. In Daoist funeral ritual, for example, this ambivalence can be seen in the simultaneous use of both priests (daoshi) and exorcists (fashi) or, as in the case of the selection that follows, by one person assuming both roles.

  THE ATTACK ON HELL, A POPULAR FUNERAL RITUAL

  The Attack on Hell is only one segment of Daoist funeral ceremonial, though an intensely dramatic one that strongly engages the interest of the mourners (unlike some of the more esoteric parts). The full ceremony lasts two days and has, by one count, nineteen other segments. The ritual described below took place on November 24, 1980, in Tainan, Taiwan. The description, by an eyewitness, is supplemented by liturgical texts and information provided by the chief priest. In this performance the distinction between ritual and theater, already blurred in the Refining Fire ritual, virtually disappears. The entire central section closely resembles the popular comic dialogues called xiangsheng. Yet, needless to say, the whole matter was of the highest seriousness. This passage provides an almost perfect example of how ritual can teach values.

  Normally, the Attack on Hell is performed before a table set up in front of the house of the deceased person. A square “fortress” representing Hell, which is made of paper and bamboo and can be large enough to hold a person, is placed at the far end of the table, and the mourners, one of them holding the soul-banner, form a semicircle behind it, facing the priest. A scroll with the character “gate” written on it is unfurled on the north side of the altar, behind the priest. The fortress is white under ordinary circumstances, red for deaths by accident or suicide. Sometimes on the front there are paper images of two infernal gate guardians, Buffalohead and Horsehead, and on the back the goddess of mercy, Guanyin, flanked by the Earth God and the City God. Inside the fortress is placed the image that represents the soul of the deceased. A small basin for washing, a change of clothing, and other items are set up in front of the table so that the soul can change and get cleaned up when it gets out of the filth of Hell.

  The Attack on Hell is an exorcistic ritual. In it, the whole family crouches in a tight semicircle around the fortress, and everyone reaches out a hand to help shake it at appropriate moments. Family members are involved more directly than in any other ritual . . . [and] the tense drama of shaking the fortress often leads to tears. Clearly, to the participating family members, the Attack on Hell involves not only the soul’s rescue from Hell but also its departure from their midst. . . . The necessity of this leave-taking is the real source of the tension that manifests itself in the attack. An exorcism, its essential purpose is to ensure that the deceased not return to haunt the family.

  After a number of invocations and libations, the priest burns a memorial and then sprays symbol-water toward the south and toward the north; then he lights a paper cone and uses it to purify a long, pronged staff and the fly-whisk. He drops the burning “old money” and steps over it. Then, as in a theater, he introduces himself by singing a verse:

  I recall that day when I was wandering in the mountains,

  I saw the tears flowing from the eyes of all mortals.

  A student of the Way on Dragon-Tiger Mountain,

  I swore my heart would not rest until I had achieved the Way.

  He carries on in ordinary speech:

  I am none other than the priest of Marvelous Movement Who Saves from Distress. I come from the Mountain of the Great Net [Daluo, the supreme heaven beyond the Three Realms]. I have come down from my mountain this evening for no other reason than that my host has asked me to his home to invite the Three Pure Ones, Ancestors of the Way, to recite the litanies of confession and compassion and to reimburse the treasury of the underworld. The merit of the confessions has been achieved, the pardon has been proclaimed, and I have received the directives of the Ancestors of the Way to come to the fortress to save the soul of so-and-so.

  The priest then mimes traveling to Hell, during which he sings a song. At the end of the song he says:

  I hear before me very distinctly the sound of drum and gongs. This must be the Gate of the Demons in the fortress of the underworld. I’ll hide to one side and see what hour they are announcing.

  There is a great burst of percussion, which ends with a series of drumbeats and blows to the gong announcing that it is midnight. This leads the priest to sing another song:

  The first watch has been drummed,

  The drum has been beat in the drum tower.

  Man lives a bare hundred years,

  A hundred years that pass like a distant dream.

  Begin to practice early;

  Do not wait until it is too late.

  The priest then goes to the gate, shakes his staff at it, and calls on the demon general in charge that night to open up. Again there is the sound of percussion, and again the priest sings:

  The Demon Gate before the Hall of Yama opens:

  Cangues and chains are lined up on either side. . . .

