From nv91-asa@nada.kth.se Thu Mar 20 15:00:00 1995 Status: RO X-Status: Received: from letterbox.rl.ac.uk (letterbox.rl.ac.uk [130.246.8.100]) by mail.nada.kth.se (8.6.10/8.6.9) with SMTP id OAA08969 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 1995 14:59:51 +0100 From: CHEEYUNG@VAX.LSE.AC.UK Message-Id: <199503201359.OAA08969@mail.nada.kth.se> Via: uk.ac.lse.vax; Mon, 20 Mar 1995 13:58:32 +0000 Date: Mon, 20 MAR 95 13:59:35 GMT To: nv91-asa Subject: RE: Dark Kingdom of Jade Mailer: Janet_Mailshr V3.3a (02-Feb-1989) The Eastern Umbral Court is divided into three, corresponding to the High, Middle and Low Umbrae. The High Umbra, the Eastern Heaven, is the abode of gods and "higher" spirits, including the Jade Emperor, the supreme deity of the Taoist cosmos. The Middle Umbra is inhabited by spirits nominally under the authority of the Eastern Heaven, but which exercise more freedom of will and are therefore more unpredictable. These include "local" spirits which preside over specific towns and districts, as well as the spirits of beasts and plants since the Chinese believe that any living creature can become a spirit if it survives a thousand years. The Low Umbra too is under the authority of the Jade Emperor, which is probably why the lords of Stygia believe that he is the actual ruler of the Eastern Underworld (as per the description in WRAITH). The Jade Emperor however does not reside in the Underworld, nor does he rule directly there. The Chinese believe that when a person dies, his soul is collected by spirit lictors with the heads of horses or oxen. These lictors bear a warrant for the soul's "arrest". The soul is escorted to the Underworld, which largely mirrors the living world except that it is dark, gloomy and a place of despair. There are towns and roads, but at its centre are the Courts of the Ten Kings. The Ten Kings are the judges of the dead, and each King has his own court and his own area of competence. One King for example passes judgement on crimes of money - avarice, bribery and fraud. Another will deal with murder. Yet another with lies, and so on. The soul must pass through all ten courts and be judged by all ten Kings before it is permitted to the Wheel of Reincarnation for rebirth. The chief of the Ten Kings is Yen-Lo Wang, whose name derives from the sanskrit Yama, the Hindu god of the dead. Yen-Lo Wang does not preside over the first court, but waived this privilege to sit in the sixth court where he can personally judge the most heinous of crimes : treachery to one's own parents and emperor. Buddhist mythology also adds an eleventh figure, the Bodhissatva Ksitigharba, who pleads compassion for condemned souls. The Ten Kings are generally regarded as being just, if strict and often merciless. Their underlings and spirit helpers unfortunately may be subject to corruption. The Chinese believe that commerce and money go on in the Afterlife as it does in this one, and money may be used to bribe the spirit servants of the Ten Kings. (An interesting coincidence with the concept of oboli in WRAITH.) Once a soul has passed through the Ten Courts and received punishment for all her sins, she is permitted to proceed to the Wheel of Reincarnation - a painful process by all accounts but infintely better to the eternal gloom and damnation of the Underworld. Before she enters the Wheel, she drinks a bowl of broth spooned out by the Lady Meng. This broth wipes the soul's memory clean of its previous existence. Once a year, in the seventh lunar month (approximately the eigth month of the Gregorian calender), Yen-Lo Wang and possibly his fellow Kings make their journey to the High Umbra to make his annual report to the Jade Emperor. During this month, the dead are permitted to leave the Underworld and enter the Shadowlands which are normally forbidden to them. There they can revisit places known to them while alive, and also receive offerings from their family and temples. The seventh month festival is also known as the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts because offerings are laid out for the wraiths. Such offerings are usually of food and incense, but also of imitation paper money and paper goods which are burnt in the belief that they then become "real" in the Underworld. Traditionally, gold and silver paper are folded into ingots, but recently people have taken to burning imitation banknotes printed with the face of Yen-Lo Wang. Paper goods are also burnt - usually paper horses and paper servants, but in this modern day and age, imitation electrical goods and even life-size imitation Mercedes cars are burnt.