Buddhism's Materialism in the Brashier Hell Scrolls

Two apparently contrary ideas exist in the (largely Buddhist) Chinese discourse on death and passage through the ten hells. On the one hand, there is the biting assertion that at the time of death, nothing material matters any longer, as no wealth or goods can save the dying, nor can any of it be of use to the dead. As we say in the west, naked one comes into the world, naked one goes out. On the other hand, there is the prolific practice of making all kinds of offerings to the dead, a great many of which are very much material, and are very definitely meant to be made available for the use of the deceased during their stays in hell.

From the very beginning, it should be noted that these two ideas can be characterized as representing a more rarefied and philosophical Buddhist discourse, and the less clear-cut realm of Chinese 'popular religion,' respectively. While such a characterization may not be entirely misplaced, it also draws a sharper line between the two than may actually exist. Indeed, the efficacy of offerings to the dead is affirmed in more philosophical texts, and it would be misguided to say that the understanding that one's material goods must be left behind is absent from the 'popular' discourse. Rather than dismissing these two seemingly opposed notions as an instance of disconnection between the religious thought of the literati and the populace, a rough conceptual linkage between these two incompatible ends may be demonstrated.

The benefit of such a demonstration is primarily a familiarization with the particular question of materiality in the Buddhist-influenced Chinese hells; the question itself is not really etically resolvable. While certain emic considerations may be able to unify the two ends (see section IV below), without recourse to such explanations the best that can be done is to show that the two are not treated as mutually exclusive. The two ideas do not exist as separate, conflicting entities, but as ends on a spectrum of belief and practice, relatively distant from one another, but nonetheless connected.

A. Inexorable Death - Materials are worthless

Buddhism is often regarded as an especially death-oriented tradition, and indeed, much of the conception of afterlife manifest as the Chinese hells is made up of ideas and characters imported with Buddhism. When it comes to death, the Buddhist more or less without fail will assert that material goods are of no value to the dying, and that at the time of death, the only thing to be concerned with is how to act so as to best be able to achieve or continue to pursue nirvana. Many texts are devoted to directing one's practice in preparation for death, as well as explaining what should be done as one dies.

Though it is a Tibetan text, Tsong kha pa's "Mindfulness of Death" is a splendid example of such death-preparation literature, which makes an extremely cogent, organized argument for the uselessness of anything but religious practice when death comes. A key point of this argument is the first of the two ends of the spectrum of materiality, that of attributing no worth whatsoever to material things. Tsong kha pa presents three contemplations to illustrate his point:

(1) if you see that you must go to another world, no matter how much you are surrounded at that time by loving relatives and friends who have strong feelings, you cannot take even one with you; (2) no matter how many piles of beautiful jewels you have, you cannot take even a particle of one with you; (3) if you have to discard the flesh and bones you were born with, what is there to say about anything else? (Lopez p. 439)

Tsong kha pa's simple observation that the dying cannot take a single thing with him when he goes is a solid pillar in his argument for constant, death-minding religious practice. It is found toward the 'popular' end of the spectrum, as well. In "The Transformation Text of Mahamaudgalyayana Rescuing His Mother," for example, we find the lament:

While two people are looking at each other, death steals upon them, / After which their riches are certainly no more to be grudged by their bodies. / When, one fine morning, we breathe our last and enter our eternal coffins, / Who knows what good are the libations sprinkled vainly upon our graves? (Mair p. 1122)

B. Supernatural Swag - providing the dead with materials

On the other end of the spectrum, of course, we have not only these libations, but a fantastic array of offerings to the dead. The practice of burying goods with the dead, and making them offerings of food, has been prevalent since the earliest epoch of Chinese history. Ancestral cult and Daoist ceremonies to this day involve such offerings. It is thus perhaps not surprising that Buddhism acquired the practice as it became syncreticized in China.

The distant end of the materiality spectrum is vividly represented in Souvenirs From Hell, a photographic collection of a variety of paper simulacra meant to be burned and thereby transmuted into actual, functional objects for the use of one's deceased relatives. The book showcases everything from miniature houses and servants, more traditional burnt offerings, to rather innovative paper models of cigarettes and lighters, briefcases, cellular phones, televisions, cosmetic kits, and so on. Money - in the form of Hell Bank notes, cheque-books, and credit cards - is also, of course, very common. All in all, it indeed seems a far cry from the complete denial of the accessibility and usefulness of material goods to the dead put forth by Tsong kha pa and others.