  This is the place of judgment,

  Where each person gets his just deserts.

  At this point a new character, the guardian of Hell’s gate, enters the scene. He also begins by announcing himself:

  I have received King Yama’s instructions to guard the Demon Gate. A little devil has just come in and reported that the soul o
f someone who has died is knocking loudly at our gate. As it is an auspicious day and the night is clear, it must be a good man or a faithful woman from the world of the living who wishes to pass through my gate.

  Priest (impatiently): Hurry and open up.

  Demon: Who’s knocking so loud on my door at this hour?

  Priest: It’s me, the priest of Marvelous Movement from the Mountain of the Great Net.

  Demon: Why isn’t the priest on his mountain studying the Way, reciting scriptures, picking medicinal plants, and subliming the elixir of immortality?

  The priest explains that he has come “with directives from the Ancestors of the Way” to save so-and-so, and then says:

  Priest: Sorry to bother you. Hurry and open up.

  Demon: So the priest wants to enter the gate?

  Priest: Precisely.

  Demon: That’s easy enough.

  Priest: Then open up.

  Demon: Just let me ask the priest whether he brought any money or any precious gifts for us devils when he came down from his mountain?

  Priest: That’s no way to talk.

  Demon: How so?

  Priest: I’m a student of the Way. I eat what others give me. I’ve come all alone ten thousand miles. How could I carry any money or gifts for you?

  Demon: You really have nothing?

  Priest: Nothing.

  Demon: Then forget it.

  Priest: I’ll forget it. Just open up!

  Demon: Has the priest never heard the words of men of old?

  Priest: Say on.

  Demon: From of old there is an eight-character saying about the way to open the mandarin’s gate: ‘No money, don’t come; with money, it’s open.’ If you’ve no money, you may as well be off. (Laughs.)

  The demon has no need to tell him all this, replies the priest:

  Priest: I knew it before you said it.

  Demon: Knew what?

  Priest: That all your talk is just to get some money.

  The demon asks why else he should be losing sleep and exposing himself to the cold.

  Priest: Well, if it’s money you want, my host has given me some paper money to bring along. Wait while I burn some paper money for you demons.

  The priest lights a paper cone and throws it at the drummer. The demon asks where the money has been burnt.

  Priest: At the foot of the Drum Tower.

  The demon doesn’t want to leave his post to get it. Besides, paper money is as worthless in the underworld as it is in the land of the living; he wants “copper coins.” “What about all the paper money burned on Qingming, or in the middle of the seventh month?” asks the priest. “Where does it all go?” The demon responds that Yama often sends “little devils into the world of the living to spy on sinners,” and they need copper coins for such trips because merchants don’t accept paper money. The priest repeats all that in the form of a question, and the demon replies, “Precisely.”

  Priest: I haven’t a single copper coin.

  Demon: Then forget it.

  Priest: I’ll forget it. Just open up!

  Demon: Priest, are you aware that we judge the living and the dead according to their deeds here at the Demon Gate?

  This judgment, he goes on to explain, is based on two books, one for those who have lived out their span of life, the other for those who have not.

  Priest: How does your great King Yama judge someone who has done good and whose years are not yet up, but comes before the Demon Gate by mistake?

  Demon: Someone who has done good and whose years are not yet up?

  Priest: Just so.

  Demon: Our great king looks in the Record of Life to see whether this person, while he was alive, worshiped the Three Treasures, was a filial child to his parents, helped build bridges and roads, took delight in good deeds, and loved alms-giving. If so, our great king sends the Golden Lad and Jade Maiden to bring him back to the other world. Such is the Great Book of Life.

  Priest: And what about the bad man, how do you clerks of Yama judge such a one when he dies and comes to the Demon Gate?

  Demon: Our great king sees from the Register of Death that this person, while he was alive, did not respect the Three Treasures, was disobedient to his parents, twitted his elder brother, beat his wife, killed, committed arson, and did every imaginable kind of evil deed. When he sees this, the great King Yama sends the buffaloheaded general with a pitchfork and the horseheaded general with chains to haul him into the eighteen prisons of Fengdu. . . . Such is the Great Book of Death.

  Priest: So you here at the Demon Gate urge people to do good, do you?

  Demon: That’s right.

  Priest: Good?

  Demon: Good gets a good reward.

  Priest: Bad?

