This paper examines the religious beliefs found in the tomb-securing writs (zhenwu wen 鎭墓文) from the Eastern Han and Wei-Jin periods and Daoism, and argues that not only the bureaucratic language and the underlying beliefs in the netherworld administration, which have been well studied in the previous scholarship on this subject, the use of ritual instruments reveals the continuity between the tomb-securing writs and later Daoism. In particular, this paper points out that many Eastern Han tombs were found to contain multiple of jars on which the tomb-securing writ is written, and proposes to examine more carefully the way in which those jars were placed.
In many cases these jars contain ‘five stones’ (wushi 五石) (cinnabar, malachite, arsenolite, realgar, magnetite). The ‘five stones’ were believed to have strong exorcistic power, and were used to protect the body of the deceased against demons and at the same time to eliminate any malevolent influence on the living.
Interestingly, the jars containing the ‘five stones’ were placed in five directions (four cardinal directions and the centre) in accordance with the five phases theory. The ‘five stones’ seem to have been expected to effectively achieve the goal of the tomb-securing writ. In some cases, lead-man were mentioned in the writ and actually found inside the jar. They are another supplementary instrument to help the deceased who could suffer from corvee labour and punishment in the netherworld by offering a replacement. Unlike multifold goals specified in the tomb-securing writs from the Eastern Han period, the examples from the Wei-Jin period tend to focus on the welfare of the remaining family of the deceased: the calamities caused by the deceased are being sent away to remote places or even passers-by.
The religious concerns seen in the Eastern Han tomb-securing writs and the use of ‘five stones’ were inherited by Daoist use of a different form of burial document and a set of ‘five stones’. The Scripture of Revivification of Corpse through Fivefold Refinement (五練生尸經), a fourth century text belonging to the ancient Lingbao 靈寶 group explains how to prepare and employ the Daoist ‘five stones’. Like their Han predecessor, Daoist ‘five stones’ and burial documents aim to protect the body of the deceased and facilitate the transfer of his or her soul to the netherworld. However, Daoism further offers to save the dead from the netherworld. The surviving examples from the Tang indicate the popularity of this practice among the ruling elites.