漢代筆記 vol.27 来世之兽：漢代藝術與生死哲學觀 / Animals for the Afterlife, Han Dynasty Arts and Philosophy

来世之兽

Animals for the Afterlife

文章來源：覺是軒漢代藝術展覽

如果中国古代的陵墓始终未被开启，而一群艺术史家被要求猜测其中可能存在的器物的主要图像主题，他们会预期动物形象占据重要地位吗？他们首先会寻求古典文献的指导——这些文献是关于古代思想与行为的极其丰富的信息资源。最早的经典《诗经》可能会唤起这种期待。这部文集中的许多风、雅、颂都以野生动植物来比拟人事：

交交桑扈

有莺其羽

君子乐胥

受天之祜

多么啁啾啊，那桑扈！它的翅膀斑驳美丽。我们的君子快乐安逸；他承受了上天的福祉。

（出自《毛诗》215，亚瑟·韦利译）

据一种统计，《诗经》中提到了一百种植物和树木，以及九十种动物和昆虫。然而，后来的经典显示出一种变化的情感。对自然世界的冷漠常常出现。孔子本人就说：

鸟兽不可与同群

人不能与鸟兽同群共处

故虎豹为猛矣，然君子剥而用之

虎豹虽是猛兽，但君子剥其皮而用之

大约同一时期，伟大的道家圣人庄子对动物给予了更多尊重。例如，有一段著名文字，他声称理解濠梁之上鲦鱼出游从容的快乐，暗示了对动物具有内在生命的早期洞察。然而，更常见的是，庄子笔下的动物如同伊索寓言中的动物一样，是用来说明某种人类思维模式的。例如，井底之蛙就是目光短浅之人。

所有这些早期文本似乎缺乏的是对自然世界的细致迷恋——这种迷恋我们在亚里士多德的著作中可以看到，而且可能被认为可以形成一种再现范式的基础。因此，我们这假设的艺术史家团队，考虑到这些早期思想家普遍的人类中心主义基调，可能会得出结论：早期中国艺术更可能的主题是对人和社会的表现，而非动物。但正如我们所知，他们将是错误的，因为考古学讲述了一个不同的故事。

早期中国艺术充满了动物。我们发现用青铜、漆器、陶瓷、木材和玉石等传统媒介立体塑造的动物；我们发现动物形器皿和器皿上的动物图案装饰；我们发现画在墓幡上的动物；我们发现织入纺织品的动物；我们发现压印在瓦当上的动物；等等。事实上，从新石器时代到唐代，早期艺术的大部分题材都来自动物界或其神话对应物。然而，这一成就并非动物学或分类学上的，而更多地与艺术和诠释有关。

动物的辨认与再现

直到公元前三世纪末，很少有可以称得上逼真的动物表现。我们辨认它们不是通过其逼真度，而是通过其特征：大象是无可辨认的；犀牛和马也是如此。老虎通常有条纹，但没有条纹时就很难与豹区分。家畜很容易辨认：猪通常有低垂的腹部；牛、绵羊和山羊有其特征的角；狗可能较难辨认，但常常被表现为吠叫。

其他动物，如鹿、猴子和大多数鸟类，则是一般性处理，尽管必定有许多不同的种类。最容易辨认的动物种类与汉语中有自己象形文字的动物相同，这或许并非巧合。确定无疑的是，在中国超过一万九千种（包括亚种）的动物物种中，只有极小比例被表现出来。然而，这个题材库被想象中的生物大量补充：例如，龙类动物家族在早期青铜器上占据显著位置，凤鸟也是如此，还有一种难以解释的奇怪生物，在后世被称为饕餮。

来世的观念

如果早期思想家对动物世界鲜有论述，他们对来世的看法则更是缄默。绕过形而上学，他们关注的重点是葬礼仪式的遵守，以及丧亲者亲属的恰当行为。

例如，墨子认为贵族的繁复葬礼是不可接受的奢侈，主张死者无论生前地位多么显赫，都应葬于三寸厚的棺材中，穿不超过三件衣服，葬得不要太深以致触及地下水，也不要太浅以致腐臭逸出。

