Jessey J C Choo Libros

This nuanced study explores how the Chinese perceived death as a means to shape social identities and memories during the medieval period (200–1000) and the Tang dynasty (618–907). As society grew more multicultural and multireligious, individuals selectively adopted and interpreted various remembrance practices. These included evolving burial customs, mourning rituals, joint-burials of spouses and family members, relocation and reburial of bodies, posthumous marriage and divorce, and adaptations to classical mourning rites. People independently constructed the socio-religious meanings of death and corpse handling through acts of remembrance. Utilizing a range of sources, including newly excavated epitaph inscriptions, the study reveals how the living and the dead negotiated multiple meanings, influencing memories and identities on both individual and collective levels. It highlights the increasing focus on remembrance as an expression of filial piety, with graves serving as focal points for ancestral sacrifice. The work also examines different modes of self-construction in life and death, enhancing our understanding of ancestral worship and its evolving influence on intimate human relationships, thereby challenging the notion of ancestral worship as solely a family extension in medieval China.