Mourning Rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China

Xiaoqun Wu

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9789811306327
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Religion

This pivot compares mourning rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China to illustrate some of the principles and methods used in comparative studies. It focuses on three main aspects of mourning of the dead before burial — lamentation, mourners' gestures and behaviors, and mourning apparel — to demonstrate the cultural function, purpose, and social influence of mourning. A key comparative study of rituals at the heart of both Western and Chinese culture, this text highlights the cultural function and social influence of rituals of two ancient peoples and will be of interest to all scholars of comparative religion, sociology and anthropology.

© The Author(s) 2018

Xiaoqun WuMourning Rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin Chinahttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0632-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Xiaoqun Wu¹

(1)

Fudan University, Shanghai, China

Xiaoqun Wu

Abstract

In the introduction, the author explains the purpose, method, and content of the book, including the following three aspects: reasons for conducting comparative historical studies, ritual as a research angle, and methodology. The author proposes three basic principles for the study of comparative history. First, comparative history should not involve any value judgement, nor adopt a position of defending the researcher’s own culture as a point of comparison. Second, comparative study is not simply an attempt to identify specific differences and commonalities between two civilizations. Third, comparative studies should not attempt to derive easy and arbitrary conclusions through lists of phenomena or mechanistic analogies, but should be based on careful analysis.

Keywords

RitualComparisonMethodologyArchaic & Classical GreecePre-Qin China

End Abstract

1 Reasons for Conducting Comparative Historical Studies

Comparison is, in general, a common way of generating knowledge. As noted by Shankman and Durrant , ‘Thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Nothing exists in isolation. We are always making comparison, whether we are aware that we are in fact doing so.’¹ As the purpose of comparison is to recognize the essence of things, it could be argued that there would be no knowledge without comparison. In any case, it is clear that human beings both understand themselves better and know others better through comparison. In other words, one culture and one people can understand their own problems more deeply through contrast with other cultures and peoples. In Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin’s words, comparison’s ‘chief prize is a way out of parochialism’.² The self is explored through the Other, but is not subsumed by the Other; rather, there is an interaction between them.

1.1 The Current Situation of Comparative Study between Ancient Greece and China

Most researchers in the humanities agree that comparative study can bring great benefits, and may overcome the traditional limitations of specialization. In relation to actual comparative study between ancient Greece and China, according to Steven Shankman’s and Stephen Durrant’s observation, two different types of researchers have traditionally been interested in it. The first and foremost type of researcher is the sinologist: ‘many of the most influential works of sinological study frequently mention classical Greece, and regard it as a crucial and perhaps even dominant point of reference for all educated Western readers’.³ In other words, this kind of work is ‘innately comparative and has sometimes labored under an anxiety generated by Greek literature and philosophy’.⁴ The second category is ‘native Chinese scholars, sometimes fresh from graduate study in the West, [who] often use Greek philosophy as a touchstone for their own tradition and even may be said to have labored under an anxiety induced by the Greek model’. The authors take the famous modern Chinese thinker Hu Shi as an example: ‘comparative studies, such as his own implicitly is, should, he believes, attempt to uncover those aspects of the Chinese tradition that have the potential of directing China toward Western-style science and technology’.⁵ As a result of this, for the former, ‘Almost all of the earliest sinologists were steeped in the literature of the classical West and consistently used Greek and Latin studies as their frame of reference for the scholarly investigation of China.’⁶ Therefore, it may be difficult for them to enter the problem consciousness and historical context of ancient China. Their haste to find keys that might assist them in solving the modern predicament of their own civilization has led, in some cases, to them indiscriminately viewing everything in Western classical civilization as a good example to be emulated.

On the other hand, as noted by Shankman and Durrant , ‘specialists in Western philosophy and classical Greece largely ignore China’. (Of course, there are exceptions: the authors cited F. S. C. Northrop and G. E. R. Lloyd as examples)⁷ Specialists in the classical West have rarely reciprocated comparison. One reason may be that, as one of the longest-established scholarly traditions in the Western academic field, Classics was also one of the most conservative and exclusive disciplines in the past. It was always discussed and developed within its own academic discourse system. Similarly, most local Chinese scholars in peaceful times have tended to assume that Chinese culture has many distinctive features, and often to view it as the West’s ‘other’: believing that it is difficult to compare the two, or even that there is no comparability at all.

