Abstract
We find that although the rites of mourning share some basic similarities in terms of both procedures and functions, there are differences between these two ancient societies. In Greece, mourning remained mainly on the level of divinely ordained or external forms and procedures, but was not used to facilitate the expression of philosophical thoughts without involving the social order. In the Chinese case, the Confucians of the Pre-Qin period used rituals as a tool to explain their thoughts about how to organize a community. For them, the ritualized procedures were certainly important, but there was something more profound underlying the ritual. Confucians have integrated funeral with the Confucian values of filial piety and the concept of kinship, which have had a profound impact on subsequent Chinese civilization.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Gregory Nagy, ‘Ancient Greek Elegy’, in Karen Weisman ed., The Oxford Handbook of Elegy, Oxford University Press, 2010.
- 2.
Donna C. Kurtz and John Boardman, Greek Burial Customs, Thames and Hudson, 1971, p. 143.
- 3.
Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, p. 21.
- 4.
Randall Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains, pp. 35, 36.
- 5.
The translation is from Hugh Llord-Jones, Harvard University Press, 1998.
- 6.
The translation is from Steven Lattimore, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1998.
- 7.
Xenophon, Hellenica I.6–7.
- 8.
The translation is from R. G. Bury, Harvard University Press, 1929.
- 9.
Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition, p. 4.
- 10.
Strictly speaking, the patriarchal clan system disintegrated as early as the late Western-Zhou Dynasty, but its influence lasts over 2000 years in China.
- 11.
K. C. Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China, p. 15.
- 12.
The idea of ‘filial piety’ is a very important idea for the Chinese and is listed as an essential part of life in the early texts The Book of Historical Documents (《尚书》) and Zuo’s Commentary (《左传》), and at least as early as the end of the Former Han dynasty, and enters more and more frequently into the dynastic histories and other historical works. A Western scholar even argues: ‘Filial piety in China came to be seen as having absolute value and that the worship of one’s parents (that is, one’s creators) can be compared to the worship of God in the West.’ (Donald Holzman, ‘The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China’, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 2 (Apr.–Jun., 1998), pp. 185–199) But I disagree with this argument and consider it as a kind of over-interpretation. I prefer to explain the meaning of ‘filial piety’ as ‘a respect with love, thanksgiving and duties’. In China (even today), filial piety means the love and support for the parents (The Analects of Confucius, II.7), especially the care of them during their old age and illness with cheerfulness and patience (The Analects of Confucius , II.8; IV.19, 21). It also means obedience, but not blind obedience, to the parents (The Analects of Confucius, IV.18.) and carrying on any unfulfilled life purposes of the parents (The Analects of Confucius, I.11). In a word, it is the ethical relation a person should maintain towards his or her parents and ancestors. As a virtue, it is considered to be the root of all virtues (The Analects of Confucius, I.2.). By tradition, this reverence is extended from being paid to one’s own parents to being paid to other people’s parents and implies paying respect to all elderly people in the community (The Words of Mencius, I.7).
- 13.
The Canonical Book of Filial Piety (《孝经》) was probably assembled around the third or second century BCE. It has codified filial piety as a universal belief for Chinese people in the validity of the virtue. Although it is not a strictly philosophical text, it remained an important part of the Confucian canon until modern times.
- 14.
Donald Holzman, ‘The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China’, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 118, No. 2 (Apr.–Jun., 1998), pp. 185–199.
- 15.
Cf. Margaret Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition.
- 16.
The translation is from Thomasl. Pangle, with notes and an interpretive essay, Basic Books, Inc., 1980.
- 17.
Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 68.
- 18.
Xuan Chien argues: ‘Some important provisions relating to mourning dress entered the law that was formulated by the government after the Qin and Han dynasties, and adapted for the patriarchal clan system. The tradition of mourning dress was practiced for more than two thousand years in the traditional society of China. It was less than a hundred years until the eradication of the feudal society and the decline of the patriarchal clan system. […] From the beginning of the Western Zhou Dynasty, throughout the feudal society, to the founding of the People’s Republic of China, some funeral rituals have been implemented among the people. Although the details will not be exactly the same as those of the Zhou Dynasty, some of the procedures still retain original features. The reason why the tradition of mourning dress spread so widely and endured for so long is that it has a long history of roots and a profound social foundation.’ See Xuan Chien, Study on Three Books of Rites (in Chinese), Nanjing Normal University Press, 1996, pp. 459, 579. I continue discussing these two ideas in relation to the different ritualized procedures of the funeral in the follow-up study.
- 19.
As Xuan Chien said: ‘Confucian philosophers think that Li education is a way of administering the country’s learning which is directly related to the establishment of the state, social customs, and personal morality. …The Li is concerned with governance practices for the country in the world context, until the end of the Qing Dynasty.’ See Xuan Chien, Study on Three Books of Rites, p. 1.
- 20.
Chen Lai argued: ‘Instead of affirming the necessity of ritual sacrifices from the perspective of religious belief, the intellectuals affirmed their social functions. They also showed that paying close attention to the realm of society and politics far outweighed the concern with the world of the gods.’ See Chen Lai, The World of Ancient Ideology and Culture—Religion, Ethics and Social Thoughts in the Spring-Autumn Period (in Chinese), Beijing: San-Lian Publishing House, 2002, p. 14.
- 21.
