Ghosts in Chinese culture
features a rich variety of ghosts, monsters, and other supernatural creatures. According to traditional beliefs a ghost is the spirit form of a person who has died. Ghosts are typically malevolent and will cause harm to the living if provoked. Many Chinese folk beliefs about ghosts have been adopted into the mythologies and folklore of neighboring East Asian cultures, notably Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Beliefs about ghosts are closely associated with Chinese ancestor worship, where much have been incorporated into Buddhism and in turn influenced and created uniquely Chinese Buddhist beliefs about the supernatural.
Traditionally, the Chinese believed that it was possible to contact the spirits of deceased relatives and ancestors through a medium. It was believed that the spirits of the deceased can help them if they were properly respected and rewarded. The annual Hungry Ghost Festival, celebrated in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and elsewhere in the Chinese diaspora, is dedicated to performing rituals to honor and remember the spirits of the dead. On this day ghosts and other supernatural creatures come out from the underworld and move among the living. Families prepare food and other offerings and place them on a shrine dedicated to deceased relatives. Incense and paper money are burned and other rituals are performed in hopes that the spirits of the dead will protect and bring good luck to the family.
Ghosts are described in classical Chinese texts and continue to be depicted in modern literature and movies.
Terminology
鬼 is the general Chinese term for ghost, used in combination with other symbols to give related meanings such as guilao, literally "ghost man", a Cantonese pejorative term for foreigners, and meaning "devil". Characters such as also carry related meanings., also called is the sovereign of the underworld. He is also the judge of the underworld, and decides whether the dead will have good or miserable future lives. Although ultimately based on the god Yama of the Hindu Vedas, the Buddhist Yan Wang has developed different myths and different functions from the Hindu deity. Yan Wang is normally depicted wearing a Chinese judge's cap in Chinese and Japanese art. He sometimes appears on Chinese hell bank notes.
is the vanquisher of ghosts and evil beings. Portraits of him were hung in Chinese houses at the end of the Chinese lunar year to scare away evil spirits and demons. He is depicted as fierce man with a black face and a comic beard brandishing a magic sword. Zhong Kui is said to be himself the ghost of a man who failed to pass the civil service examinations and committed suicide. He then became a ghost hunter. There is a story that the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang once dreamed that a small ghost stole the purse of the imperial consort. A larger ghost – Zhong Kui – captured the smaller one and returned the purse.
History
There has been extensive interaction between traditional Chinese beliefs and the more recent Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism.Ancestor worship is the original basic Chinese religion. The core belief is that there is a continued existence after death.
It is thought that the soul of a deceased person is made up of yin and yang components called hun and po. The yin component, po, is associated with the grave, and the yang component, hun, is associated with ancestral tablets. At death the components split into three different souls; the po stays with the body to the grave, another goes to judgment, and the hun resides in an ancestral tablet. The po and hun are not immortal and need to be nourished by offerings made by descendants. Eventually both the po and hun go to the underworld, although the hun goes to heaven first. Unlike in western usages of the term, underworld has no negative connotation.
King Xuan of Zhou according to Chinese legend executed his minister, Tu Po, on false charges even after being warned that Tu Po's ghost would seek revenge. Three years later, according to historical chronicles, Tu Po's ghost shot and killed Xuan with a bow and arrow before an assembly of feudal lords. The Chinese philosopher, Mo Tzu, is quoted as having commented:
If from antiquity to the present, and since the beginning of man, there are men who have seen the bodies of ghosts and spirits and heard their voices, how can we say that they do not exist? If none have heard them and none have seen them, then how can we say they do? But those who deny the existence of the spirits say: "Many in the world have heard and seen something of ghosts and spirits. Since they vary in testimony, who are to be accepted as really having heard and seen them?" Mo Tzu said: As we are to rely on what many have jointly seen and what many have jointly heard, the case of Tu Po is to be accepted.
Religious Taoism finally came together during the Han dynasty around the time Buddhism was introduced to China, and it rose to predominance during the Tang dynasty, which initially tolerated its coexistence. Reverence for nature and ancestor spirits is common in popular Taoism. Banned during the Cultural Revolution, religious Taoism is undergoing a major revival today, and it is the spirituality followed by about 30% of the total Chinese population.
