Search Results (10)

Peking opera The Revenge of Prince Zi Dan reinterprets Shakespeare’s Hamlet by integrating supernatural elements and traditional rituals from Chinese folk religion. The religious transformation is revealed through the reworking of lines, incorporation of ritual traditions, and portrayal of supernatural figures. The divine entity that is invoked in Hamlet’s prayers (2.2.169, 5.2.316) and Claudius’s repentance (3.3.36–72) is translated as tian 天 (Heaven) in Revenge, thus introducing the concepts of the worship of tian and tianming 天命 (Mandate of Heaven). Revenge also adapts Claudius’s command of “give me some light” (3.2.261) by associating it with ancient exorcisms, thereby dramatizing his attempts to conceal the guilt for regicide. Ophelia’s “maimed rites” (5.1.208) are depicted as a deviation from Confucian funeral rites in Revenge, reflected in the simplified funeral banners and Hamlet’s transgressive mourning. The “sulphurous and tormenting flames” (1.5.3) and the morning cock’s crow (1.2.217) are reinterpreted through the introduction of the judicial system of the underworld. These changes are not merely transitions in performing conventions but reflect the deep connection between folk religion and traditional Chinese theater through these prayers, rituals, and supernatural elements, thus creating a specific theatrical “field” in which Chinese folk religion interacts with Western classics. Full article

The introduction of Christian angelology during the Ming and Qing dynasties was driven by strong practical needs. As intermediaries bridging the sacred and the secular, angels were endowed with crucial functions in core sacraments such as baptism and the Mass, including the purification of sins, protection, and the connection between God and humanity. Their participation in these rituals not only enhanced the sanctity of the ceremonies but also facilitated a dialogue with traditional Chinese spirits. Missionaries deliberately avoided abstract theological discussions about angels, instead emphasizing their role in accompanying and guiding believers in daily life. The concept of “guardian angels” addressed the spiritual needs of believers, while the imagery of angels in funeral rites helped reconstruct expressions of filial piety, thereby mitigating cultural conflicts between China and the West. At the same time, the localized understanding of angels among Chinese Catholics during this period focused on ritual practices and the affirmation of their own identity. The introduction of Christian angels during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with their practical dimensions, facilitated the indigenization process of Catholicism in China and provided new perspectives and pathways for interreligious and intercultural dialogue. Full article

For decades, in historical research, archeological vestiges have been linked with geomancy and cults of the mythical ancestors of a group of the population. This is particularly true in Eastern Asia and especially in China, Korea, and Japan. A fundamental problem of Japanese archeology is that few of the remnants were realized in stone. One of the most important parts of archeological sciences is the study of Necropolises or ancient interments. From the 1970s onwards, in the relatively “new” and promising land of Hokkaido, cemeteries were built with the concept of landscape in mind; this is also due to the lavish vegetation features of this northernmost island of Japan. In the case of the Takino cemetery on the plains of Sapporo, Hokkaido, whose construction began in 1982, solemnity and religiousness were incorporated by producing exact stone replicas of famous funerary landmarks from antiquity as such materials were inexistent in the Nipponese Isles. This trend to grant eternity included traditional Buddhist funereal monuments like the Stupa, Seokguram grotto, and Kamakura sites, but at a certain and exuberant point, under the influence of Isamu Noguchi, it reached Stonehenge in England and the Moai from Easter Island in Polynesia (being after all located in a remote isle of the Pacific Ocean). In this article we will outline such process of generation and overall conception, analyzing the inclusion and architectural assembly of the different compounds and the recent and extraordinary additions projected and built by the celebrity architect Tadao Ando. We expect, in this manner, to facilitate the comprehension of the significance of venerable landscape sublimated through archeology for the Nipponese modern civilization. Full article

This paper examines the critical perspectives of scholars during the Han Dynasty on customs and beliefs related to ghosts and deities. Focusing on Wang Chong as an example, it explores the naturalistic explanations of life and death, the concept of ghosts and deities, and the associated customs of funerals, sacrifices, and taboos. Wang Chong’s criticisms focused on the core ideologies that underpinned funeral practices, sacrifices, and taboos and attempted to undermine the essence of these traditional customs. By reinterpreting funeral practices, sacrifices, and taboos from a ritualistic perspective that emphasized the social function rather than their supernatural implications, Wang Chong aimed to reconcile local tradition with rationality and promote a more profound understanding of the world. His approach, though complex and at times seemingly contradictory, holds an important position among the intellectual critiques of customs and beliefs during the Han Dynasty, and it sheds light on the challenges faced by ancient Chinese scholars in navigating the intersections between rationality, morality, and religion. Full article

