"O Soul, Come Back!" A Study in The Changing Conceptions of The ...

SOUL AND AFTERLIFE 367excavated at Ma-wang-tui, in Ch'ang-sha, Hunan. At the time ofits excavation, tomb no. 1 aroused worldwide attention primarilybecause of the well-preserved body of its occupant, the wife of Lits'angAlJN, the Marquis of Tai 1k, who probably died sometimeafter 175 B.C. (hereafter "Countess of Tai"). In tomb no. 3, dated168 B.C. and belonging to Li-ts'ang's son, a large quantity of silkmanuscripts of lost ancient writings were found. Since theirdiscovery the scholarly literature on these two tombs and theirunusually rich contents has been enormous and is still growing. Mydiscussion below will be confined to the light that this spectaculardiscovery sheds on thefu ritual. For this purpose, I will focus on thetwo T-shaped polychrome paintings on silk from tombs no. 1 andno. 3 respectively. In addition to these two, similar paintings havealso been found in other Han tombs. A Chinese archaeologist hasrecently summarized the contents of the Han paintings as follows:They are all of silk and are painted with fine colored pictures. The picture is dividedinto three sections, depicting, from top to bottom, heaven, man's world, and theunderworld. Both heaven and the underworld are represented by mythological images;the heaven picture has sun, moon, and sometimes stars, and the sun has agolden crow and the moon has a toad and a white rabbit, and sometimes a pictureof Changeh, the Goddess of the moon. The underworld picture shows variousaquatic animals, representing an aquatic palace at the bottom of the sea. As forman's world, the picture depicts scenes from daily life and also a portrait of themaster of the tomb.4This characterization is on the whole accurate, taking as it obviouslydoes the painting from tomb no. 1 at Ma-wang-tui as typicalof its kind. Scholars are generally agreed that the central theme ofthe painting is the "Summons of the Soul." According to Yui Weich'aoMM801, the two male figures above the aged woman, who canbe clearly identified as the Countess of Tai, are most likely the"summoners" (fig. 1, c). Judging by the position they occupy andthe robes and hats they wear, these two men are represented as callingthe departed soul back from a rooftop.5 While other identificationshave also been suggested, Yii's seems to fit with the maintheme of the painting best, especially, as we shall see momentarily,4 Wang Zhongshu, Han Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 181.5See Yii Wei-ch'ao's J