Society and Culture of The Han Dynasty - Religion, Cosmology, and Metaphysics - Ancestor Worship, Deities, and The Afterlife

Ancestor Worship, Deities, and The Afterlife

Families throughout Han China made ritual sacrifices (usually involving animals and foodstuffs) to various deities, spirits, and ancestors. Deceased ancestors were thought to require food and drink in the afterlife, so living family members were routinely obligated to offer food and wine to the ancestors in a family shrine or temple. Wealthy families who could afford to bury their dead in large tombs often placed the food items at the entrances of such complexes.

Han-era Chinese believed that a person had two souls, the hun and po. The spirit-soul (hun 魂) was believed to travel to the paradise of the immortals (xian 仙) while the body-soul (po 魄) remained on earth in its proper resting place so long as measures were taken to prevent it from wandering to the netherworld. The body-soul could allegedly utilize items placed in the tomb of the deceased, such as domestic wares, clothes, food and utensils, and even money in the form of clay replicas. It was believed that the bipartite souls could also be temporarily reunited in a ceremony called "summoning the hun to return to the po" (zhao hun fu po 招魂復魄).

However, Han beliefs in the afterlife were not uniform across the empire and changed over time. Not only were there many different burial customs and views on how one journeyed through the afterlife, but even the names hun and po for spirit-soul and body-soul could be substituted with demon (gui 鬼) and spirit (shen 神). Demons, or gui, were thought to be partial manifestations of the deceased which lacked their essential vital energy (qi 氣) that had to be exorcised when they maliciously caused the living to become ill; however, a demon could also be considered a neutral 'ghost'. Spirits, or shen, were usually associated with the animalistic spirits embodying certain places, such as the Earl of the Yellow River (He Bo 河伯). If proper sacrifices were made to these spirits, it was believed to bring good fortune; if ritual sacrifices were neglected, the spirit could inflict bad fortune on individuals and local communities. In the Western Han, texts left behind in tombs illustrate that the living took a more sympathetic view towards the dead than in the Eastern Han, when spirits were generally more feared as dangers to the living. The Western Han 'letters informing the underground' (gaodishu 告地書) were written to 'inform the Ruler of the Underground' 告地下王 about the deceased's wants and needs for clothing, vessels, and implements. However, 'tomb-quelling texts' (zhenmuwen 鎮墓文) that appeared during the 1st century CE acted as passports for the dead so that they did not disturb or bring danger to the living. Both Western Han and Eastern Han tombs contained 'land contracts' (diquan 地券) which stated that the deceased owned the land they were buried in.

Since the emperor fulfilled the role of the highest priest in the land, he was obligated to offer ritual sacrifices to Heaven, the supreme deities, and spirits of the mountains and rivers. The Qin court had made sacrifices to and worshipped four main deities, to which Emperor Gaozu added one in 205 BCE to make Five Powers (Wudi 五帝). However, Emperor Cheng (r. 33–7 BCE) cancelled state worship of the Five Powers in favor of ceremonies dedicated to Heaven (Tian 天) and the supreme god (Shangdi 上帝), who the kings of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1050 – 256 BCE) had worshipped and traced their legitimacy to. One of the underlying reasons for this shift in state policy was Emperor Cheng's desire to gain Heaven's direct favor and thus become blessed with a male heir. The court's exclusive worship of Heaven continued throughout the rest of Han.