荀子则说了几乎相反的话：为死者举行的仪式是幸存亲属展示孝心的最后机会，不应吝啬。关于葬礼上的死者，他写道：

故事死如生，事亡如存

对待他们如同已死，却又如同仍活着；如同已离去，却又如同仍在场

（华兹生译）

对鬼的信仰明确出现在《左传》中，这是一部记载公元前721年至463年时期的编年史。在其中我们发现了一对术语的早期提及，这对术语在随后的世纪中日益重要，其意义随时间推移而有所变化。这就是魂和魄，到汉代时被理解为人类灵魂的两个互补组成部分。然而，在《左传》时代，它们似乎描述的是活人心中的一种明亮燃烧的能量，如果因非时之死而释放，可能会变成长久徘徊的怨鬼。

动物在来世中占有一席之地——无论这种观念如何构想——这通过它们被埋葬在早期墓葬中而得到证明。例如，猪的头和下颌——新石器时代经济的主食——在大汶口文化人们的墓葬中被发现；而在商代墓葬中，狗和马的骨架与人体牺牲受害者的骨架一起被发现。

这些做法是否暗示了一种相信动物本身具有某种灵魂的信仰，尚不清楚。尽管动物牺牲对他们而言无关紧要，事实上他们认可这种做法，但早期思想家反对以这种方式使用血肉之躯的人。奇怪的是，大多数现代评论家将此时陶器和木制替代品日益增多的使用视为改善，而孔子却似乎反常地将其过于逼真的特质归咎于古老做法的持续流行。正如孟子所记载的，在一段解释为何危害人民的政府风格与直接伤害人民同样糟糕的文字中：

仲尼曰，始作俑者，其无后乎，为其象人而用之也，如之何其使斯民饥而死也

孔子说："始作俑者，其无后乎？"[他的意思是这人被后人记住]是因为他用人形偶像[不顾后果]，那么[对于那种]使人民饿死的[政府风格]，他又会说什么呢？

事实上，是否使用真人、木陶替代品，或两者混合，这个决定似乎是复杂的。认为此事存在任何进步性启蒙的观念肯定过于简化，目前仍是学术争论的问题。然而，有一点是清楚的。如果贵族准备为葬礼牺牲真人，他们也不会吝惜使用真动物；然而，我们看到从战国时期开始，墓葬中陶制动物像的数量不断增加。难道陶俑因为不朽不腐，被视为更优越的选择？

魂与魄的二元体系

公元前一千纪中叶，众多竞争国家之间的分裂既是文化的也是政治的，直到公元前三世纪末秦始皇统一中国，帝国各地关于来世的观念才开始融合。在这些观念中，有前述由魂和魄组成的二元灵魂概念的提炼。这种二元灵魂的本质在《淮南子》（公元前139年呈献给汉武帝的书）和《礼记》等文献中有详细阐述。

简化的叙述可能是这样的：

魂（天魂）

在世时产生气或呼吸；死亡时升上天空成为神或祖先之灵。魂是阳的散发。魂留在天上直到下一代灵魂的到来。

魄（物质之魂）

在世时赋予身体生命，死亡时回归大地成为鬼。魄是阴的散发。魄在墓中停留三年后才下降到黄泉。

两者都不是不朽的。灵魂的两个组成部分都必须在死后的过渡阶段得到供养。

大多数独立的随葬品似乎都是为了魄的利益，与日常生活密切相关。我们发现食物容器、灯具、香炉、镜子、武器、装饰品，以及在东汉年代日益增多的反映农业生活方式的丧葬陶器——粮仓、炉灶、磨盘、井、猪圈等模型。

魂的停留更为短暂，主要通过墓中的二维表面来表现：墙壁饰带、彩绘棺板、幡旗。这些表面的装饰具有叙事性质，描述魂升天的过程。

魄之动物与魂之动物

魄的动物

家养的、熟悉的、忠诚的和有用的都是魄的动物。与魄相关的主要动物是六畜：马、牛、羊、鸡、狗和猪。

这些可以表现为立体模型或农业生活场景的一部分，这两种类型都在本次展览中有充分代表。通常它们是用紧实的粉红或红色黏土模制的，从使用刀削面和修整来看，这种黏土似乎难以手工操作。选择这种黏土可能是因为还生产了大量精美的板筑建筑模型，对此坚固性会是一个优势。

