Some Context

Henri Maspero offers the earliest and most detailed analysis of the term ming.Footnote ⁸ As he observes, the word literally means “light,” “bright,” and “clear,” and figuratively “intelligent”; however, as a term ming is always related to spirits and spiritual things, and particularly to objects designated for the dead and things connected with sacrifices and ritual: ritual vessels ming qi 明器, clothes for the dead ming yi 明衣, sacrificial grain ming qi 明齊, and other things used in sacrifices (ming shui 明水, ming huo 明火, ming zhu 明燭), or ming qi 明旗—funerary banners that announced the name of the dead, etc. Maspero also defines ming as a verb, meaning “to endow with spirit-like qualities” or “to deify,”Footnote ⁹ which is particularly relevant in the context of Mozi.

According to Knoblock, the binomial shenming 神明 in the Warring States Period represented “gods in general.”Footnote ¹⁰ Thus, ming was not only the kind of quality the spirits possessed, but actually ancestral spirits themselves. A ming person was either dead or a person endowed with ghost-like qualities.

In a more recent study, Sándor P. Szabó provides a very thorough analysis of the term shenming.Footnote ¹¹ As he concludes, the term can be understood as a pair of concepts, where the first (shen) refers to the nature of earth and the second (ming) to the nature of heaven. Szabó quotes Xunzi, who claims that humans can acquire the shen and ming natures through self-cultivation. Such a human becomes “a bearer of perfect virtues of heaven and earth, and is able to know the Dao.”Footnote ¹² As Szabó observes, “the [Xunzi] passage shows that the shenming is something which is acquired by someone during the process of becoming a sage (i.e. a person, who possesses the perfect virtues), and acquisition of shenming is a result of the accumulation of good and the perfection of virtues.”Footnote ¹³ A sage, then, is one that “becomes equal to heaven and earth.”Footnote ¹⁴

According to Constance Cook, the term ming had been linked with virtue de 德, which she defines as “spiritual essence” or “life force”; a person can attain mingde 明德 through imitation (xing 型) of his ancestors. Cook observes that certain sacrifices described as ming and de indicated “something corrected” zheng 正 or “extended into eternity” yanyong 延永. The “illuminated power” (mingde) was received through the heart xin 心 during a special ritual.Footnote ¹⁵ Before he could correct and transform others, then, a sage had to first “correct” himself by molding himself after the ancestors. In other words, he had to acquire the mingde and become like an ancestor—possess certain qualities and abilities of dead people. In order to do this, the adept had to undergo a transformation through a sacrificial ritual in the ancestral temple.

Returning to Szabó, he quotes Carine Defoort’s work on Heguanzi 鶡冠子, where she concludes: “Separately, shen and ming are attributed to the sage, but combined they often refer to divine beings with whom the sages communicate.”Footnote ¹⁶ Graham arrives at the same conclusion: “Shen and ming are always used nominally of the spirits and verbally of the kinds of intelligence possessed by the spirits and attained by man to the degree that he approaches sagehood.”Footnote ¹⁷ Moreover, Szabó points out that according to Mawangdui documents it is possible to attain shenming through communication with the spirits.Footnote ¹⁸ Therefore, Szabó describes shenming as a “spirit-like” intelligence that is related to a balance of judgment, rather than “thinking reflectively or logically analyzing problems.”Footnote ¹⁹ After Graham, he concludes that shenming is a spiritual vision that the sages possess, a “clairvoyance” or “illumination”;Footnote ²⁰ this spiritual illumination endows the sage with “the benevolence (ren 仁) of heaven and the righteousness (yi 義) earth,” which makes him capable of discerning the myriad things.Footnote ²¹

As I will argue below, in Mozi, this “vision” or “illumination” translates into the ability to mete out punishments and rewards without fail. Mozi promotes government by a sage ruler who combines the natures of both heaven and earth—he is a human and a ghost at the same time. He is Heaven’s proxy on earth; therefore, notions of ming such as “deification” (Maspero) and “spiritual communication” (Defoort) will prove crucial to our understanding of ming in Mozi.

As for the distinction between shen and ming, apart from standing for earth and heaven respectively, Szabó quotes Xun Shang:

We will see how in Mozi the sage does just that: undergoes a transformation into a ghost-like being through personal communication with a spirit (shen) and manifesting it to the world through bringing justice and maintaining a perfect government (ming).