  Demon: Bad gets a bad return. Sooner or later, everyone gets what he has coming.

  Priest: But you demons don’t pay back everyone.

  Demon: That’s because their time hasn’t come, it’s not because we here at Demon Gate don’t repay good and evil.

  Priest: You say it’s that their time hasn’t come, not that you at Demon Gate don’t judge and repay good and evil?

  Demon: Just so.

  Priest: Now that you devils have discussed good and evil so clearly, open the gate so I can go through.

  Demon: The priest has heard that the two great Registers of Life and Death are important here. What is important to you who study the Way?

  Priest: For us students of the Way, when we leave home, it’s the texts and teachings of the scriptures that are most important.

  Demon: Wonderful! (Laughs.)

  Priest: Wonderful? Don’t talk that demon talk!

  Demon: No, that was a joyous “Wonderful!” from the heart. Priest, sing us a snatch from one of those fine scriptures from the Mountain of the Jade Capital in the Great Net that saves the souls of the deceased, and when we’ve heard it loud and clear, we’ll let you through.

  Priest: Can demons listen to scripture?

  Demon: Even among brigands one finds bodhisattvas, so why shouldn’t demons be able to listen to scripture?

  The priest tells him to spread flowers and light incense and candles if he really wants to hear a song. When he has finished singing the song, he calls on the demon once more to open up, which at last the demon does.

  Priest: We pray a path with clasped hands between life and death. We do a somersault and leap through the Demon Gate. (Sings)

  The road from the Demon Gate goes right through to the Yellow Springs.

  I see the road is lined on both sides by the flags of the demonic host.

  I hear the sound of drums and gongs.

  It is terrifying, but I must not be afraid.

  After the song, the priest may go on to describe the horrors he encounters in Hell: sinners in stocks, heads split open, pools of blood on the ground. “This is the fiery road through the Yellow Springs. It’s no place for a student of the Way to linger. I had better burn some paper money.” Once again he demands that the Demon Gate be opened, and once again the demon asks who’s disturbing the peace at such an unearthly hour. The priest identifies himself anew and repeats the name of the person he has come to save.

  Demon: The priest is late.

  Priest: What do you mean, late?

  Demon: When Yama mounted his throne, you had not yet come. You arrived just as Yama was leaving his hall. There’s nothing to be done.

  Priest: Look, demon, I’ve come a long way over great mountain ranges. What do you mean, there’s nothing to be done because I’m late?

  Demon: Priest, when Yama mounted his throne, I went with him, and when he left the hall, so did I. If I let one soul go, I will be held accountable. I dare not take any such initiative.

  Priest: Demon, the proverb has it that even a heart of iron softens [if it’s beaten long enough].

  Demon: When one word doesn’t hit the mark, a thousand are of no use.

  Priest: Demon, do you see the staff I have in my hand? It’s the precious defense
given me by order of the Ancestors of the Way. On the left it controls dragons, on the right it tames tigers. One thrust, and heaven is clear; two thrusts, and earth is potent; three thrusts, and stocks are smashed and iron locks opened.

  Demon: I don’t believe you.

  Priest: Acolyte, beat the drum of the Law three times and have Xu Jia summon forth the divine soldiers of the Five Camps to smash the fortress.

  Xu Jia is Laozi’s disciple and patron saint of the “redhead” Daoists in southern Taiwan. At this point therefore, the officiant, after rattling his pronged staff menacingly in front of the fortress, comes back in front of the Table of the Three Realms, wraps a red bandanna around his black cap and trusses up his sleeves: he has become an exorcist.

  The exorcist blows on his buffalo horn and burns paper money in front of the fortress. The chair-bearers, who all along have been swinging the chair off to one side, come now in front of the fortress and swing the chair back and forth violently. At the same time, and with equal violence, the family members shake the fortress, and there is furious clanging of gongs as one by one the priest lights, lets burn, and drops in the four corners and in the center five paper cones to summon the spirit soldiers of the Five Camps. Then he sprays a mouthful of symbol-water at the fortress and makes a ramming gesture. “Acolyte,” he says, “beat the drum of the Law three more times, and I will smash the fortress.” The mourners shake the fortress and call to the soul, “Come get your money, come wash.” The priest lights the paper cones stuck on the prongs of his staff and stabs the fortress.