II. Conceptual Linkage

A. Religious practice and the creation of merit

Tsong kha pa emphasizes that only religious practice is of any use when a person dies. The first conceptual link to be examined is that between Tsong kha pa's assertion and the notion of creating merit. This idea of a sort of abstract store of good effect dovetails nicely as a specific, easily explicable reason for the pursuit of religious practice.

Specifically in the matter of death, as well, the notion that one's religious actions will have a positive effect on one's future rebirths - as The Scripture on the Ten Kings notes, all beings "receive bodily form in accord with their actions" (Teiser p. 201) - proved very successful. The 'exchange rate' between meritorious action and promised benefits thereof is also extremely attractive; many a sutra (in this case, The Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva, Heng p. 196) contains proclamations to the effect of "if there are good men or women who plant a few good roots in the Buddhadharma, amounting to as little as a fine hair, a grain of sand, or a mote of dust, they will receive incomparable blessings." The Scripture on the Ten Kings, among others, specifically notes that meritorious actions like copying and reciting the scripture will save one from rebirth as a hell-being, preta, or animal (Teiser p. 202).

The next conceptual link is also prepared by attaching the notion of merit to religious practice: if one can accumulate merit for oneself in preparation for death, one can accumulate merit for others, even (and especially) those who have already died. We find this practice espoused by no less than Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva himself:

the habitual evil of living beings extends from the subtle to the overwhelmingly great. Since all beings have such habits, their parents or relatives should create merit for them when they are on the verge of dying in order to assist them on the road ahead. (Heng p. 168)

The dedication of merit often requires nothing more than a statement of who the recipient is to be, if even that, but it can sometimes require monks to act as intermediaries between the living and the dead, as is the case in the yulanpen festival.
In any case, religious practice creates merit, which one can either amass oneself, or dedicate to others. Especially pertinent to present discussion is that merit can be dedicated, as Ksitigarbha suggests, to the dying and the dead for their benefit in the afterlife.

B. Meritorious action in the Brashier hell scrolls

Both sorts of meritorious action are depicted in the hell scrolls, all of it with a decidedly material air. Four examples will be examined, as they appear in the scrolls by numerical order.

First, and perhaps most interesting of all, is the man considering the gift of writing materials at the bottom of scroll A2. Either asleep or simply contemplating, his thoughts are projected in two clouds, which depict the scenes that will result from the course of action he chooses to take. (He is probably not actually in hell at all, but still alive.) In the upper cloud, the man presents paper and ink to a monk, and is immediately visited by Kuixing, the fortuitous god of good examination scores. Below, his depraved pursuit of a woman is arrested by mamian (horse-face) and a hell beadle. The deleterious effect of the man's womanizing will be returned to; it suffices to note for now that his material gift to monk is didactically earmarked as meritorious by Kuixing's visitation.

Second is the filial family and their elaborate altar at the bottom of scroll A6, above the blood pool. Here a filial wife with son and daughter make obeisance before a tall construction adorned with dolls and surrounded by miniature clothes and some food - possibly all intended as the very sort of burnt offerings catalogued in Souvenirs from Hell. Right of the altar, a filial grandson makes an incense offering. They are joined by a three-man band and a monk (whose ring staff may indicate that he is Maudgalyayana) who passes a scroll to one of the women in the blood pool. The group above the blood pool, like the dreaming man in scroll A2, are actually in the realm of the living, while the blood pool and its residents are of course in the actual hell. The scroll given by the monk to the woman may represent the receipt of merit dedicated to her by relatives, in which case the monk is (quite actively) serving as bridge between the two worlds, as he would in the yulanpen festival. In this instance, the meritorious filial action of the family centers around material objects - the altar and everything on it.
Third is the gift of coffin wood and the returning of lost money in the top left corner of scroll A7. Here is a simple instance of meritorious action materially oriented. Both the charitable dispensation of coffin wood and the returning of money found on the ground draw the attention of a heavenly spirit, one of the bureaucratic otherworldly officials who keep the tally of mortals' merit and demerit (a subject to be returned to shortly).

