An interest in death and the dead was omnipresent in early China. K. E. Brashier's Ancestral Memory in Early China shows us widely disparate conceptions of the afterlife that existed, rejecting both a single concept of ritual and the notion that a uniform set of rituals existed. Brashier examines numerous examples and shines much-needed light on the practices and thinking linked to death and the dead in pre-medieval China, primarily but not exclusively during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE).

In part 1 of his study, Brashier considers the importance of doing ritual. Early Chinese texts concerning ritual are numerous and famous. They are commonly read as manuals, or as records of what happened. Brashier concentrates on the gap between what history tells us about what people did and what texts on ritual say was supposed to have occurred. In part 2 he gives many examples of shifts in ritual practice and of violations of prescriptions concerning worshipping ancestors, especially imperial ancestors, which are recorded in the standard histories and elsewhere. He shows that there was no single set of forms used to remember the dead; rather, there was great variety and constant change. Brashier shows that people of the time did not simply base their actions on what was written in the texts; instead, he suggests, “The ritual prescriptions might have been intended to streamline existing practice and iron out differences” (p. 89).

In part 3, Brashier explores how people in early China conceived of the relationship between the dead and the living. His theme, if not his main argument, is that there was no consensus about what came after death. There is much evidence of doubt about, denial of, and belief in posthumous existence. The most important of these conceptions center around what Brashier calls “performative thinking,” in other words mental action that does something concrete outside the body. He argues that this was how people in early China conceived of ancestor worship: thinking about the ancestors in particular ways gave them existence in the afterlife; forgetting likewise brought their end. Part 4 shows how similar notions worked in other spheres. From music to politics, Brashier shows us that interior states had external effects. In this way, he hopes to persuade the reader that, “The idea of ritually thinking the ancestor into existence would have been reasonable and natural given the unique context” (p. 279) of early China. Brashier furthermore suggests that the focused thought that featured in ancestor worship was a form of meditation that preconditioned the later acceptance and spread of Daoist and Buddhist practices. Finally, part 5 explores the language with which authors wrote about death in early China, especially how they talked about life and death in terms of the opposition between light and dark, near and far, and what lay in between.

Brashier marshals an impressive quantity and variety of material on his subject. He draws insights from all sorts of texts and weaves diverse sources into a coherent whole. Brashier's arguments about ancestor worship are important, and in the course of the discussion he makes a number of valuable points concerning matters such as the role of belief in the historical study of religion. The use of Roy A. Rappaport's Religion and Ritual in the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) is exciting. Brashier discusses, for example, Rappaport's insights into how ritual can clarify nebulous situations for all those involved. Brashier is not the first China scholar to use Rappaport (I did so myself several years ago) but it is all too rare for scholars of early China to venture onto relatively new theoretical ground, especially in such a weighty work as this. Brashier furthermore challenges the reader to imagine the rituals he discusses. This not only brings the ceremonies themselves to mind, it also turns reading the book into an exercise in the performative thinking Brashier argues was so important for early Chinese thinkers.

While incorporating a spectrum of texts is laudable, I think Brashier sometimes puts minor works alongside texts that are far more representative and important, e.g., Yilin (Forest of Changes) and Yantielun (Discussions on Salt and Iron) (p. 189). And although Brashier incorporates Rappaport's work to good effect, he also draws from a variety of theories and approaches. It might have been even more compelling if Brashier had engaged one theoretical model at greater length instead. Rappaport, for example, has much to say about how people use ritual to communicate and to create meaningful time out of the succession of moments. Both of these insights could have added to Brashier's discussion of the role and function of funerary ritual. Finally, Brashier sometimes writes as if considering a broader human trait and its expression in China would somehow turn China into “just a case study” (p. 321). We must of course always keep the particularities of each time and place in mind; yet it seems to me that connecting China's history to general human characteristics elevates it rather than the reverse.