However, with the development of globalization processes, the above situation is changing. Even in Classics, historically viewed as a conservative and exclusive subject with its own academic discourse and logic system, there has been a growing interest in comparative study since the late twentieth century. Many scholars have acknowledged that comparing Greek and Roman civilizations with other ancient world civilizations can contribute new angles or methods for the study of Classics, as well as helping us to understand the different ancient cultures in greater depth and to reflect on wider discourses within traditional academic contexts. Walter Scheidel pointed out: ‘Only comparisons with other civilizations make it possible to distinguish common features from culturally specific or unique characteristics and developments, help us identify variables that were critical to particular historical outcomes, and allow us to assess the nature of any given ancient state or society within the wider context of premodern world history.’⁸

The comparative study of ancient Chinese civilization and other ancient civilizations of the world has become an emerging practice in international academic circles over the past few decades. From the 1970s onwards, there has been comparison of the civilizations in ‘The Axial Period’ (initially led by the American sinologist Benjamin I. Schwartz⁹ and then by the Israeli scholar S. N. Eisenstadt¹⁰). This was followed, in the 1990s, by comparisons between ancient Chinese and Greek scientific and medical ideas (led by Sir Geoffrey Ernest Richard Lloyd ,¹¹ a classicalist at Cambridge University); between ancient Chinese and Greek thought (presided over by American scholars S. Shankman and S. W. Durrant ¹²); between ancient Chinese, Greek and Roman historiography (dominated by the German scholars F.-H. Mutschler ¹³); and between the Qin and Han Empires and the Roman Empire (led by Walter Scheidel,¹⁴ Stanford University professor of classical history), respectively. In addition, there are a number of comparative works focusing specifically on ancient Greece and ancient China.¹⁵

Nonetheless, few local Chinese scholars have so far participated in the field of international comparative studies. I hope that this study will inspire Chinese scholars from a variety of humanistic disciplines to make comparisons of their own, and to participate in the unpredictable and bracing cross-cultural conversation.

1.2 Basic Principles of Comparative History

It is clear that the field of comparative study between ancient Greece and China is a challenging one. Because the pitfalls of comparative study are so numerous and so difficult to navigate, they may be impossible to avoid. One of the chief pitfalls is that in reality, all of us who make these comparisons are rooted in a specific cultural context , and where we stand can have a profound effect on what we say about a different cultural context. In addition, in contrast to comparative law and comparative literature, where there are well-established principles and methods, the feasibility and methodology of comparative history have not been systematically discussed and defined. It appears that when it is limited to simple contrasts between times, places, reasons, and methods, comparative history may be largely worthless. To address this problem, I would propose three basic principles for the study of comparative history, as follows.

• First, comparative history should not involve any value judgement, nor adopt a position of defending the researcher’s own culture if what could be perceived as their own culture is a point of comparison. An ancient culture, distant in time, can sometimes be constructed as one’s ‘heritage’, but any researcher needs to transcend differences between other cultures and one’s own. Rather, the researcher should approach other cultures with the same rationality as their own when doing a comparative study. They should avoid giving priority to their own cultural tradition, or using the history and values of one side as criteria for judging the other side. The purpose of the comparison is not to prove who is superior or who is inferior, but rather to open up a new conversation that can provide scholars from both sides with a better understanding of the past, and insights into reality.
• Second, comparative study is not simply an attempt to identify specific differences and commonalities between the two civilizations. Rather, the researcher should conduct a deeper analysis of ‘the differences among the similarities’ and ‘the similarities among the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Attitudes towards Death in Ancient Greece and Ancient China
• 3. Lamentation
• 4. Mourners’ Gestures and Behaviors
• 5. Mourning Apparel
• 6. Conclusions
• Correction to: Mourning Rituals in Archaic & Classical Greece and Pre-Qin China
• Back Matter