Who is Yang Wansun 杨王孙 ?

Yang Wansun(杨王孙 ) was a Taoist and atheist in the Western Han Dynasty, living during the reign of Emperor Wu. He studied the Huang-Lao philosophy, owned a family fortune of a thousand gold pieces, and attached great importance to health preservation. Before his death, he made a will requesting to be buried naked: his body should be placed in a cloth bag and laid directly in the soil. 

He opposed superstitious concepts about death, believing that death was a natural change in the process of life's development. He stated: "Death is the transformation of a lifetime and the return of things to their origin. Those who return reach their destination, and those who transform undergo change—this is how all things revert to their true nature. Reverting to the true nature in the depths of darkness, without form or sound, accords with the principles of the Dao" (*Biography of Yang Wansun* in *Hanshu*). He criticized elaborate burials for preventing the deceased from returning to their origin and undergoing transformation, causing all things to lose their proper place, which he argued violated the Dao's principles. From the perspective of the relationship between form (body) and spirit, he explained that when a person dies, the spirit leaves the body and loses consciousness, making luxurious burials meaningless to the deceased. He said: "I have heard that the spirit belongs to heaven, and the body belongs to earth. 

When the spirit separates from the body, each returns to its true source, hence the term 'ghost' (*gui*), which means 'return' (*gui*). The corpse lies alone—how can it have consciousness?" (Ibid.). The two sentences following "I have heard that" are from the *Neiye* chapter of the *Guanzi*: "When a person is born, heaven provides their essence, and earth provides their form; combining these creates life." Yang Wansun used this traditional view of pre-Qin Taoism to explain that the union of form and spirit creates life, while their separation signifies death. He opposed the prevailing custom of elaborate burials through his advocacy of naked burial, stating: "I advocate naked burial to correct worldly practices. Elaborate burials truly benefit the deceased in no way, yet ordinary people compete to outdo each other, wasting wealth and resources to let them rot underground—sometimes coffins are even exhumed the day after burial. How is this different from exposing corpses in the wilderness?" "Spending wealth on luxurious burials delays the return to the origin and blocks the transformation; the deceased remain unaware, and the living gain nothing—this is utter folly" (Ibid.). 

He ultimately convinced his relatives and friends to bury him naked according to his will. Many later generations followed Yang Wansun's example in advocating simple burials. When commenting on Yang Wansun's practice of "burying the body in a cloth bag, naked," Liu Zhiji, a Tang Dynasty historian, wrote: "Yang was able to defy convention while adhering to righteousness, sufficiently correcting the error of extravagant burials" (*Shitong* [Comprehensive Critique of History], Volume 17, *Miscellaneous Comments II*). His biography appears in Volume 67 of the *Hanshu*.