Life and Afterlife in Ancient China
Jessica Rawson
Allen Lane: 2023
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In 219 BCE, two years after the state of Qin united vast swathes of what we now call China, Qin Shi Huangdi embarked on a tour to the eastern coast. By appropriating the august imperial title, the emperor claimed not only unprecedented political supremacy (“shi”, meaning “first”) but also the moral and spiritual authority of the gods and mythical sovereigns of prehistory (“huang” and “di”). The purpose of his tour was to cement his heavenly mandate to rule. He inscribed himself into the fabric of the universe by erecting stelae on sacred mountains, with words declaring his grand destiny. He paid homage to heaven and earth, performed sacrifices to the deities and sought access to the islands where immortals were said to dwell. He co-opted natural forces—or asserted his superiority over them—by giving an official title to a pine tree on Mount Tai.

Qin Shi Huangdi’s attempt to align the configurations of his palaces on the banks of the Wei River with cosmographical patterns is entirely consistent with his ambition to arrogate to himself the powers of heaven and earth. These grandiose gestures culminated in his mausoleum at Mount Li, near modern-day Xi’an, with the famous Terracotta Army keeping eternal watch to the east of the tomb mound. The tomb itself remains unexcavated, but the Han dynasty scholar Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, completed in the first century BCE, offers tantalising glimpses of its interior. Mercury was used to represent the rivers and seas on earth. There were contraptions that made the liquid flow. Images of heavenly bodies and landforms transformed this subterranean space into a cosmos where the deceased emperor would continue to rule. All these were illuminated by candles made from the fat of “man-fish” (whose identity eludes us): the light was supposed to shine forever.

• Tags: Brandon C. Yen, China, Issue 35, Jessica Rawson