Finally, Szabó asserts that shenming means seeing from and through the heart. He quotes Xunzi who “thinks that the heart (xin 心—the organ of both emotions and thinking), which is constituted by qi, is “the lord of the shenming” (shenming zhi zhu 神明之主).”Footnote ²³ Ming are the spirits of the ancestors, who have insight into peoples’ hearts; they know the past and see the future. So does a sage person, whose mind has been transformed, though his body still keeps a human form. As Szabó points out, ming comes from Heaven, and as I will demonstrate, this can be also deduced from Mozi “Ming gui.”

What Does Master Mo Want to Prove?

As the following analyses of the surviving Mozi “Ming gui” chapter and the excavated manuscript “Gui shen zhi ming” will show, Mohist argument about the spirit world may appear to be shifting from one point to another, but it remains consistent and firm when it comes to the problem of “discernment” (ming). Master Mo is not trying to prove that ghosts exist, but that they mete out punishments and rewards; not all ghosts do that, but only those who are ming; it does not need to be ghosts, but anyone, as long as he is ming; ming is necessary for the execution of justice and it is the concept of ming that binds Master Mo’s argument together.

Let us first consider the grammar and style of the received Mozi text. The treatise presents the term guishen 鬼神 as a denomination for beings who are not humans; it functions as a binomial, sometimes interchanged with gui alone.Footnote ²⁴ This is a characteristic lexical feature of Mozi and suggests that no distinction is made between gui and shen; the text is not concerned with the typology, but with the functions of the spirits.

All of the information concerning the ghosts, such as their actions, functions, attributes, and other characteristics, are invariably expressed by means of the construction with the possessive particle zhi 之; thus, instead of saying “whether ghosts exist or not,” we find:

and instead of a SVO “the ghosts are able to reward the worthy and punish the violent,” we find:

As I am going to show below, this important detail helps in the understanding of what kind of ghosts and which aspects of their nature the text is talking about. For instance, Master Mo discusses instances of ghosts seen by people:

By applying the possessive zhi construction, the text emphasizes the material aspect of the ghosts, their visual image, and other features perceptible by human senses; it is not just any kind of evidence of the spiritual presence, but its concrete, physical form.

For his argument about the existence of ghosts, Master Mo presents five pieces of empirical evidence: accounts of ghosts seen by people.Footnote ²⁷ In each story that Master Mo tells, ghosts mete out well-deserved punishments and rewards: people who were innocently put to death return as ghosts and punish the culprit.Footnote ²⁸ It is very important to observe that these five short episodes, which are presented to the skeptics as evidence of the existence of ghosts, at the same time introduce another argument about the ghosts’ ability to punish crime and reward virtue. While the examples do intend to prove the physical presence of ghosts, they also serve as a moral lesson and a warning. As I will show below, the stories are illustrations of the actions of a specific type of ghost—the “discerning” type—and, by extension, of their function in the world. The ghosts presented in these examples do not simply “exist”; they are not only physically present, but rather they also make their presence known for a reason. The plots in these episodes are very similar, with only the names of the people and places changed. As variations on a similar theme, they demonstrate that events such as this one are not singular, accidental, or random.Footnote ²⁹ They happen predictably, according to a rule. Each episode concludes with a promise that whoever commits injustice will suffer misfortune, because:

This assertion, pronounced in the text by “lords and fathers who want to instruct their ministers and sons,”Footnote ³¹ demonstrates that the ghosts’ response to certain types of human behavior is automatic and infallible. Master Mo sums up this section with an important warning:

Master Mo’s emphasis shifts from the existence of ghosts to their function; the emphasis is clearly on the ghosts’ “ability to see”—shi 視, and therefore, no matter where one goes, one will not manage to escape from their surveillance. In effect, Master Mo’s proof that ghosts exist turns out to explain why they exist, or even in what circumstances they come to existence, and to assert their infallibility in performing their duty.

But do ghosts never fail to punish? And is it always ghosts who mete out the justice? In the following part of the “Ming gui” chapter, Master Mo’s argument to that effect seems either flawed or not to the point. He refers to three ancient documents that are supposed to serve as evidence of the existence of ghosts, but never actually mention ghosts and merely indicate that the rulers in the past performed sacrifices. He also brings up the instances of King Jie of Xia and King Zhou of Yin, who were punished for their crimes, as illustrations of the infallibility of justice and the impartiality with which the ghosts execute it; this group of evidence, however, is even more opaque, because the instances narrated by Master Mo do not involve ghosts at all, but instead the punishments are meted out by humans and labeled as “ming punishments” ming fa 明罰.Footnote ³³ As we can see, while one component of Master Mo’s initial thesis (gui) has been dropped, the other one (ming) comes to the fore.

