Death and Ritual Wailing in Early China: Around the Funeral of Lao Dan

The crucial importance of funerary rites in early China would seem to be reflected not only in an abundance of writings devoted to describing — frequently from an idealised standpoint not exempt of normative ends — the complex set of practices, speeches, attire and objects that accompany the proceedings of these ceremonies but also, and in particular, in the intense intellectual debates that these mortuary cults gave rise to in the literature of the Warring States era. In fact, one would do well to recall that one of the first controversies between different factions or doctrines, in this case, that between Confucians (ru jia 儒家) and Mohists (mo jia 墨家) revolves precisely around the appropriate period of mourning and the frugality or immoderation of the obsequies. Within these disputes over funerary rites, alternative ways of understanding death and destiny, of organising society, and of conceiving interpersonal relations are also set out in such a way that the diatribes bring to light a good part of the social, political, religious and ethical problems that the divergent philosophical programmes are trying to resolve. From this standpoint, and bearing in mind the scope of the matters under discussion, it is not surprising, then, that funerals should frequently constitute an appropriate context from which the master can draw a lesson to impart to his disciples. Both because of the opulence of these funerary scenes and the provocative nature of some of the attitudes of many of its main characters, the famous Warring States philosophical classic Zhuangzi unquestionably occupies, in this regard, an outstanding position in the