This paper is going to examine how the author has gone about to explore the subject at hand which is the existence of ghosts in ancient Chinese belief systems. Within it will be detailed arguments that the author, Mu-Chou Poo, makes and make an informed decision whether he has successively examined the merits and the shortcomings of the sources he uses for information. This work will be divided into paragraphs that summarize the main points concerning the topic at hand and examine whether the author has indeed studied both sides of the historical sources.
Mo-Chou Poo is a revered Egyptologist with a vast background in ancient Chinese religion. The paper thus serves as a representation of his ability to consolidate his ideas on the relatively neglected area of ghosts within the context of human experience. He seeks to understand why studying ghosts are crucial in ancient Chinese religion. While he does not explicitly delve into answering the question of what came before, the religion or the ghosts, he explains that the two are intertwined and cannot be separated from each other. The author explains that the belief in ghosts is particular to each culture and in studying how they came to be, one cannot merely make assumptions about other culture.
Gui is the Chinese character that denotes a ghost when translated into English. However, this meaning, the author argues is rather shallow, and one should not stop there if they are to capture the essence of the idea of ghosts in pre-modern China. A ghost in China has several definitions just as in the West is a multi-layered term that differs from culture to culture. Since history is prone to the subjectivity of the author and sometimes written for individual ruling authorities at the time they were written, defining the term "gui" has proven problematic the Poo observes. Sometimes the term was used to refer to members of a foreign tribe while in other settings; the term has to be suffixed for it to give the meaning of ghost.
These books provide a rather ambiguous depiction of the religious life the people lived at the time and how ghosts fit in it. The ambiguity is related to the fact these are works of art that are highly subjective and are prone to exaggerations by their authors. They might thus give the reader a sense of what was going on back then but not accurately. However, since they are some of the documents that describe life during these periods they make for excellent primary sources. They go far back at the beginning of the Qing dynasty in the sixteenth century and give detailed accounts of the differing views of the commoner and the elite in the society at the time. The dynasty lasted about 300 years and was led by emperors who were influential voices used to represent the opinion of their subjects. The third source was written by Poo in the twentieth century and thus relatively recent.
While all these sources are efficient in providing the necessary information on the subject, the use of a personally authored book could lead to an insufficient account of the author's current views as he wrote the article. It would be so if the author's opinions on a certain topic have since changed after publishing the book. With that being said, the author has supplemented the sources with a plethora of other secondary sources to try and reduce any bias that he may hold while exploring the subject. The sources, in my opinion, are sufficient and help to elaborate the point of the author about the human experiences of the spirit world.
He makes the strong argument to support his thesis on why studying ghosts provide an answer to the human experience in a religious context. In the article, while he makes clear points of the fundamental ideas of ghosts that existed in the minds of people, he emphasizes that they are not ideal because they only cater to the perception of the minority group in China in ancient times. Another argument that confirms part of his thesis statement that to each culture, different beliefs about ghosts is the shape the ghosts took. In The Book of Rites, a passage he directly lifts from the book defines that a ghost has no physical form, but its presence can be felt. However, the author then offers a different view of the same later on in the passage. He uses a story for Mozi where a ghost was avenging his death took the form of a human. Still yet, in other cultures within China reported ghosts who possessed unusual physical characteristics such as the ghost who appeared in the dream of the Duke of Jin, he ghost had “hair spreading to the ground.”
The paper has provided a road map on how Poo goes about exploring the subject of ghosts in ancient Chinese religion. He begins by providing precise definitions of the term "gui-ghost" and explains the problems one encounters while trying to find a single definition. Due to the diversity of people's cultures, perceptions about ghosts and the human experiences with these ghosts and spirits were thus different as well, and they were embedded in their religion. One cannot only take a simple approach when attempting to grasp the essence of ghosts and the roles they played in living humans' lives and thus confirming his thesis statement that studying ghosts is important to understand human experience. So, the central argument he makes in the paper is that to understand the concept of ghost in any culture fully; one needs to look more into the human experiences with ghosts other than an aspect of the religion that brings about divination of the spirit world.
The paper has also explored the arguments that he has made and the evidence to qualify them too. The author has pointed out that most of the recorded accounts of human experiences with ghosts were highly subjective and reflected only the perceptions of the elite in the society, and this is usually the minority. Thus, if one is to explore the subject, one needs to look into other sources that recount the experiences of commoners in the society that were more representative of ghosts in ancient Chinese religion.
Finally, the paper serves as a learning tool for me and to be used as a reference to how to make solid arguments to support my thesis when writing.
Work Cited
Poo, M. C. The concept of ghost in ancient Chinese religion.Religion and Chinese Society.
