Page 129 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

OVERVIEW

against their deceased kin (and still causing illness or death among the living
owing to the legal principle of the collective responsibility of relatives; on the
early forms of this notion see under * chengfu). The Zhengao details several such
cases that affected the Xu ft family (the patrons of *Yang Xi, who revealed
the *Shangqing scriptures), for instance the troubles encountered by Xu Mi
ft ill\l£ (303-76) when a man his deceased uncle had murdered filed a complaint
before the Water Official of the Three Offices.
The sepulchral plaint became the chief explanation for misfortune in medi-
eval Taoism, and the medieval manual for petitioning celestial officials, *Chisong
zi zhangli (Master Red-Pine's Almanac of Petitions), contains two versions of
a "Great Petition for Sepulchral Plaints" CDa zhongsong zhang" jc~wHit;
trans. Nickerson r997) that detail the supplicant's difficulties, attribute them to
the misdeeds of deceased kin, and call down a panoply of celestial officials to
rectify all problems related to the plaint. Such problems include not only those
directly concerned with the plaintiff's suit, but in particular those connected
with demons of tombs, offended spirits of the earth, and the "prohibitions
and taboos" (*jinji) of astrology and geomancy. Unsurprisingly, the Chisong
zi zhangli often relates problems with tombs and the dead to problems of
soteriology, as where the result of the resolution of a sepulchral plaint and
the release of the departed to heaven is his or her inability to cause disease
among, or further file complaints against, the living (6.rb-2b). Soteriology is
once more linked with juridical! exorcistic concerns.

Death and the afterlift in Taoist ritual. Much of the later history of these issues
may be considered under the rubric of *TAOISM AND ANCESTOR WORSHIP. It
might simply be noted here that many of the patterns outlined above have
persisted to the present. Taoist rites for the dead (the ritual of Merit, *gongde)
still center on the rite of Opening a Road in the Darkness (*kaitong minglu) so
that the deceased may leave the underworld, ascend to the Southern Palace,
and be reborn. This ritual is customarily followed by that of Dispatching the
Writ of Pardon (*fang shema), a document received from the Chancellery of
the Three Heavens and addressed to the Court of the Nine Shades in Fengdu,
which again effects the release of the departed. Typically in the event of early
or violent deaths, the priest, wearing a red headcloth signifying the militaris-
tic/ exorcistic role of the Red-head (hongtou iITmO ritual master (see *hongtou
and wutou), may subsequently carry ou t an Attack on the Fortress (dacheng H
~; see *poyu), a vernacular rite parallel to the preceding classical ones. The
release of the deceased is this time effected by palpable theatre. The priest
violently destroys a paper edifice-the Fortress of Those Who Have Died
Unjustly (wangsi cheng H~~)-and releases a figurine representing the de-
parted. At least in southern Taiwan, the Attack on the Fortress is even more
frequently performed by ritual masters in local temples as an independent