许多模型施有一种褐色或绿色的铅釉，这种釉在中国出现于汉代早期，可能来自西方。釉料经过长期变化的某些过程可能导致银色虹彩的发展，常为鉴赏家所赞赏，但最初的意图可能是模拟青铜。

魂的动物

野生的、外来的、未驯化的，最重要的是，非真实的，都是魂的动物。

与魂相关的动物很少以立体形式表现，除了偶尔以玉石或青铜等昂贵材料制作。黏土的魄性不适合这些生物，它们在陶瓷中的出现仅限于某类仿青铜绿釉陶器上的带状浮雕装饰：圆筒形奁香炉、壶罐和博山炉。

与魂相关的动物，摆脱了尘世束缚，趋向于神奇。李白的《大猎赋》——一部出色的唐代作品，深得司马相如等汉代诗人赋的精髓——提到了其中一些：鸮羊（有毛茸茸的脚跟）、厌（仅以其长度著称）、豪彘（像狗一样嚎叫）、凿齿（人类的灾难之一）、南山白额虎（比凿齿更可怕）、天珍（一种鸟人）、食铁兽（大约驴子大小），以及不可忽视的"非熊"。

当然，魂在上天途中希望不要遇到太多这些。更可能（且易于描绘）的同伴是天马（翼马）、辟邪、龙、凤、天鹿，以及老虎的天界版本，所有这些都扮演着角色，要么作为魂的交通工具，要么作为驱魔的保护者。

西王母的领域

汉代宇宙观综合中的关键人物之一是道教神祇西王母，她居住在昆仑山，是长生不老药的守护者，也是仙或不朽者的统治者。

将她的领域视为魂的最终目的地将超越魂的作用，但找到了一种妥协。西王母的领域是魂在上天途中访问的地方，而非其最终目的地。除了她的配偶东王公——东方皇家之父——她的朝廷大部分由动物组成。有月蟾、玉兔（研磨仙药者），有时还有九尾狐。

四川的"摇钱树"是西王母图像学的丰富来源。例如，"摇钱树"的底座（目录号11）显示了蟾蜍和兔子等。

扶桑树与满鸟之树

展览中有一件物品值得特别提及。这是一件非凡的绿釉树模型，树上满是鸟，置于水面上的平台。虽然在陶瓷中罕见，但树的描绘在汉代艺术中相当常见，其树枝通常要么布满太阳般的圆盘，要么满是鸟。例如，马王堆帛画右上角就有树形元素。

自动浮现在脑海中的典故是扶桑树的神话，其中射手羿从大树枝上射下九个多余的太阳（常表现为鸟），只留下一个在天空照耀。扶桑树从黄泉升起，前面提到黄泉是魄的最终归宿。

能够将这件陶制满鸟之树与魄家园的表现相认同，就像"摇钱树"是魂所访问领域的表现一样，这将是令人满意的。然而，谨慎在这里应有最终决定权。这类模型的作用，事实上本次展览所有物品的作用，都远未得到任何确定的解释。

考古学可能为古代中国人的思想打开了新的窗口，正如我们这假设的艺术史家团队所发现的，但我们通过这些窗口看到的东西难以诠释。孔子对一位催促他谈论鬼和死亡本质的弟子的回答，值得深思：

未知生，焉知死？

我们连生都不了解。怎能了解死？

Animal of the After Life

article by David Priestley.

If the ancient tombs of China had remained unopened throughout history, and a team of art historians were asked to guess what might be the dominant iconographic themes governing the objects presumed to lie within, would they expect the representation of animals to figure significantly? The first place they would look for guidance would be the classical texts, a superbly rich resource of information on the thoughts and deeds of antiquity. The earliest of the classics, the Shi Jing (the Book of Songs), might raise expectations. Many of the airs, hymns and eulogies in the anthology employ wild animals and plants to parallel human affairs:

📜

交交桑扈有莺其羽君子乐胥受天之祜

How it chirrups, the mulberry-finch!Beautifully mottled its wing.Our lord is happy and at ease;He has received the blessings of heaven.

