The Chinese Belief on Death and Dying Essay

Introduction

Death is definite but cannot be specified or identified in the human way of life, even though we do fight with its certainty.

Regardless of death’s omnipresence, it is an occurrence conceptualized in another and different manner depending on the culture or characteristic of an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a group or nation.

These distinctions are visible due to several cultures act of subjecting to an influencing experience of death in the African perspective, the keeping with the nature of the Bible or its times, the people from the Middle Eastern part of the world, and the contemporary character of the continental islands of the Americas.

This paper will be related to the Chinese and their religious belief of death and dying with their analysis of death and the association with the process of passing from life or ceasing to be (Brennan, 2005). The paper will further focus on Chinese mythology, legend, and belief in death and dying. The paper will also describe the ceremonial and ritual sacrifices being practiced by the Chinese about death and dying.

As regards the theological perspective and definition of death, it will be observed that death is characterized as the separation of the actuating cause of individual life and body. But as Professor Philip Keane presented an opposition that nobody has perceived by sight or has the power to perceive by the sight that the soul has gone away from the body.

This explanation on the topic of death and dying, as reported or stated by another theologian of German origin known as Karl Rahner, who expressed that Professor Philip Keane’s analysis of death falls short in what is expected to point out the distinction from soul factor of the death of any creature.

Concerning philosophy and series of assessments, death is characterized as the termination of the integrated regular operation of the human system (soul) which is considered analogous in structure or function to a living body.

This dissolution is like the departure of the entire structure of an organism and the actuating cause of an individual life’s characterization and not an apparent description.

The prehistoric Chinese assumed that life after death was very comparable to life going on in the abode of mortals (as contrasted with Heaven or Hell). However, working out a prescribed procedure for conducting religious ceremonies served as an approach of organizing and arranging dead family members for the Life after death, nevertheless, they also linked the existing human being to the departed (Shohov, 2003, p.122).

The Chinese believe on death and dying

In line with the above introduction, the Chinese populace has a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny in an uninterrupted connection or union between this earth (life) and the subsequent (death). However, both worlds were brought into conformity with rules, and principles by bureaucratic principles that reflect the imperial bureaucracy (Brennan, 2005).

There was as Thomas Laqueur pointed out that no fundamental doctrine that reality consists of two basic opposing elements in Chinese notion-distinguishing body and soul-comparable to the central apprehension that determines the European notions of death. In other words, the “moment of death,” through which body and soul were eternally separated, did not have the equivalent meaning among Chinese as it has among Europeans. One of the most important objectives of the Chinese was to preserve the dead body of a human being and spirit together at some point in the early stages of death; however, parting of the corpse earlier than the ritualized act of forcing out from the community was considered to bring the state of extreme ruin and misfortune.

The Chinese ideology on death and dying

The additional fundamental attribute of Chinese ideology on the subject of life after death was the belief that an individual societal relative position or standing remained mostly unaffected by death.

Above all, both worlds were controlled or ruled by superior authority or power of the close connection marked by community of interests or similarity in nature or character, and it was assumed that death did not end the state of connectedness between agnatic kinsmen (Liu, 1981). It is important to note that, for the majority of the Chinese populace, it was a patrilinear kinship that continues in existence further than death; multilateral connection (through one’s mother) and final relationships (through marriage) were usually ended upon death.

The ideological distinctive group of people with some shared interest of late imperial China was also being controlled or influenced by the belief that the soul, or spirit, was composed of several parts (Watson, & Rawski, 1988). There is a substantial discussion on the subject of the precise spatial attributes of the soul.

Chinese Mythology and Legend on death and dying

The Chinese believe that the death sentence is passed on a soul by Yanluo. About this, Yanluo is viewed as not merely the sovereign or commander but also the authority that can estimate worth or quality of the world of the dead and delivers judgment on every single dead being.

Yanluo all the time and on every occasion Come into sight or view in the form of a male being and his servile or fawning dependant include a public official authorized to decide questions brought before a court of justice and also who held a brush and a reporting note that comprises of every soul’s sin and the assigned date of death of all human being.

The Chinese mythology believed that once an individual dies, there are some guardians whose task is to bring such people for judgment. According to the Chinese belief of death and dying which as a result bring into existence for judgment the Ox-Head and Horse-Face, whom they believe are the dreadful and freighting custodians of the world of the dead, fetch for the not long-dead human being, one after the other, in the front Yanluo for assessment of their deed while living.

The Chinese also believed that the vital principle or animating forces of the dead, on being passed a judgment upon by Yanluo, are required or under orders to either go through a limited period of satisfaction in an extended spatial location which is at the middle between the abode of mortals and the place of complete bliss and delight and peace of the gods or to experience their mode and level of penalty in Naraka (Roberts, 2009, p.29).

About this Naraka, is believed by the Chinese to be the world that dwells beneath the surface of the earth, which is situated in an indefinite or unknown location in the southern district. Where, after that, they may come again to the Earth as a new being with a new soul and body.

The historical belief of the Chinese on death and dying

According to history, the Chinese world populace appreciated prolonged existence, and the death of an old aged person was as much a vaguely specified social event for the feeling of great happiness as for mourning.

