Motif
Dead treated as spiritual intelligences
dead_treated_as_spiritual_intelligences
A motif of the Ancestor Rites and Feeding the Dead family. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.
1 occurrences
1 traditions
confucian
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The Li Ki, Books I-X (The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism, Part III; Sacred Books of the East, Vol. 27) Part IV. / Part V. / BOOK Il. THE THAN KUNG. / SECT. I. PT. II, THE THAN KUNG. IAI; lines 7424-7566 confidence: high
Imaginary vessels treat the dead as spiritual intelligences; clay carriages and straw figures are old examples. Confucius approves straw figures but criticizes wooden automata as risking the use of living men.
The dead are explicitly said to be treated as spiritual intelligences through the use of vessels in imagination and related grave objects.
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