(From Mao 215. Trans. Arthur Waley)

By one count there are a hundred kinds of plants and trees and ninety kinds of animals and insects mentioned in the Book of Songs. The later classics, however, show a changed sensibility. An indifference to the natural world is often encountered. Confucius himself says:

💭

鸟兽不可与同群

One cannot associate with birds and beasts

🐅

故虎豹为猛矣，然君子剥而用之

Tigers and leopards are fierce beasts,yet the gentleman skins them for his own use.

Zhuang Zi, the great Daoist sage writing at about the same time, accords animals greater respect. There is, for example, the celebrated passage in which he professes to understand the delight of the minnows darting in the Hao River, suggesting an early insight into the fact that animals have an internal life. More commonly, though, animals occur in Zhuang Zi's writing as they do in Aesop's Fables, to illustrate a particular mode of human thought. The frog in the well, for example, is the man of limited vision.

What all these early texts appear to lack is that detailed fascination with the natural world which we see, for example, in the work of Aristotle, and which, it might be presumed, could form the basis for a representational paradigm. And so our hypothetical team of art historians, considering the generally anthropocentric tenor of these early thinkers, might conclude that the representation of people and society, rather than animals, was a more likely subject for early Chinese art. But they would be wrong, as we know, for archaeology tells a different story.

🎨

Early Chinese art abounds with animals. We find animals modelled in the round in all the traditional media of bronze, lacquer, ceramic, wood and jade; we find animal-form vessels and animal-pattern decoration on vessels; we find animals painted on tomb banners; we find animals woven into textiles; we find animals impressed onto tiles; and so on. Indeed, a great proportion of the repertoire of early art from the Neolithic to the Tang is drawn from the animal kingdom, or its mythical counterpart. The achievement is not a zoological or taxonomic one, however, but very much to do with art and interpretation.

Recognition and Representation of Animals

Until the late third century BC there are few representations of animals that can be said to be life-like. We recognize them not by their verisimilitude, but by their attributes: the elephant is unmistakeable; likewise the rhinoceros and the horse. The tiger often has stripes, but in their absence is difficult to distinguish from the leopard. The domestic animals are easy to identify: pigs usually have a low-slung belly; oxen, sheep and goats have their characteristic horns; dogs can be difficult, but are often shown barking.

Other animals, such as deer, monkeys, and most birds, are treated generically, though there must have been many different types. It is perhaps no coincidence that the kinds of animals easiest to recognize are the same ones that have their own pictograms in the Chinese language. What is certainly true is that only a tiny proportion of the animal species in China – of which, according to a recent inventory, there are (including sub-species) more than nineteen thousand – are represented. The repertoire, however, was generously supplemented with imaginary creatures: the family of dragon-like animals feature prominently on early bronzes, for example, as do phoenix-like birds, and a strange creature, difficult to interpret, named in later periods as the taotie.

Conceptions of the Afterlife

If the early thinkers have little to say about the animal world, their views on the afterlife are positively reticent. Bypassing the metaphysics, the focus of their interest is the observance of the funeral rites, and the proper behaviour of the relatives of the bereaved.

Mo Zi, for example, considered the elaborate funerals of the nobles an unacceptable extravagance, and advocated that the dead, however lofty their station in life, should be buried in a three-inch thick coffin, wear no more than three pieces of clothing, and be buried not so deep as to reach water, and not so shallow that odours of putrefaction might escape.

Xun Zi says more or less the opposite: that the rites performed for the dead are the last chance for the surviving relatives to display their filiality, and should not be stinted. Of the dead, at the funeral, he writes:

☯️

故事死如生，事亡如存

They are treated as though dead, and yet as though still alive,as though gone, and yet as though still present

(Trans. Burton Watson)

A belief in ghosts appears explicitly in the Zuozhuan, a chronicle of the period from 721 to 463 BC. In it we find an early mention of a pair of terms which were to grow in importance during succeeding centuries, changing their significance somewhat as time went on. These are the hun and the po, the two elements that by Han times were understood to be the complementary components of the human soul. At the time of the Zuozhuan, however, they appear to describe a kind of bright-burning energy in the mind of a living person, which if released by an untimely death, could metamorphose into a lingering, resentful ghost.