Moreover, in agreement with what the Chinese already known and believed which is compatible with their feeling of profound respect for prolonged existence, they observed and believed that the death of a young person in an early period of life is as a sign of an evil spirit at work, which in turn strikes all young people and hence a warning that something unpleasant is imminent to other people.

They also believed that, at death, the body-soul system is caused to separate and go in different directions and the dead human being becomes a sacred earlier form from which a later form evolved (Aiken, 2001, p.151).

Ritual belief of the Chinese towards death

In china it is believed that to bury a dead individual or person without suitability, rightness or appropriateness of attention to ritual ceremonies is to bring into existence a starving ghost who will come back to inflict any large scale calamity (especially when thought to be sent by God) on the living, however, if we are to relate the Chinese belief of death and dying with the axiom of Elisabeth Kubler-ross which quotes that “I’ve told my children that when I die, to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I graduated. For me, death is a graduation”- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, one will agree that the doctrine of analogy between spirits and outlaws is a conscious one in Chinese extended social group having a distinctive cultural and economic organization.

Furthermore, both beliefs continue living outside the constraints of family, kinship, and community. Another uniform characteristic or attribute of the ideological domain of the Chinese is the proposal that there must until the end of time be a sense of balance between the sexes, even in death. The notion of gender, cultural construction, survives in the Chinese life after death.

The Chinese ideological domain

In a close relation or position in time and coupled with the content of cognition on social permanence is the concluding, and most important, prominent attribute or aspects of the Chinese ideological domain: the personal view of switch over between living and the dead.

Death to the Chinese does not end relationships of mutual dependence, action or influence among the Chinese; it basically changes or alters the nature of these social relationship and repeatedly makes them have strength or power greater than average or expected.

The ritual and funeral rites belief on death in the Chinese culture

A central characteristic of Chinese funerals and post burial practices is the transfer of food, money, and goods to the dead. As a result of the stated practice and in exchange or in reciprocation according to the Chinese custom and tradition, the existing look forward to obtain definite material benefits, including luck, wealth, and immediate descendants.

This odd, fanciful or capricious idea of continued switch over between living and dead is the foundation of late imperial China’s ideological domain. In other words, all prescribed procedure for conducting religious ceremonies associated with death is carried out as if there were a continued link between the existing and dead. It is inappropriate whether or not partakers really accept as true that the spirit continues to exist or that the introduction of offerings has an outcome on the dead. What matters is that the Chinese customary observance or practices are executed according to established process.

According to the Chinese custom Daoist priests carries out a chain of rites over some weeks subsequent to a person’s death (ter Haar. 2000, p.92). The most important was to get rid of the SEN SHIN, a demon in charge of bringing the soul back to the home where it had lived, but a potentially evil power (Birrell, 1999, p.216).

Nevertheless, during funeral, family members would spread out on the streets with round paper slips called “road money,” which could be used to buy the disposition to kindness and compassion of Demons and nomadic ghosts so that they would not harm the dead on the way to the place for the burial or the place of complete bliss and delight and peace.

In the prehistoric times, Emperors would have number of armies of small status made; signifying the powers they would command in the next world.

Dead rich people would be buried with a complete set of domestic and personal items, including money and jewellery. However, in the later traditional practices, pictures of household belongings would be burned in the idea that the smoke would get to the dead in heaven and turn into a spiritual description of the worldly goods.

The deceased were buried in a coffin very close to the family’s house in order for the family to perform the annual graveside family rituals of gift sacrifices of food, money, and prayers of mid-April. The rituals integrated laying out meats, vegetables, and drink for the recurring soul. Sticks of incense, firecrackers, and gold and silver paper (which were burned on the site) were also meant to assist the spirit with food and money all through the coming year. Afterward a family would attach long slip of red and white paper to the angles of the grave to show that they had performed their obligation (Watson, & Rawski, 1988).

In line with this, it will be observed that the whole world is on a more precise view with the biological study of the definition of death and dying. At this juncture, death is judged or regarded as a stop in the process of taking in and expelling air during breathing and the rhythmic contraction and expansion of the arteries with each beat of the heart. This is better known as loosing ones soul.

Works Cited

Aiken, Lewis R. Dying, death, and bereavement. Mahwah, NJ: Taylor & Francis, 2001. Print.

Birrell, Anne. Chinese mythology: an introduction. Baltimore, Maryland: JHU Press, 1999. Print.

Brennan, Mary. Death and dying: Death is a biological certainty but the practices surrounding death and mourning are socially constructed. Socially Review, 14 (3), 26-28. 2005.

Liu, Da. The Tao and Chinese culture. London: Taylor & Francis, 1981. Print.

Roberts, Jeremy. Chinese Mythology A to Z. New York, NY: Infobase Publishing, 2009. Print.

Shohov, Serge P. Advances in Psychology Research, Volume 28. New York, NY: Nova Publishers, 2003. Print.

ter Haar, Barenda J. Ritual & mythology of the Chinese triads: creating an identity. Leiden, The Netherlands: BRILL, 2000. Print.

Watson, James L. & Rawski Evelyn Sakakida. Death ritual in late imperial and modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1988. Print.