Of special interest is the evidence regarding Korean customs and beliefs. Mrs. Bishop writes: “Man is supposed to have three souls. After death one occupies the tablet, one the grave, and one the unknown. During the passing of the spirit there is complete silence. The under-garments of the dead are taken out by a servant, who waves them in the air, and calls him by name, the relations and friends meantime wailing loudly. After a time the clothes are thrown upon the roof.” When a man dies, one of his souls is supposed to be seized and carried to the unknown and placed on trial before the Ten Judges, who sentence it “either to ‘a good place’ or to one of the manifold hells”.[74]
Professor Elliot Smith, reviewing the Chinese ideas regarding the two souls, comes to the conclusion that “the early Chinese conceptions of the soul and its functions are essentially identical with the Egyptian, and must have been derived from the same source”.[75] As the Chinese [[242]]have the shen and the Kwei, so had the Egyptians the Ka and the ba. The Ka was the spirit of the placenta, “which was accredited with the attributes of the life-giving and birth-promoting Great Mother and intimately related to the moon and the earliest totem”.[76] In China the beliefs and customs connected with the placenta and the moon are quite Egyptian in character.[77]
Even in the worship of ancestors in China one can trace the influence of Ancient Egyptian ideas. When the Pharaoh died, he was identified with the god. King Unis, in the Pyramid Texts, becomes Osiris, who controls the Nile. “It is Unis”, we read, “who inundates the land.” Pepi I, in like manner, supplanted the god, and he is addressed as Osiris, as is also King Mernere—“Ho this Osiris, King Mernere!” runs a Pyramid Text.[78] The sun-god Ra was similarly supplanted by his son, the dead Pharaoh.
The souls of Chinese ancestors, who passed to the Otherworld, became identified with the deities who protected households. Emperors became, after death, emperors in heaven and their souls were the deified preservers of their dynasties. Clan and tribal ancestors were protectors of their clans and tribes, and families were ever under the care of the souls of their founders. The belief became deeply rooted in China that the ancestral soul exercised from generation to generation a beneficent influence over a home. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that gods are exceedingly numerous in China, and that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish an ancestor from a god and a god from an ancestor. The State religion was something apart from domestic [[243]]religion. Emperors worshipped the deities that controlled the nation’s destinies, and families worshipped the deities of the household.
Local and imported beliefs were fused and developed on Chinese soil, and when, in time, Buddhism was introduced it was mixed with pre-existing religious systems. Chinese Buddhism is consequently found to have local features that distinguish it from the Buddhism of Tibet, Burmah, and Japan, in which countries there was, in like manner, culture-mixing.
Beliefs connected with jade, which date back to the time when the jade fished from the rivers of Chinese Turkestan was identified with pearls and gold, were similarly developed in China. At first the jade was used to assist birth and to cure diseases. It likewise brought luck, being an object that radiated the influence of the All-Mother. As the living had their days prolonged and their youth revived by jade, so were the dead preserved from decay by the influence of the famous mineral. The custom ultimately obtained of eating jade, as has already been noted in these pages. Ground jade or “pure extract of jade” was not only supposed to promote longevity, but to effect a ceremonial connection between the worshipper and the spirits or deities. In the Chou li it is stated that “when the Emperor purifies himself by abstinence, the chief in charge of the jade works prepares for him the jade which he is obliged to eat”.[79] It is explained by commentators that “the emperor fasts and purifies himself before communicating with the spirits; he must take the pure extract of jade; it is dissolved that he may eat it”. Jade was also pounded with rice as food for the corpse. “A marvellous kind of jade”, says Laufer, “was called Yü ying, ‘the perfection of jade’,” which ensured eternal [[244]]life. “In 163 B.C. a jade cup of this kind was discovered on which the words were engraved ‘May the sovereign of men have his longevity prolonged’.” Immortality was secured by eating from jade bowls, or, as we have seen, by drinking dew from a jade bowl.[80]
As has been shown, the Great Mother created jade for the benefit of mankind, and “the spirit of jade is like a beautiful woman”.[81] Jade was also “the essence of the purity of the male principle”.[82]
Apparently the god who was husband and son of the Great Mother was connected with jade. The Mother was the life-giver, and the son, as Osiris, was “the imperishable principle of life wherever found”.[83] If men died, the seed of life in the body was preserved by jade amulets; the plants might shed their leaves, but the life of the plants was perpetuated by the spirit of jade. “In the second month”, says The Illustrated Mirror of Jade, “the plants in the mountains receive a brighter lustre. When their leaves fall, they change into jade.”[84] The mountain plants in question appear to be the curative herbs that contained, like jade, the elixir of life, and the chief of these plants was the ginseng (mandrake), an avatar of the Great Mother. The plant, or ground jade, or food or moisture from the jade vessel renewed youth and prolonged life. All the elixirs were concentrated in jade; the vital principle in human beings and plants was derived from and preserved by jade.
It is of special interest to find that the Chinese Nu Kwa who caused the flood to retreat was the creator of the jade which protected mankind and ensured longevity by preserving the seed or shen of life, being impregnated with Yang, the male principle. In Babylonia, the seed of [[245]]mankind was preserved during the flood by the nig-gil-ma.
In the Sumerian version of the Creation legend, the three great gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the Great Mother goddess Ninkharasagga, first created mankind, then the nig-gil-ma, and lastly the four-legged animals of the field. The mysterious nig-gil-ma is referred to in the story of the Deluge as “Preserver of the seed of mankind”, while the ship or ark is “Preserver of Life”, literally “She that preserves life”. A later magical text refers to the creation after that of mankind and animals of “two small creatures, one white and one black”. Man and animals were saved from the flood and the nig-gil-ma played its or their part “in ensuring their survival”.