🐷

That animals had their place in the afterlife, however conceived, is shown by their interment in early burials. For example, the heads and jaws of pigs – the staple of the Neolithic economy – are found in the graves of the people of the Dawenkou culture; while in Shang tombs the skeletons of dogs and horses are found along with those of human sacrificial victims.

Whether these practices suggest a belief that animals possessed some kind of soul themselves is unclear. Although the sacrifice of animals would have been of little concern to them, indeed they condoned it, the early thinkers took issue with the use of flesh-and-blood people in this way. Oddly, where most modern commentators see the growing use of pottery and wooden substitutes at this time as ameliorative, Confucius, apparently perversely, blames their overly life-like qualities for the continued popularity of the ancient practice. As reported by Mencius in a passage where he explains why a style of government that brings harm to the people is as bad as harming them directly:

🗿

仲尼曰，始作俑者，其无后乎，为其象人而用之也，如之何其使斯民饥而死也

If, when Confucius said, "Is not the man who first made burial figures remembered to posterity?" [he meant that he was remembered] because he used them for making images of people [careless of the consequences], what [would he say] about the man who [by his style of government] had caused his people to die of hunger?

In fact, the decision whether to use real people, wood and pottery substitutes, or a mixture of the two, seems to have been complex. The notion that there was any kind of progressive enlightenment in the matter certainly seems over-simplified, and is currently a matter for academic debate. One thing is clear, however. If the nobles were prepared to have real people sacrificed for the sake of their burials, they would hardly have stinted the use of real animals as well; and yet we see a growing number of pottery animal figures in tombs from the Warring States period onwards. Could it be that pottery figures, immune to rot and decay, came to be seen as the superior option?

The Dual Soul System: Hun and Po

In the middle centuries of the first millennium BC, divisions between the numerous competing states were cultural as well as political, and it was not until the unification of China by Qin Shi Huangdi at the end of the third century BC that ideas about the afterlife from different parts of the empire began to cohere. Among these ideas was a distillation of the notion of the dual soul, mentioned earlier, composed of the hun and the po. The nature of this dual soul is elaborated in texts like the Huai Nan Zi, a book presented to the Han dynasty Emperor Wu in 139 BC, and the Li Ji (the Book of Rites).

A simplified account might run as follows:

☁️

Hun (Celestial Soul)

During life the hun, or celestial soul, gives rise to the qi, or breath. At death it ascends to the heavens as the shen, or ancestral spirit. The hun is an emanation of the yang. The hun remains in heaven until the arrival of the souls of the next generation.

🌍

Po (Material Soul)

The po, or material soul, which in life animates the body, returns at death to the earth as the gui. The po is an emanation of the yin. The po remains in the grave for three years before descending to the Yellow Springs.

Neither soul is immortal. Both components of the soul have to be provided for during the transitional stage following death.

Most of the free-standing grave goods appear to have been for the benefit of the po, and relate closely to everyday life. We find food containers, lamps, incense burners, mirrors, weapons, ornaments, and increasingly in the years of the Eastern Han, mortuary pottery reflecting the agricultural way of life – models of granaries, stoves, querns, well, pigsties, and so on.

The hun, whose stay was more fleeting, was addressed primarily by the two-dimensional surfaces in the tomb: wall friezes, painted coffin panels, and banners. The decoration on these surfaces was narrative in character, describing the ascension of the hun to heaven.

Animals of the Po and Animals of the Hun

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Animals of the Po

The domestic, the familiar, the faithful and the useful are all animals of the po. Primary among the animals associated with the po are the liuchu, 'the six domestic animals', comprising the horse, the ox, the goat, the chicken, the dog and the pig.

