Abstract

This paper is based on a larger study of conceptions of the afterlife in the engraved texts of 496 entombed epigraphs (muzhi 墓誌) and 494 votive stele inscriptions (zaoxiangji 造像記) from northern China from the fifth and sixth century CE, using the database of Wei Jin Nanbeichao Stone inscriptions 魏晉南北朝石刻語料庫, part of the larger database of excavated documents from the Wei Jin Nanbeichao 魏晉南北朝實物語料庫 at the Center for the Study and Application of Chinese Characters at ECNU Shanghai.

Highlights

  • THIS paper is based on a larger study of concepts of the afterlife in the engraved texts of 496 entombed epigraphs and 494 votive stele inscriptions from northern China from the fifth and sixth century CE, using the database of Wei Jin Nanbeichao Stone inscriptions 魏晉南北朝石刻語料庫, part of the larger database of excavated documents from the Wei Jin Nanbeichao 魏晉南北朝實物語料庫 at the Center for the Study and Application of Chinese Characters at ECNU Shanghai.[1]

  • The post-mortem fate of the deceased came to be seen as dependent on correct mourning, care and commemoration by the descendents, and on the moral qualities of the deceased’s life.[29]. This change, in addition to the turmoil of the times, may have been cause for a change of attitude towards the otherworld and ancestors, which Bokenkamp has aptly described as“anxiety” over the fate of the deceased.[30]. Countering this tendency, Buddhism offered the prospect of salvation, with a large pantheon of saviour deities and the concept of merit transfer[31] to ancestors in the underworlds, concepts which seem to have been very attractive in early medieval and medieval China, as the development of the Buddhist and Daoist votive steles indicates

  • The examples of afterlife concepts in Buddhist and Daoist votive stele discussed so far show some of the possible“fields of associations of concepts”, which offer clues for the understanding of some of the processes and criteria of the“mixing” of ideas of different origin

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Summary

Introduction

THIS paper is based on a larger study of concepts of the afterlife in the engraved texts of 496 entombed epigraphs (muzhi 墓誌) and 494 votive stele inscriptions (zaoxiangji 造像記) from northern China from the fifth and sixth century CE, using the database of Wei Jin Nanbeichao Stone inscriptions 魏晉南北朝石刻語料庫, part of the larger database of excavated documents from the Wei Jin Nanbeichao 魏晉南北朝實物語料庫 at the Center for the Study and Application of Chinese Characters at ECNU Shanghai.[1]. While received literature has come down to us through a process of copying and collecting, which involved the editing and streamlining of documents, epigraphic documents have survived unedited; sometimes because of calligraphic or artistic considerations, but often by chance, good climate conditions, or similar factors, which did not interfere with the intellectual content of the documents They offer something like a “cross-section” of ideas at a given time and place. Engraved in stone in early medieval China, these epigraphic documents portray an amazing variety of concepts of the after-life They offer glimpses of the process of intermingling concepts whose origins defy our scholarly categorization into Buddhist, Daoist or Confucian, building images that go beyond sectarian or doctrinal definitions

Concepts of the afterlife in early medieval China
The Buddhist contributions to concepts of the afterlife
The early Buddhist vision of afterlife and the dual soul concept
Interacting visions of the afterlife
The chronological solution and the role of wisdom
Concluding remarks
Primary sources
Full Text
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