Schwartz compared the different attitudes and ideas of the two ancient thinkers, Confucius and Plato, about death and family. He analysed incisively: ‘He (Confucius) concentrates on sentiments associated with the nuclear family and with the immediately departed. Gratitude toward parents for their nurturing love, responsibility of adult children for aged and feeble parents, and a prolonged sense of loss when they depart—these sentiments can be found in all cultures. The particular intensity of Confucius’ focus on these dispositions nevertheless indicates an ongoing cultural stress on them which makes them something much more than simple universal ‘natural sentiments’. It is basically in the family that one first finds the emergence of rules of behavior based on spiritual-moral assent rather than on physical coercion. The sentiments of gratitude and self-abnegation that dominate the prolonged mourning rites for parents may be considered the ultimate basis of that power of yielding (jang) on which all li are based. It is first of all in the family that li and jen are ideally fused. […] It is in the family that one learns how to exercise authority and how to submit to authority, and it is only the man of jen who can do both. The family is ideally the first school of virtue and the source of those values which make possible the good society. Plato, in contrast, provides us with all the reasons why the family is not the source of virtue. It is a particularistic ‘private’ group within the polis bent primarily on the promotion of its own economic interests. Instead of focusing men’s minds on large public matters, it locks men into an overwhelming concern with the petty joys and sorrows of other family members. The company of wives and children provides little room for intellectual enlargement. Hence the ‘public’ virtues can only be developed in the public arena.’ See Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, pp. 99–100.
- 22.
This is different from some western thinkers or scholars in the past who understood Chinese ‘Li’ , for example, Max Weber considered: ‘Even in intra-familial relationships there was a ceremonious punctilio and a selfish fear of the spirits. […] The Confucian the pruning of freely expressed and original impulse was of a different nature. The watchful self-control of the Confucian was to maintain the dignity of external gesture and manner, to keep ‘face.’ This self-control was of an aesthetic and essentially negative nature. Dignified deportment, in itself devoid of definite content, was esteemed and desired. The equally vigilant self-control of the Puritan had as its positive aim a definitely qualified conduct and, beyond this, it had as an inward aim systematic control of one’s own nature which was regarded as wicked and sinful.’ See Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, trans. and ed. by Hans H. Gerth, The Free Press, 1951, pp. 233, 244. J. G. A. Pocock said: ‘Since rituals are non-verbal, they have no contraries. They can therefore be used to produce harmony of wills and actions without provoking recalcitrance; if a man finds himself playing his appointed part in li and thus already—as it were de facto—in harmony with others, it no more occurs to him to play a part other than that appointed to him than it occurs to a dancer to move to a different rhythm than that being played by the orchestra. […] But precisely because rituals have no contraries, the values of a ritual-controlled society cannot be questioned or doubted, and the Confucian world, being without moral alternatives, is a closed society.’ See J. G. A. Pocock, Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History, The University of Chicago Press, 1989, pp. 45–46. Herbert Fingarette argued: ‘The ceremony may have a surface slickness but yet be dull, mechanical for lack of serious purpose and commitment. Beautiful and effective ceremony requires the personal ‘presence’ to be fused with learned ceremonial skill.’ See Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, New York: Harper and Row, 1972, p. 8. However, Benjamin I. Schwartz refuted: ‘What I shall here contend, however, is that the view which Fingarette harshly attacks—namely that Confucius is vitally concerned with qualities, capacities, and inner mental dispositions which we associate not simply with concrete acts but with living persons as persons—is a correct view, and that Confucius’ emphasis on these inner qualities is one of his true innovations. […] None of this implies the stark dichotomy of ‘individual versus society’ against which Fingarette inveighs. Confucius’ individual is indeed a thoroughly social being and thoroughly oriented toward action. Yet the notion that this social nature and action-orientation are incompatible with a sustained inner life of the person reflects Fingarette’s own involvement with the modern Western psychology/sociology antithesis rather than anything found in the Analects.’ See Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, pp. 72, 74.
References
Alexiou, Margaret. 2002. The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Revised. Dimitrios Yatromanolakis and Panagiotis Roilos, 2nd ed. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Chang, K. C. 1983. Art, Myth, and Ritual: The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Harvard University Press.
Chen, Lai 陈来. 2002. The World of Ancient Ideology and Culture—Religion, Ethics and Social Thoughts in the Spring-Autumn Period 古代思想文化的世界—春秋时代的宗教、伦理与社会思想. Beijing: San-Lian Publishing House 三联书店.
Chien, Xuan 钱玄. 1996. Study on Three Books of Rites 三礼通论. Nanjing Normal University Press.
Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton University Press.
Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred, New York: Harper and Row.
Gong, Duan-Li 龚端礼. 1996. Illustration of Wu-Fu 五服图解. Shanghai Ancient Documents Press上海古籍出版社.
Holzman, Donald. 1998. The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China. Journal of the American Oriental Society 118: 185–199.
Kurtz, Donna C. and Boardman, John. 1971. Greek Burial Customs. Thames and Hudson.
Nagy, Gregory. 2010. Ancient Greek Elegy. Ed. Karen Weisman. The Oxford Handbook of Elegy. Oxford University Press.
Pocock, J. G. A. 1989. Politics, Language, and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History. The University of Chicago Press.
Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Harvard University Press.
Weber, Max. 1951. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. Trans. and ed. by Hans H. Gerth. The Free Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wu, X. (2018). Conclusions. In: Mourning Rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China. Palgrave Pivot, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0632-7_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0632-7_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0631-0
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-0632-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)