These may be depicted as models in the round or as parts of tableaux of agricultural life, both types being well represented in this exhibition. Generally they are moulded using a compact pinkish or reddish clay of a type that seems to have been difficult to work by hand, judging from the use of knife-pared faceting and trimming. The choice of this clay may be explained by the large number of elaborate slab-built architectural models also produced, for which firmness would have been an advantage.

Many of the models are applied with a brown or green lead glaze of a type which appears in China in the early Han period, and may have come from the West. Certain processes of alteration in the glaze over a long period may lead to the development of a silvery iridescence, often admired by connoisseurs, but it is probable that the original intention was to simulate bronze.

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Animals of the Hun

The wild, the exotic, the untamed and, above all, the unreal, are animals of the hun.

The animals associated with the hun are rarely found represented in the round, except on rare occasions in expensive materials like jade or bronze. The po-ish nature of clay was not appropriate for these creatures, and their appearance in ceramic is limited to bands of relief decoration on a certain class of bronze-form green-glazed pottery vessels: the cylindrical lian censer, the hu jar, and the boshan lu censer.

The animals associated with the hun, freed from earthly constraints, tend towards the fabulous. Li Po's Great Hunt Rhapsody, a brilliant Tang dynasty work drawing deeply from the fu of such Han poets as Sima Xiangru, makes reference to some of them: the Owl-goat (which has hairy heels), the Yan (noted only for its length), the Bristled Bull (which howls like a dog), the Chisel-tooth (one of the disasters of mankind), the South Mountain White-foreheaded Tiger (worse than the Chisel-tooth), the Heavenly Treasure (a kind of bird-man), the Metal-eating Bear (apparently about the size of a donkey), and, not to be overlooked, the Not-a-bear.

Of course, the hun would hope not to meet too many of these on its way to heaven. More likely (and readily depictable) companions are the tianma (winged horse), the bixie (chimera), the long (dragon), the feng (phoenix), the tianlu (heavenly deer), and the heavenly version of the tiger, all of which had their roles to play, either as means of transport for the hun, or as protectors against demons.

The Realm of Xiwang Mu

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One of the key figures in the Han cosmological synthesis is the Daoist deity Xiwang Mu, the Queen Mother of the West, who dwells on Kunlun mountain and is custodian of the death-preventing elixir, and the ruler of the xian, or immortals.

To see her realm as the final destination of the hun would be to go beyond the role of the hun, but a compromise was found. The realm of Xiwang Mu was to be a place visited by the hun on its way to heaven, not its final destination. Apart from her consort Dongwang Gong, the Royal Father of the East, most of her court consists of animals. There is the lunar toad, the hare (who grinds the elixir), and, sometimes, a nine-tailed fox.

'Money-trees' from Sichuan are a rich source of Xiwang Mu iconography. The base of the 'money-tree' (catalogue no. 11), for example, shows the toad and the hare, amongst others.

The Fusang Tree and the Bird-Filled Tree

One item in the exhibition deserves special mention. This is the extraordinary green-glazed model of a tree filled with birds, set on a platform over water. Though rare in ceramic, depictions of trees occur with some regularity in Han art, their branches usually filled either with sun-like discs, or with birds. There is, for instance, the tree-like element in the top right side of the Mawangdui banner.

The allusion that springs automatically to mind is the myth of the Fusang tree, in which the Archer Yi shoots nine supernumerary suns (often shown as birds) from the branches of the great tree, leaving only one to shine in the sky. The Fusang tree rises from the Yellow Springs, mentioned earlier as the final abode of the po.

It would be satisfying to be able to make the identification between this pottery bird-filled tree and a representation of the home of the po, in the way that the 'money-trees' are representations of the realm visited by the hun. Caution, however, should have the last word here. The role of models like this, and indeed the role of all of the objects in this exhibition, is very far from being determined with any certainty.

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Archaeology may have opened new windows on the minds of the ancient Chinese, as our team of imaginary art historians discovered, but what we see through those windows is hard to interpret. The wisdom of Confucius's response to a follower prompting him to talk about the nature of ghosts and death, is worth absorbing:

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未知生，焉知死？

We do not understand even life.How can we understand death?