CHAPTER X
HADES, OR THE LAND OF SHADOWS
Death a great problem that has been studied by the Chinese—Attempts to solve the mystery—Conception of the Dark World—A counterpart of China—Story of the scholar—Other life a continuation of this—Doctrine of retribution—Metempsychosis—Modifications of this great doctrine possible—The stories of the witch—Happiness of the dead influenced by the condition of the graves—No babies in the Land of Shadows.
The great problem of death is one that has oppressed the Chinese people in all ages with its profound mystery, and has cast its shadow upon the thought and life of the nation. The great sage of China, Confucius, discoursed eloquently upon Heaven and its great principles, and has left on record statements about it that cause those who can read below the surface to see in the picture he has drawn a dim and shadowy vision of the true God. He discoursed also about the duties of life and the human relationships with such broad and statesmanlike views that twenty-five centuries have passed by since they were first penned, and yet the Empire accepts them to-day as the very inspiration of genius.
The subject of death was one that he would never discuss. He had evidently pondered over it, but had found it too full of mystery for him to grapple with, and he was too honest to pretend to be able to lay down any rules by which the anxious seeker could find comfort when he came to stand face to face with this grim enemy of our race. One of his disciples said to him one day, “Master, I venture to ask you to tell us something about death.” Confucius replied, “Whilst we do not know sufficiently of life, how can we know anything about death?”
A most pathetic commentary on the national feeling of helplessness with regard to the question of death is seen in the graves that form so conspicuous an object in any landscape that may be seen in any part of China. The overwhelming population that must have peopled the plains and valleys and mountain sides of this great country may in no uncertain manner be estimated from the prodigious number of tombs that project themselves upon one’s attention everywhere. The one marked feature about every one of these is the utter absence of any indication that the living have any conception of where the dead have gone to. The gravestones are absolutely silent on this point. In Christian cemeteries they speak with affection of those that are gone, and they predict a joyful union in the future, whilst some of them at least declare with confidence the happy lot in the unseen world of beloved ones that have been snatched away by death from those who have been left mourning their loss here.
A Chinese tombstone is usually stereotyped in the cold and dreary statement it has to make about those who lie beneath it. On the top is the name of the dynasty or of the place where the person was born, then in a perpendicular line in the centre of it is the sex and family name of the deceased. To the left, in smaller letters, is the name of their sons, and positively nothing else. There is no loving record of their virtues, and no hope expressed as to any meeting them in the future. They seem to have dropped completely out of life, as far as any mention is made of them. It is true that in the worship at the graves on the “Feast of Tombs,” and in the ancestral temples on the anniversary of their death, they are spoken to as though they were still living; but they are approached on those occasions not in the loving and affectionate way that was done when they were alive, but rather as spirits that must be propitiated in order to send blessings on their former homes, or coaxed into good humour so as to cause them to refrain from hurling calamities upon the friends whom they have left behind them.
But whilst death is a secret that none may fathom, it has not led men to give up in despair the hopes of solving it. The Chinese, whilst feeling themselves unable to find out what lies behind it, have built up a mythical and yet at the same time a very human conception of what the “Shadowy World” is supposed to be like. Having nothing to guide them in their thoughts but the world of matter around them, they have imagined that Hades is an exact counterpart of China, and that it has its emperor and great and small mandarins, and provinces and counties with exactly the same names that these have in the actual and visible lands of the Celestial Empire.
That this is the conception of the thinkers and writers of this country is evident from one of the fairy stories contained in a popular work which gives a large number of exciting and wonderful incidents where the fairies are the principal actors in the stirring events that are recorded.
In this it is told how that a certain scholar became seriously ill, and it became evident that unless some great change took place, he would soon die. As he lay in great pain and weariness on his bed, a man of stately and dignified appearance, and one that he had no recollection of ever having seen before, suddenly stood in the doorway of his bedroom, and, saluting him with a pleasant smile, invited him to rise and go with him. “I have a horse outside ready to carry you,” he said, “and I want you to accompany me on a journey that I wish you to take with me.” “But I am too ill to get up,” the scholar said. “I feel so weak that I can hardly lift my hand, and to attempt to travel would certainly end in failure.” “Oh! no,” gently said the stranger, who was really a fairy, “with my assistance I think you will be able to manage it,” and taking him by the hand, he tenderly raised him from the bed and led him with slow and faltering footsteps into the open space in front of the house, where a white horse, beautifully caparisoned, awaited his coming.