Let us now consider a related text from the same period that questions the ghosts’ infallibility and reveals that the execution of justice depends on their ming.

Execution of Justice

The concept of ming is the key to the Mohist understanding of ghosts. The excavated manuscript “Guishen zhi ming” from the Chu Bamboo Strips in the Shanghai Museum Collection reveals that the ghosts’ ability to mete out punishments and rewards depends solely on their being ming.

The text consists of 5 strips and 197 graphs, and is part of an eight-strip longer sequence. The initial part of the text is missing, and the remaining material, titled “Rong shi you Cheng shi” 融師有成氏, consists of two unrelated fragments separated by a graphic mark. Originally, the passage had no title; the current one was added by the scholars who worked on the edition of the text and is based on the opening and closing phrase in the text gui shen you (you) suo ming you (you) suo bu ming 鬼神又（有）所明又（有）所不明.”Footnote ³⁴ The speaker in the bamboo text is not identifiable, but because of the mention of “ghosts and spirits” gui shen 鬼神, the subject under discussion, as well as certain textual correspondences, some scholars believe that the passage is related to Mozi, going as far as considering it to be a missing part of the “Ming gui” triad.Footnote ³⁵ Both Brindley and Sterckx discuss this problem at length, and convincingly argue against such definitive associations.Footnote ³⁶

However, the Shanghai Museum paragraph does discuss the ghosts’ ability to reward and punish. The same theme in similar terms is pursued in various chapters of Mozi. Footnote ³⁷ The crucial point of the debate is the problem of ming, and, as I will demonstrate, the same feature is present also in Mozi, where the very title of the chapter on ghosts, “Ming gui,” introduces it. Therefore, it will be useful to consider the fragment in reference to the Mohist debate on ghosts.

Brindley and Sterckx provide detailed philological analyses and English translations of the text.Footnote ³⁸ For the purpose of my discussion, I present below my own working translation of the passage. I agree in general with earlier translations, but I am less literal and more interpretative in the parts that are crucial for my discussion. I am following the transcription of Cao Jinyan 曹錦炎 from Ma Chengyuan’s edition of the Shanghai Museum series, but I arrange the original text by the number of phrases instead of the bamboo strip number:Footnote ³⁹

1. 1. 今夫鬼神有所明有所不明，則以其賞善罰暴也。

2. 2. 昔者堯舜禹湯，仁義聖智，天下法之。

3. 3. 此以貴為天子，富有天下，長年有擧Footnote ⁴⁰ ，後世遂之。

4. 4. 則鬼神之賞，此明矣。

5. 5. 及桀紂幽厲，焚聖人，殺諫者，賊百姓，亂邦家。

6. 6. 此以桀折於鬲山，而紂首於岐社，身不沒，為天下笑。

7. 7. 則鬼[神之罰，此明]以。Footnote ⁴¹

8. 8. 及伍子胥者，天下之聖人也，鴟夷而死。

9. 9. 榮夷公者，天下之亂人也，長年而沒。

10. 10. 女以此詰之，則善者或不賞，而暴[者或不罰。故]吾因加?

11. 11. 鬼神不明，則必有故。

12. 12. 其力能致焉而弗為乎？吾弗知也。

13. 13. 意其力固不能致焉乎？吾又弗知也。

14. 14. 此兩者歧，吾故[曰鬼神有]所明，有所不明。此之謂乎!

1. 1. Nowadays, the ghosts are sometimes “ming,” and sometimes not “ming,” and thus they reward the good and punish the evil accordingly.Footnote ⁴²

2. 2. In the past, Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang were benevolent, righteous, sage, and wise, and the whole world modeled itself after them.

3. 3. Therefore, they were honored with the position of Son of Heaven, and rich with the possession of the world, they enjoyed fame until old age, and the succeeding generations followed them.

4. 4. Thus, as to ghosts rewarding, it is “ming” [evident/exemplary/discerning].Footnote ⁴³

5. 5. On the other hand, Jie, Zhou, You and Li burned the Sages, killed the critics, robbed the people and brought disorder among the states.

