In jade-lore, as will be seen, we touch on complex religious beliefs and conceptions not entirely of Chinese origin. Indeed, it is necessary to leave China and investigate the religious systems of more ancient countries to understand rightly Chinese ideas regarding jade as a substitute for gold, pearls, precious stones, &c., and its connection with vegetation and the Great Mother, the source of all life.
It remains with us to deal with Chinese ideas regarding the soul which was protected by jade, the concentrated form of “soul substance”.
The Chinese believed that a human being had two souls. One was the Kwei, that is the soul which partook of the nature of the element Yin and returned to the earth from which it originally came;[69] the other soul was the shen which partook of the element Yang. When the shen is in the living body, it is called Khi or “breath”; after death “it lives forth as a refulgent spirit, styled ming”. The other soul, called Kwei, is known as the pʼoh during life; after death it lives on in the grave beside the body, which is supposed to be protected against decay by the jade, gold, pearls, shells, &c., and the good influences “flowing” from east and west.
The shen, like the cicada, may also dwell for a time in the grave or in the gravestone before it rises on wings to the Sky Paradise, or passes to the Western Paradise or the Eastern “Islands of the Blest”. Ancient local [[240]]and tribal beliefs and beliefs imported at different periods from different culture centres were evidently fused in China, and we consequently meet with a variety of ideas regarding the destiny of the shen. “Departed souls”, says De Groot, “are sometimes popularly represented as repairing to the regions of bliss on the back of a crane.”[70] The soul may sail to the Western Paradise in a boat. “Thou hast departed to the West, from whence there is no returning in the barge of mercy”, runs an address to the corpse.[70] Here we have the Ra-boat of Egypt conveying the soul to the Osirian Paradise. As has been shown, souls sometimes departed on the backs of dragons, or rose in the air towards cloudland, there to sail in boats or ride on the backs of birds or kirins, or reached the moon or star-land by climbing a gigantic tree. Belief in transmigration of souls can also be traced in China, the result apparently of the importation of pre-Buddhist as well as Buddhist beliefs from India.
The living performed ceremonies to assist the soul of the dead on its last journey. Priests chanted:
I salute Ye, Celestial Judges of the three spheres constituting the higher, middle, and lower divisions of the Universe, and Ye, host of Kings and nobles of the departments of land and water and of the world of men! Remember the soul of the dead, and help it forward in going to the Paradise of the West.[71]
Egyptian, Babylonian, and Indian ideas regarding the Western Paradise are here significantly mingled.
During life the soul might leave the body for a period, either during sleep or when one fainted suddenly.
This belief is widespread. The soul, in folk-stories, is sometimes seen, as in Scotland, as a bee, or bird, or serpent, as in Norway as an insect or mouse, as in Indonesia [[241]]and elsewhere as a worm, snake, butterfly, or mouse, and even, as in different countries, as deer, cats, pigs, crocodiles, &c. Chinese beliefs regarding souls as butterflies, cicadas, &c., have already been referred to.
The wandering soul could be “called back” by repeating the individual’s name. In China, even the dead were called back, and the ceremony of recalling the soul is prominent in funeral rites, as De Groot shows.[72] Peoples as far separated as the Mongolian Buriats and the inhabitants of England, Scotland, and Ireland believed that ghosts could be enticed to return to the body.[73] The “death-howl” in China and Egypt, and elsewhere, is evidently connected with this ancient belief.