SOUL AND AFTERLIFE 365THE RITUALOF FUIn Han Ch<strong>in</strong>a there was an important death ritual called fu,"<strong>The</strong> Summons <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Soul</strong>." It was the first <strong>of</strong> a series <strong>of</strong> rituals tobe performed to the newly dead. Although thisfu ritual, as variouslyreported <strong>in</strong> the Chou-li N I-li fW, and Li-chi is a highly complexone, it may nevertheless be briefly described. As soon as a persondies, a "summoner" (fu-che ) normally a member <strong>of</strong> the familyclimbs from the east eaves to the top <strong>of</strong> the ro<strong>of</strong> with a set <strong>of</strong> clothesbelong<strong>in</strong>g to the deceased. <strong>The</strong> summoner faces the north, wavesthe clothes <strong>of</strong> the deceased, and calls him by name aloud- "O!Thou so-and-so, come back! " After the call has been repeated threetimes, the summoner throws down the clothes, which are receivedby another person on the ground. <strong>The</strong> receiver then spreads theclothes over the body <strong>of</strong> the dead. Afterwards, the summonerdescends from the west eaves. Thus the ritual <strong>of</strong>fu is completed.Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the Han commentator Cheng Hsuan *A (127-200)the purpose <strong>of</strong> thefu ritual is "to summon the hun-soul <strong>of</strong> the deadback to reunite with its p 'o soul" (chao-hunfu-p'o TBAMR). In fact,the ritual is predicated on the belief that when the hun separatesfrom the p 'o and leaves the human body, life comes to an end. However,at the moment when death first occurs, the liv<strong>in</strong>g cannot bearto believe that their beloved one has really left them for good. <strong>The</strong>liv<strong>in</strong>g must first assume that the departure <strong>of</strong> the hun-soul is onlytemporary. It is possible, then, that if the departed soul can be summonedback the dead may be brought back to life. A person can bepronounced dead only when the fu ritual has failed to achieve itspurpose, after which the body <strong>of</strong> the dead will be placed on the bed<strong>in</strong> his or her own chamber and covered with a burial shroud calledhu orfu W.3Remarkably, this Han ritual practice has been confirmed by recentarchaeological discoveries. In 1972-74, three Han tombs were3 On the ritual <strong>of</strong>fu T, see Li-chi chu-su lliffItg (Shih-san ch<strong>in</strong>g chu-su ++j:,, 1815edition), 4.20b, 21.9b-lla, 44.3a-5a; Hu P'ei-hui iI, I-li cheng-i 'IEI (Kuo-hsuehchi-pen ts'ung-shu RWJ 4,4: edition, hereafter KHCP), 26.2-6; Sun I-jang N ,W Chou-licheng-i Wi10IE4 (KHCP), 5.16.20-22. Consult also James Legge, tr., <strong>The</strong> Texts <strong>of</strong> ConfucianismPart III: <strong>The</strong> Li Ki, 2 vols. (Sacred Books <strong>of</strong> the East, ed. F. Max Muller), 1:368-69; JohnSteele, tr. <strong>The</strong> I-li or Book <strong>of</strong> Etiquette and Ceremonial (London: Probstha<strong>in</strong> & Co., 1917), 1:45.
366Fig. 1. Sketch <strong>of</strong> T-shaped silk pa<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g from Ma-wang-tui tomb no. 1.Repr<strong>in</strong>ted from Ch'ang-sha Ma-wang-tui i-hao Han-mu MA'J. - MiM , 2 vols.(Pek<strong>in</strong>g: Wen-wu ch'u-pan-she, 1973), 1: fig. 38.