Yi Qian: The Buried Spirit Money Sacrificial Rite 瘗钱
Paul Peng瘗钱 Yi Qian
The Buried Spirit Money Sacrificial Rite · 埋钱奉幽冥之古礼
🔑 Key Takeaways
- 瘗钱 (Yi Qian) is the ancient Chinese practice of burying imitation currency as offerings to the spirits of the dead.
- Evolved from burying real valuables with the deceased to using imitation currency — a practical and symbolic substitution that preserved the ritual's intent.
- The direct precursor to the modern tradition of burning joss paper (烧纸钱) at graves, temples, and ancestral altars.
- Documented from the Han dynasty onward; regulated in the Zhengyi Taoist liturgical canon.
- Reflects the Chinese understanding of the afterlife as a realm where the dead require material provisions.
Definition · 定义
瘗钱 (Yi Qian, Yì Qián) is an ancient Chinese sacrificial practice in which imitation currency is buried in the earth as an offering to the spirits of the dead. The character 瘗 (yì) means to bury or inter with ritual intent; 钱 (qián) means money or currency. Together they name a specific funerary offering technology: the deliberate interment of spirit money beneath the earth to transmit material wealth to the deceased in the underworld.
瘗钱 represents one of the most enduring threads in Chinese religious practice — the conviction that the dead inhabit a realm parallel to the living world, where they require the same material provisions: food, clothing, shelter, and money. By burying currency with or for the dead, the living fulfilled their obligation to provide for their deceased family members in the afterlife.
— 汉代文献
Historical Evolution · 历史演变
瘗钱 did not emerge fully formed — it was the product of a long historical evolution in Chinese funerary practice, moving from the burial of real valuables to symbolic substitutes:
In the earliest period, actual valuables were buried with the dead: bronze vessels, jade objects, silk garments, and real currency. These burial goods (明器, míng qì) were understood to accompany the deceased into the afterlife for their actual use. The practice was widespread among the aristocracy and wealthy families of the Zhou and earlier periods.
As the practice spread and the cost of burying real valuables became prohibitive, imitation currency began to replace real money. Clay coins, lead tokens, and other symbolic substitutes were buried in place of actual currency. The ritual intent remained the same — providing the dead with money — but the material was now symbolic rather than real.
The introduction of paper currency in China eventually gave rise to paper spirit money (纸钱, zhǐ qián) — sheets of paper printed or cut to resemble currency, burned rather than buried. This transition from burial to burning marked the shift from 瘗钱 to the modern joss paper tradition, though the underlying logic remained identical: transmitting money to the dead through ritual action.
The Afterlife Economy · 冥界经济观
瘗钱 is grounded in a distinctive Chinese understanding of the afterlife as an economy — a realm where the dead engage in transactions, pay debts, and require financial resources just as the living do. This understanding is not merely folk belief but a coherent cosmological framework that shaped Chinese funerary practice across millennia.
In this framework, the living have an ongoing financial obligation to the dead. Failure to provide spirit money leaves the deceased impoverished in the underworld — unable to pay their way, subject to the demands of underworld officials, and potentially driven to return as hungry ghosts (饿鬼, è guǐ) to trouble the living. 瘗钱 was thus not merely an act of piety but a practical necessity: ensuring that the dead were financially secure in their new realm. The broader ancestral worship context within which 瘗钱 operated is documented in the Zong Miao ancestral temple (宗庙) tradition.
Zhengyi Taoist Connection · 正一道传承
In the Zhengyi Taoist tradition (正一道), 瘗钱 is preserved and regulated in the liturgical canon governing ancestral rites and salvation rituals. The Zhengyi canon distinguishes between different categories of spirit money appropriate for different recipients and occasions:
Offerings to ancestors use specific types of spirit money that honor the family relationship; offerings to hungry ghosts (普度, pǔ dù) use different denominations appropriate to their status; offerings to deities use yet another category of celestial currency. This careful regulation of spirit money by recipient and occasion directly preserves the classical concern with ritual propriety that governed 瘗钱 in its original form. The formal procedures of these Taoist offering rites are documented in the Taoist ritual process, while the historical development of the offering tradition is traced in the history of Taoist fasting and offering rituals.
Han dynasty funerary texts and burial records documenting 瘗钱 practice.
Chen Yaoting (陈耀庭). Encyclopedia of Taoism (道教大辞典). Shanghai: Shanghai Cishu Chubanshe. Entry: '瘗钱' (Yi Qian).