6. 6. Therefore, Jie was ripped apart on Mount Li and Zhou’s head was exposed at the Qi Altar, their deaths were not natural and they [were exposed] for the world to laugh at.Footnote ⁴⁴

7. 7. Thus, as to ghosts punishing, it is “ming” [evident/exemplary/discerning].

8. 8. Then, there was Wu Zixu, who was a Sage, but he was killed in a leather sack.

9. 9. And there was Rong Yigong, who was a villain, but he lived long and died a natural death.

10. 10. You can see from this that there is unrewarded good and unpunished evil. How should I explain its reason?Footnote ⁴⁵

11. 11. If ghosts and spirits are not “ming,” there must be a reason for it.

12. 12. Do they have the power to [punish and reward] but choose not to do it? I do not know.

13. 13. Or is it that they definitely do not have the power to do it? I do not know it, either.

14. 14. These two possibilities are the reason why I say that ghosts are sometimes “ming” and sometimes they are not “ming!”

Whatever its provenance and relationship with the received text, the excavated passage seems to echo the argument in Mozi “Ming gui” chapter about ghosts punishing the vicious and rewarding the worthy. However, whereas Mozi emphasizes on several occasions that the punishments and rewards are meted out invariably and without fail, the excavated text puts that principle in question. Here, the speaker presents a dilemma: Why is it that some virtuous people perish unrewarded, while villains get away with their evil?

In response to this problem, the “Gui shen zhi ming” speaker fails to come up with a definitive and clear explanation. Instead, he concludes that the ghosts are sometimes ming, and sometimes not ming. While exact reasons why it is so remain unclear, the speaker allows two options: the ghosts might choose to be ming or not; alternatively, some of them are or are not ming by nature. The first possibility suggests that ghosts act on a whim, for unknown reasons; but the second one implies that there are in fact two kinds of ghosts, those who are ming, and those who are not.

Examples from the text above—(lines 4 through 7)—allow us to analyze what ming means:

Following the conventional reading of the term ming in the context of Mozi, we would translate this as “Thus, as to ghosts rewarding/punishing, it is evident (‘ming’).”Footnote ⁴⁶ But it could also be translated as: “Thus, as to ghosts rewarding/punishing, it is [an example of] ‘ming’.” And since the topic of the bamboo text is the ming-ness of ghosts, this reading is more reasonable.

The ghosts fulfill their duty of rewarding good and punishing evil when, or if, they are ming; it is also correct to say that they are ming, or it is ming that happens, when they act accordingly. The term, then, should be understood as the ability of ghosts to distinguish between right and wrong, which results is taking a relevant action: reward or punishment—execution of justice. Ghosts who are ming are ghosts who discern.

Mozi seems to present the ghosts as impartial and infallible agents who mete out rewards and punishments on the people. This argument stands in a clear contrast with the “Gui shen zhi ming” fragment, which points out instances when good is not rewarded and evil not punished. As we have seen, Master Mo’s argument for the existence of ghosts in Mozi ends with a closing warning that the ghosts are able to see everything and reach everywhere, even in deep valleys, dense forests, and distant places. In the last section of the “Ming gui” treatise, we find the same assertion, but with some interesting developments:

We encounter here the expression “the ‘ming’ of ghosts and spirits” (gui shen zhi ming 鬼神之明), the same as in the bamboo manuscript. Master Mo does not claim that there is no way to escape from the ghosts’ punishing; what he does say, more exactly, is that there is no escape from the ghosts’ ming.

Rather than maintaining, as before, that ghosts will see transgressions wherever they occur (jian you gui shen shi zhi 見有鬼神視之), here it is the ming of the ghosts that instead will see, or by means of which the ghosts will know the wrongdoers wherever they go and seek them out (gui shen zhi ming bi zhi zhi 鬼神之明必知之).

This is not a mere stylistic and grammatical variation, but an entirely different statement. As opposed to the ghosts’ simply seeing or watching people, here we have a condition, a special quality or characteristic of the ghosts that enables them to perceive things. The grammatical construction of the phrase (using the possessive particle zhi) makes it clear the ghosts need to possess ming in the first place in order to be able to fulfill their tasks; only when they have it are they infallible, and there is no way to escape from them.

Such an understanding of ming changes entirely our reading of the “Ming gui” chapter in Mozi. As the excavated document reveals, these ideas of Master Mo are based on the principle that, in order to be able to mete out punishments and rewards, ghosts need to be ming, and thus capable of discerning right from wrong.

