Superstition and spiritual worship : deity-spirit beliefs reflected in Chu divinatory bamboo slips = 信鬼好祠 : 楚地卜筮簡所見鬼神信仰

Abstract

Throughout Chinese history, a Confucianism-centered or northern-biased view, which regards southern China as cultural otherness against the central plain (中原 zhongyuan) or savages (蠻夷 manyi), has promulgated and been greatly embraced. In particular, people in Chu楚, a vast territory across the Yangtze and Han River watersheds in southern China, is typically portrayed as to “believe in shamanistic ghosts and embrace excessive rites”信巫鬼，重淫祀 or to “believe in ghostly spirits and be keen on sacrifices”信鬼而好祠 by Confucianism-influenced élites and scholars. According to this prominent and paradigmatic view, it is primarily its religious beliefs and rituals that delineate Chu from the rest of Chinese cultural sphere. This etic perspective has dominated Chinese literary tradition while only a few epic writings of Chu, such as Chuci楚辭, have been passed down during history. Curiously, from the mid-20th century and onward, major archeological finds have sprung in the ever-silent region. In particular, a corpus of Warring States period tomb-excavated paleographic records, named “divinatory bamboo slips” (卜筮簡 bushijian) by the majority of paleographists, records the aristocratic tomb occupants’ divinatory activities and sacrificial proposals by their consultants during their lifetime. These shreds of epigraphic evidence yield new perspective into Chu religion and rites, about which scholars know only a little from the transmitted etic writings. The present dissertation concentrates on the beliefs as reflected in these texts. In Chapter Two, it gives a philological interpretation of the names and natures of deities and spirits as seen from the manuscripts, followed by an analysis of the structure of Chu’s pantheon. Chapter Three moves to an ever-discussed notion of “sui-divination” (busui卜祟), which suggests that ancient Chinese construed calamities, especially illness, as a result of a curse by spirits and divination as a diagnostic method inquiring the sources of the curses. By scrutinizing the nature of Warring States divination as compared to its precedent, Shang divination, the chapter calls the long-asserted notion into re-inquiry and explores issues about the Chu view on the spirits-caused curse. Chapter Four examines issues surrounding sacrificial rites and the theological thoughts behind, with special attention paid to the rites by which the tomb occupants and their consultants attempted to deal with predicted calamities. In this chapter, the nature of these rites and the prerequisite theological beliefs are discussed. Instead of simply supporting or dismissing the transmitted texts’ view on Chu, the present dissertation attempts to juxtapose these texts, as etic writings, and Chu divinatory bamboo slips, as Chu’s epic writings. It endeavors to uncover the religious, theological aspects of Chu and the contribution of Chu religiosity to the Chinese history of ideology. It advances to how different ideologies, as represented in the bamboo slip manuscripts and canonical texts, may in concert re-illustrate a new “Chu” and have together constituted Chinese ideology and its history.