This article examines some features of the mythological beliefs and funeral rites of Siberia’s two related Uralic peoples—the Nenets and the Nganasans. The afterlife fate in the mythology of Nenets and Nganasans is similar—the souls of the dead go to the Lower World, where they continue to live as they lived on Earth. However, the two cultures’ attitudes towards the dead have intriguing differences. A comparison of Nenets and Nganasan beliefs and rituals reveals significant correspondences between the ideas about the benevolence of the dead (the Nenets) or their harmfulness (the Nganasans), on the one hand, and the presence of the practices of substitutional incarnation (images of the dead) (the Nenets) or the absence of such images (the Nganasans) on the other. The differences between the Nenets and the Nganasans, as I suggest, are due to the origin and history of the peoples: the Nenets’ customs reflect the traditions of the Uralic tribes who came to the far north from Southern Siberia in ancient times. At the same time, the Nganasans’ ideas are probably rooted in typical concepts of the Palaeo-Siberian population assimilated by the Uralic tribes. Full article

Death Cafés are informal events that bring people together for conversations about death and related issues. These events connect strangers from across a range of backgrounds, including healthcare workers, hospice volunteers, and funeral directors, among others. Based on an analysis of focus groups and interviews with Death Café attendees, this paper explores how participants construct and express conceptions of the process of dying and what happens after we die. Ideas about the afterlife have historically been shaped by a religious outlooks and identities. However, nonreligious lifestances have shifted how people understand death and dying. We suggest that notions of continuity of life are not the purview of religious people. Rather, participants in Death Cafés draw simultaneously on many ideas, and reveal ways of conceptualizing life after death—in various forms—without the guidance of religion. Based on conversations with attendees about their outlooks on death (and what may happen after death), our data reveals four main typologies of afterlife imaginaries, which we label cessation, unknown, energy, and transition. Among the diverse perspectives shared, we argue for the emergence of an immanent afterlife outlook. Full article

Arrangements for the afterlife were important matters to the Tang 唐 (618–907) people. The newly unearthed epitaphs of the Tang Dynasty contain a large number of dialogues and words of the deceased before their death, as well as their instructions concerning the arrangements for funerals and the inheritance of family traditions. These instructions not only reflect Tang funeral concepts and the importance of arrangements for the afterlife, but they also allow us to perceive the characters and personalities of the deceased, which are valuable new materials for the study of ancient Chinese biographical literature. Full article

In the minds of ancient people, tombs and burials were where the lives of this world ended and another type of life began. By incorporating the concepts of life found in Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the widespread belief in ghosts and immortals, burial ceremonies evolved during the Wei and Jin 魏晋 dynasties (220–420) into an integrated and unified notion of burial. The funeral ritual’s imaginative and fanciful depictions of the hereafter express sentimental devotion to life and contemplation of death. The burial ceremony and tomb architecture change in accordance with how the concepts of sacrifice and ghosts develop. The features of people’s belief in ghosts and immortality are reflected in particular burial practices. The popularity of necromancy burials and ghost marriages during the Middle Ages (third to sixth centuries) bring to light the binary antagonism between the soul and the body in burial, as well as the emphasis on spiritual freedom and physical immortality in the life philosophy. Full article

The aim of the paper is to discuss mortuary contexts and possible related ritual features as parts of sacred landscapes in Late Bronze Age Cyprus. Since the island was an important node in the Eastern Mediterranean economic network, it will be explored whether and how connectivity and insularity may be reflected in ritual and mortuary practices. The article concentrates on the extra-urban cemetery of Area A at the harbour city of Hala Sultan Tekke, where numerous pits and other shafts with peculiar deposits of complete and broken objects as well as faunal remains have been found. These will be evaluated and set in relation to the contexts of the nearby tombs to reconstruct ritual activities in connection with funerals and possible rituals of commemoration or ancestral rites. The evidence from Hala Sultan Tekke and other selected Late Cypriot sites demonstrates that these practices were highly dynamic in integrating and adopting external objects, symbols, and concepts, while, nevertheless, definite island-specific characteristics remain visible. Full article

This article sheds light on the sophisticated funeral process set up by the Cao Đài religion (or Caodaism), combining both a theological and an ethnographical analysis. After introducing how Cao Đài theology represents both the body and the spiritual components of each individual in the specific millenarian conception of existence that characterizes Cao Đài, we trace the ritual process of funerals from the altar and coffin preparation to the collection of prayers and talismanic rituals conveyed to save souls in a Cao Đài manner. Read together, these sources present a genuine project and spirit of reform in the ideas, imaginaries, and practices related to death in Vietnam from the 1920s onwards, crystallizing a specific Cao Đài identity in Vietnamese and also East Asian redemptive societies’ deathscapes. Full article