Fourth and finally are the four men in the top left corner of scroll A8, who are distributing "books on goodness" (probably sutras) and repairing a bridge. For both of these actions, the inscription above the scene tells us, "One will receive blessings in the life to come - / Longevity and wealth."

All of these instances of materially centered action are depicted in the scrolls as meritorious; furthermore, several of the people in the scrolls being led to fortunate rebirths are accompanied by inscriptions attributing their good fortune to meritorious material action. Among the group (headed to the Western Paradise) crossing the bridge of seven treasures at the bottom of scroll A1, for example, one of the saved "Built temples and shrines, halls and monasteries," one of the most highly lauded of all gifts to the sangha, which correspondingly creates quite a bit of merit (apparently enough to be reborn in the Pure Land).

C. Ledgers of merit and demerit

The second major conceptual link is between the idea of merit and the bureaucratic notion that one's merit is all recorded in an otherworldly ledger. The idea of ledgers of merit and demerit was present in China before the Buddhist notion of merit became widespread, most notably in Daoism, and indeed there are three instances in the Brashier hell scrolls where distinctly Chinese heavenly officials are present, recording and tallying merit.

The first instance is at the top right corner of scroll A2, where three men are gathered around a flat stone table, two of them writing in books. The inscription identifies them as the lords of the Southern and Northern Dippers, and tells us they are "[filling] out the records of Life and Death." The second and third are the spirits of Heaven, one in scroll A5 observing the release of animals and the burning of texted paper in the top right corner and recording the merit thereof, the other at the top left corner of scroll A7, observing the donation of coffin wood and the returning of money mentioned above.

While books of life and death and otherworldly personages surveying mankind and recording his good and bad deeds are notions that have arisen in very many traditions all over the world, the kind found here are definitely of the Chinese sort, marking all the more clearly the hell scrolls as highly syncretic. That the ten hells are conceived of as being run by ten bureaucratic kings, surrounded by paperwork and bustling officials, is in the same Chinese vein as the Dipper gods and heavenly spirits. These officials often appear to be pointing something out to the hell king, referring to books they are holding (as in scrolls A2 and A3, for example), indicating their access to the ledgers of merit and demerit, and making it clear that such records will be checked and made known to the hell king by whom one will be judged.

D. Syncretic extension

With the Buddhist notion of merit attached to religious practice joined syncretically with the already present heavenly ledgers of merit, one further conceptual extension remains to make the last link between the two ends of our materiality spectrum. The first part of this extension is the recognition that an individual's store of merit, bureaucratically recorded somewhere, resembles a sort of bank account, a store of money whose amount is kept track of by bank officials, from which one makes withdrawals and to which one makes deposits. Furthermore, if a store of merit is the thing that is truly useful to the dead when they come before the hell kings, it may become imagined almost as a sort of hell-money (particularly since it is known that the hell kings can be persuaded through the right channels, much like earth officials), which makes the conceptual way for actual hell money. (Providing the dead with fake money to be available in the afterlife was by no means a new practice when Buddhism was coming to China.) The second part of the extension is an extension properly so called; if the dead may make use of money sent to them by fire, why not of other goods? Thus the way is made for incorporating the Buddhist hells into the syncretic pool of 'popular' Chinese practices of offerings to the dead.

Admittedly, this linkage is strained at best, and certainly it does not by any means represent any kind of development of thought which has actually historically taken place. Rather, the purpose of illustrating the linkage is to highlight that the Buddhist ideas about materiality at death are in close contact with the apparently material-vaunting burnt offering practices. While this may have been obvious from the beginning, it is worth tracing the connection, such as it may be traced, to bring home the point that the close contact of these two ideas about materiality in hell exist without being in destructive conflict.

III. Confluence: Emperor Taizong in hell

The pinnacle of expression of the permeability between the material world we inhabit and the material world of hell which is assumed by the practice of sending the dead material goods by fire is found in the brief interlude of Tang Emperor Taizong's travel through the ten hells in chapters ten and eleven of The Journey To The West. This emperor Taizong (Li Shimin) is legendarily famous for his passage into and return from the underworld, an incident brought about by the subpoena of Taizong by a decapitated dragon king whose execution Taizong had promised to prevent.