The excavated fragment does not only reflect debates within Mohism, as proposed by Sterckx, but it shows that the problem lies somewhere else, namely in applying concepts.Footnote ⁴⁸ There may have been disagreements within Mohism concerning the existence and effectiveness of ghosts, but the understanding of ming was completely different: ghosts were only potential “carriers” of it—not all of them had that power, and their intervention did not always seem to be required.

Ming gui—”Illuminated Spirits”

As the bamboo text suggests, Mozi “Ming gui” discusses one particular group of ghosts. In this section, I demonstrate that this group, called “ming gui,” was well known beyond Mozi, and that ghosts belonging to this group were not expected to punish anyone who did something wrong. The external literature will help solve the puzzle of why some crimes go unpunished. It reveals the applicability of ming—when and what acts are to be punished, and how. I also examine the complexity of the term ming, which involves not only the discernment between right and wrong actions, but more importantly, it is an insight into the human heart and the ability to read people’s true intentions. This analysis will help us comprehend Master Mo’s argument and the place of ming in it. Ghosts were not just Heaven’s “police” and ming was not merely their “sharp vision” that allowed them to spot any crime wherever it was committed.

In her study on covenant texts excavated at urban remains of the Eastern Zhou state of Jin (770–221 b.c.e.), Susan Weld observes that each text contains a formula bidding the “far-seeing spirits”—ming gui 明鬼—to punish anyone who would breach the covenant.Footnote ⁴⁹ Weld presents Text 1:9 as an example of a “loyalty covenant text”:

1. I. [If I], Hu

2. II.

   1. A. Dare to fail to strip bare my heart and vitals in serving my lord; or

   2. B. Dare to fail to thoroughly adhere to Your covenant and the mandate granted in Ding gong and Ping si; or

   3. C. Dare, in any respect, to initiate breaking of the faith, or dispersion [of the alliance], causing an interruption in the guardianship of the two temples; or

   4. D. Dare to harbor the intention of restoring Zhao Ni and his descendants to the territory of the state of Jin or join in a faction to summon others to covenant [with them];

3. III. May our former rulers, far-seeing, instantly detect me; and

4. IV. May ruin befall my lineage.Footnote ⁵⁰

The text allows us to identify the spirits as “former rulers”—the ancestors of the covenanters. As we can see, the emphasis is put on their ability to “detect” the culprit; hence, ming is rendered as “far-seeing.” This notion harks back to Master Mo’s warnings about ghosts being able to track the evil down “even in a deep valley and a dark forest.”Footnote ⁵¹ In Weld’s interpretation, the supernatural powers are “called on to enforce the stipulations.”Footnote ⁵² In Text 1:9, it is the potential culprit who determines the conditions under which he would deserve a punishment. In other words, the judgment does not lie within the capacity of the spirits, but the people participating in the covenant; if, for instance, the covenanter committed any other kind of wrong, the ghosts would not need to go after him; the spirits merely keep the covenanters in check, so that they do not dare to break the covenant, another function similar to that articulated in Mozi “Ming gui.”Footnote ⁵³

Weld concludes that all texts belonging to the realm of covenant, oath, and curse, “represented the attempt to draw on the powers of the spirit world to create binding obligations in the human world.”Footnote ⁵⁴ Covenants are representations of special new bonds established between the covenanters, based on faithfulness and sincerity. In addition to Weld’s discussion, I propose to consider the particular role of ming in this human–spirit relationship. The spirits are able to screen faithfulness and sincerity only by means of ming; at the same time, these virtues are manifestations of ming in the human world. Ming, therefore, is indispensable to the execution of a covenant.

Elsewhere in extant literature, too, ghosts are evoked not merely for formulaic reasons and their “illumination”—ming—is transcendent. In Yili 儀禮, Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 classifies the “illuminated spirits” ming shen 明神 as “Heaven’s Supervisors of Covenants” 天之司盟.Footnote ⁵⁵ Also in the Zuo zhuan 左傳 they are singled out as covenant ghosts.Footnote ⁵⁶ Here, however, their job is as much supervising the covenants as scrutinizing the hearts and intentions of the covenanters. As in the Houma texts, the parties appeal to the spirits to oversee their promise to keep the agreements and invite them to destroy whoever dares to fail in his covenant obligations.

