Medieval Buddhist of the Day

[Bluesky 11/13/24] OK, just for a change of pace, let’s talk about Northern Wei funerary gifts. I remember reading the biography of Xianbei elder statesman Qiumuling Liang 丘穆陵亮 and being struck by a list of imperial gifts to him at the time of his funeral in 502. It was normal for a loyal official to be rewarded with titles at his death – a gift of honor and status which cost the ruler nothing – but this was a list of actual things, followed by the note that the emperor attended the xiaolian 小斂 ceremony at his funeral, then the titles given. Here’s the list (from 魏書 27 穆崇): 給東園溫明祕器、朝服一具、衣一襲、錢四十萬、布七百匹、蠟二百斤。“He was given the Eastern Garden mirror and secret items, one set of court robes, one set of clothes, 400,000 bronze coins, 700 bolts of (non-silk, probably hemp) cloth, and 200 pounds of wax.” 

Some of this is easy to explain as gifts for the dead. Coins and cloth are both, in their own way, forms of money. Court robes and clothes might be meant for burial with the corpse, who needed signs of status in the afterlife. I got a little stuck on the wax, but, you know, candles. (Apiculture in China is documented as early as the second century CE, thus probably actually practiced earlier than that, so it could be beeswax, but who knows really.)

It’s the 東園溫明祕器 “Eastern Garden mirror and secret items” that was really curious. The thing I’m translating as “mirror” 溫明 is something like “warm brightness” and seems to refer to a kind of lacquered wooden case for a mirror, which is hung during the funeral and then buried with the corpse. Apparently one of these things was found in the tomb of the deprecated Han emperor the Marquis of Haihun (海昏侯) and possibly one or two other Han tombs. Mirrors have a role in exorcism and the repelling of evil spirits, so it makes sense as a funerary object. 

Then there’s the “secret items of the Eastern Garden” 東園祕器. Apparently from the Han onward, the Eastern Garden workshop was responsible for building and organizing  the emperor’s tomb and its furnishings. So the “secret items” could include all kinds of imperial tomb goods – jade suits 玉衣, for instance, which were distributed according to sumptuary regulations or sometimes as political gifts; sets of coffins; the timber tomb chambers called 黃腸題湊, the mirror we just described, and other related materials. 

But it turns out that the list from Mu Liang’s biography is kind of a standard one, that objects in these several categories constituted the imperial gift for the funeral of a valued or high-ranking official. Consider Wang Su 王肅, a Southern refugee I’ve written about elsewhere. Wang Su was even more generously rewarded by the same emperor when he died in 501. On top of a bunch of titles, there was this (魏書 63): 給東園祕器、朝服一襲、錢三十萬、帛一千匹、布五百匹、蠟三百斤，并問其卜遷遠近，專遣侍御史一人監護喪事，務令優厚。He got the secret items of the Eastern Garden, plus a set of court robes, 300,000 coins, 1000 bolts of plain silk, 500 bolts of (hemp) cloth, 300 pounds of wax, the services of a diviner (probably to divine the burial site), and the services of a representative of the palace to oversee the funeral and ensure it reflected his honor and favor. 

I’m fascinated by the “secret items” which seems to refer to specifically imperial burial accoutrements, and then a clear set of gifts which includes court robes and other garments, money, textiles, wax, and the services of ritual specialists. It’s the same for other Northern Wei elites. There is a small degree of variation but, comparing these lists, they really come across like a range of possible corporate gift baskets from the Northern Wei equivalent of Hickory Farms. All rituals come with a sense of the appropriate, of course – One knows not to wear white to somebody else’s wedding in the US, nor to give clocks or knives as gifts in a Chinese context, but this feels kind of like those antiquated lists of anniversary gifts (Seventeen years, that’s ceremonial knee-pads, right?).