Two instances in the story illustrate this permeability, both cases where a living person apparently carries with them when they arrive in hell physical objects they had on their person at the time of death. In the first, Taizong puts a letter to a certain magistrate in hell into his sleeve in the world of the living, and upon meeting the magistrate in the underworld, he is able to produce the very same letter from his sleeve (Yu p. 235-236, 238). The second instance comes at the end of the Taizong episode, after the emperor has returned from hell. To fulfill his promise to King Yama, he sends one Liu Chuan as a messenger by putting him to death with poison with a gift of southern melons strapped to his head. When he arrives in the underworld, Liu still has the melons on his head, and is able to present them to the ten kings, much to their pleasure (Yu p. 254-255).

Incidentally, Taizong is present (identified as Li Shimin) along with the beheaded dragon king, who is dragging the emperor by the belt in the middle right of scroll A1. Also, a man bearing what appears to be a dish of melons can be seen in the middle right of scroll B3; he may very well be Liu Chuan.

The Taizong story, being as it is literary rather than religious, may not at first glance be the most pertinent case to examine in investigating the materiality of the hells. However, one must not forget the lack of explicit distinction of religion from everything else in China, and keep in mind that many popular gods were in fact apotheosized literary characters. The literary expression of material permeability between the dark hells and the daylight world of the living is a reflection of the religious discourse, so the Taizong story should no more be dismissed than the hell scrolls themselves.

IV. Immateriality

Then again, we might think that the Buddhist literati might have grounds to dismiss the hell scrolls if they were so inclined. Their program, after all, seems to be affirming the reality of suffering by depicting the hells in terms of physical tortures, and even suggests the continuation of personal identity in hell. Of course, such a characterization misrepresents the hell scrolls' function as an ethical teaching tool. Furthermore, the literati Buddhist discourse does in places affirm the reality of the hells and other sufferings of the afterlife, in a specific sense.

In his commentary on The Sutra of the Past Vows of Earth Store Bodhisattva, for example, Master Xuan Hua notes that the hells are not prepared prior to the arrival of the dead, but come into being as needed to accommodate whosoever should be reborn there. "The hells have no concrete form, only names. When a being is due to fall into one, however, it is manifested as a result of that being's powerful karma." (Heng p. 141) The reality of the hell is not diminished by the fact of its arising from the ill karma of the hell-dweller; quite the contrary, this is precisely why it seems real. The reality of hell is the same as the reality of the daylight world - actually empty, without any intrinsic self-existence, but appearing real to beings because of their karmic bonds.

The same notion is the main thrust throughout the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, which constantly says that "This suffering of yours comes from your own [karmic] acts" (Thurman p. 174), and that one's encounter with Yama (who in Tibet retained his original Indian role as Lord of Death) and the tortures of hell are "nothing other than your own hallucination." (Thurman p. 175)
The Brashier hell scrolls themselves hint at this overarching Buddhist thought with two images in particular: first, the karma mirror in scroll A1, which emphasizes that punishment in hell is a reflection of one's deeds in life; second, the daydreaming man at the bottom of scroll A2, discussed above. Either of the two, equally potential scenarios seen in the clouds could emanate from his action just as the clouds emanate from his heart. In the lower cloud, the appearance of mamian and the beadle is depicted with his illicit pursuit of the woman because the existence of mamian and the beadle, and the hells they represent, arises from that pursuit. Accordingly, the presence of Kuixing in the upper cloud is more than a simple way of noting that the gift of writing materials to the monk is meritorious; from the Buddhist perspective, Kuixing exists because of the gift.

If the hells are really immaterial, what is to be said about all the burnt offerings? Surely the material objects they supposedly become cannot have any reality in the hells if the hells are devoid of reality. But it must be kept in mind that the world of the living is just as devoid of reality, and so the paper simulacra burnt in the daylight are no more real than the functional objects that are supposed to appear in the darkness of the hells. Furthermore, since making such offerings is a form of meritorious action, one might speculate that the dead receive the merit of the act of offering, rather than any actual material thing from the offering itself. It is, as it were, the thought that counts.

Regardless of how an emic resolution of the practice of offering models of material goods with the emptiness of the hells could be constructed, it suffices for this work's purpose to reiterate the coexistence of the two notions of materiality, and the possibility of connecting those two ideas within the thought of the tradition. If anything can be concluded from this coexistence and connection, it is perhaps that while one's material things indeed become useless to one at the time of death, the world one will find after dying may not lack material stuff any more than the world from which one has departed.