Abstract

While there is a great deal of material on ideas of physical immortality in China, there is very little about early Confucian ideas of an afterlife and no study now exists that focuses exclusively on this topic. However, in parts of other discussions, scholars have argued that Confucians either continue with traditional beliefs or totally reject them. What I have discovered is that there is no single early Confucian view of the afterlife; rather, what we find is a plurality of positions that co-exist. ;The first position is an affirmation of traditional belief in the continued existence of the ancestors after death. Here, Confucians venerate the dead who continue to exist in an afterlife. The second position is an agnostic one, where Confucians argue that no judgement can be made one way or the other and that what is important is to carry out the rites to the dead "as if" the dead actually continue to exist. Here, judgement about the possibility of an afterlife is suspended and Confucians discuss the ability of the rites to channel our grief and allow it to be expressed properly and morally. The third position is the Confucian idea that one can live on, past death, in the memory of others by setting a great example to them: this is the immortality of moral example, action, and teachings that lives on for future generations. The final position is the Confucian argument that there can, in fact, be no afterlife. ;We can find all of these positions in early Confucianism, particularly in the Confucian classics, and all of them exist side by side. This pluralist approach to the afterlife is possible because of the Confucian emphasis on practice, rather than dogma. It also has to do with the structure of the later positions of agnosticism and disbelief and how they were able to accommodate the traditional position. ;What we find, then, is that, while continuing in the tradition of the general culture, early Confucians also move beyond the views of the general culture to establish a unique approach to the problem of an afterlife