File:Buddhism Mass in Ghost Festival.JPG|thumb|300px| A modern Buddhist ceremony held in Guanghua Temple in Beijing.
Buddhism was introduced into China in the 1st century CE, and rapidly became popular with its belief in a continuous cycle of rebirth and more complex ghost beliefs, although the older beliefs lingered. The entry of Buddhism into China was marked by interaction and syncretism with Taoism in particular. Originally seen as a kind of "foreign Taoism", Buddhism's scriptures were translated into Chinese using the Taoist vocabulary.
Elements of pre-Han dynasty mythologies such as those in Shan Hai Jing were adapted into these belief systems as they developed, or were assimilated into Chinese culture. On the other hand, elements from the teachings and beliefs of these systems became incorporated into Chinese mythology. For example, the Taoist belief of a spiritual paradise became incorporated into mythology, as the place where immortals and deities dwell.
The state of ancestor veneration in modern-day China is reported to be declining in urban areas; however, in rural areas of China, as well as Taiwan, ancestor worship and its practices can still be commonly found.
Andrew Kipnis finds that, because of the rapid urbanization of China, urban dwellers are more afraid of ghosts than people in the countryside.
City people are more detached from death and from the people they interact with and, hence, view the death of their neighbors as a potential source of ghosts.
Rural dwellers see the people around them as relatives to some degree so, when they die, they can become ancestors rather than ghosts after the proper ceremonies.
Urban cemeteries and funeral businesses are inauspicious and depreciate surrounding real estate.
Apartments where unusual deaths happened can be listed in online lists of haunted places lowering the rent price.
Authorities try to remove the deceased and the associated facilities from view.
Announcing a death in the apartment block is distasteful and setting up an altar for a deceased relative can be illegal in the bigger cities.
Scattering the ashes of a cremated person in a park is not allowed as it would make park visitors afraid of ghosts.
Funeral parlors may set up small fires so that visitors can jump over them to counter the yin received from the dead.
Practices and beliefs
Types of ghosts
Many kinds of ghosts have been introduced throughout Chinese folklore and philosophy. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, ghosts are depicted as the souls of wicked humans who, after undergoing punishment for their offenses in the afterlife, are eventually reborn as demons. Like the immortal xian, the text describes ten types of ghosts, characterizing each type with their principal offense and their unique ability:- Weird ghosts were consumed by materialism in life and can transform into any physical object.
- Drought ghosts were consumed by carnal lust in life and can create hot, dry winds.
- Trickster ghosts caused confusion in life and can transform into animals.
- Venomous ghosts were hateful to others in life and can transform into insects.
- Pestilence ghosts harbored grudges in life and can cause disease and decay.
- Hungry ghosts were arrogant in life and can take on gaseous forms.
- Nightmare ghosts were frauds in life and can transform into pure darkness.
- Goblin ghosts were corrupted by their desire for insight in life and are formed from the essential energy within rocks and trees.
- Servant ghosts were corrupted by their desire for accomplishment in life and can transform into blinding light.
- Messenger ghosts were litigious in life and can transform into any person.
- Ghosts without means :
- *Torch-mouth ghosts have mouths like burning torches.
- *Needle-mouth ghosts have mouths no bigger than needles, so they cannot satisfy their hunger or thirst.
- *Foul-mouth ghosts have vile breath, disgusting even to themselves.
- Ghosts with small means :
- *Needle-hair ghosts have hair like iron needles, distressing to themselves and others.
- *Smelly-hair ghosts have spike-like hair that emits an awful odor.
- *Tumour ghosts have large goiters on whose pus they must feed.
- Ghosts with excessive means :
- *Ghosts hoping for offerings live on sacrificial offerings, usually from their descendants.
- *Ghosts hoping for leavings or ghosts that inhale energy eat any human leftovers, and can even devour the qi of living beings.
- *Ghosts of great powers are powerful rulers of ghosts, who are perpetually aggressive and violent.
One particular type of ghost, the, is referenced in the four-character classical idiom. In folklore, the chang ghost is said to be the ghost of a person who died of a tiger bite who then assists the tiger by luring to it further victims. This idiom then translates literally to "serving as a chang for the tiger", or more loosely as "serving as the tiger's accomplice". Used metaphorically, it refers to a person helping a villain commit evil, with the implication that the person was initially a disinterested party or was even previously a victim of the villain.