E.g., in the covenant between Jin and Chu (Cheng XII, 2) we read:

As in Mozi, the ming spirits are in charge of meting out justice; here, still, their role is more limited. “Covenant ghosts” specialize in one particular task, which is overseeing these particular agreements; they do not reward all good and punish all evil wherever and whenever it occurs. Moreover, it does not seem as though there is any room for deliberation: ghosts will be “activated” automatically should the covenant be broken, with no choice but to act. Mozi extends this function of the “ming gui” into other areas of life, thus making them more “universal”—they mete out punishments and rewards to anyone who deserves them; in a way, Master Mo liberates the ming ghosts of the restrictions of their formulaic role—he de-formularizes them.

However, further analysis of the Zuo zhuan passages shows that the role and capacities of ming spirits can be much more complex; apart from overseeing the oaths and detecting a breach, the spirits also scrutinize the covenanters’ truthfulness (xin 信).

Take, e.g., the account in which Jin wishes to renew the covenant of Maling (Cheng IX, 2):

The spirits do not participate in the covenant automatically, whenever summoned; one needs to be worthy of their presence. Their attendance reflects one’s own moral status. Jin needs to cultivate its virtue in order to win the spirits’ recognition and collaboration. By having the spirits bind the covenant, Jin can demonstrate the validity of its leadership amongst the feudal states.

The meaning of a covenant is explained on the occasion of Wu seeking to renew its covenant with Lu (Ai XII, 3):

Covenants are not meant as threats, and ghosts are not mechanical executors of justice in case of a breach; they are needed to “bind” yao 要 the covenant—a service that requires their consent. A covenant, we are told, is a “confirmation of faith”; the ghosts’ consent to approve it depends on the truthfulness and the virtue of the parties involved in it. The spirits know the true intentions of the covenanters, because they are ming, and if there is no faith, they will not bind the covenant. This notion is clearly pronounced in the following passage (Xiang IX, 8):

Ghosts’ capacities reach beyond punishing the people who break an oath or even beyond executing justice universally; the power attributed to them is not about how far their sight and supervision can reach. Instead, ming ghosts are able to see peoples’ intentions and to evaluate them in moral terms; it is not as much the punishment itself as the judgment that really matters. Ming is the ability to discern right from wrong, not to track down the culprits wherever they hide. The ghosts perceive the oath-breakers not only after the covenant is “formally” broken, but at the moment the latter conceive their insincere thoughts.

Zisi and Zizhan are not afraid to breach the covenant, because, in moral terms, they do not feel responsible for the breach; they trust the ghosts’ ming—their moral discernment. Since Zheng acted under pressure, the covenant is invalid—the covenanters did not want it in their hearts. Ghosts will not only do the justice, but also see that justice is done.

Perhaps the most revealing thing about the “ming” spirits is an account in the Zuo zhuan that is not at all related to a covenant (Zhuang XXXII, 3):

The passage is a warning to all those who abuse and mishandle the spirits because of their misconceptions about them. The spirits are “luminous and prescient” cong ming 聰明—they can read peoples’ minds and see their true intentions, and they act accordingly, rewarding the virtuous and punishing the wicked; because of their ming, they cannot be manipulated. The ruler of Guo will not get new land, because he does not deserve it. It is within his human capacity to gain or to lose; the sprits only bear witness to the process—they observe the virtue. The ruler of Guo tries to bribe the spirit with offerings; instead, he should rely on his own virtue. A virtuous man does not solicit favors from spirits; instead, he has his own ming. Spirits come to him to “be present” lin 臨—to oversee and to authorize his reward, rather than to grant it upon him; thus, they recognize and expose his ming. It is not up to the spirits to dispense with things, but it is up to them to supervise and to authorize. The spirit in Xin “exposes” (ming) the duke’s vanity and corruption. The duke reveals the quality of his own virtue, in this case the lack thereof, by the way of dealing with the spirit. Judging by his behavior, everybody can see what kind of a ruler he is. The spirit does not need to take any further action to punish the duke—it is merely present, while the duke’s doom is his own doing.

In conclusion, the spirits’ being ming means that they can (1) see peoples’ intentions; (2) evaluate peoples’ virtue and truthfulness; (3) reveal peoples’ true virtue.

Ming is the spirits’ power to discriminate and to evaluate, and it is ming that defines them; without it, they would not be able to perform, therefore it is only the ghosts with ming that are fit for the job.

Moreover, as seen from the examples above, ming is a quality pertaining to humans. Performing faithfulness and sincerity is a manifestation of a person’s ming. A faithful covenanter is “far-sighted” like the spirit of his ancestor; he is illuminated with the ming of his forefathers by modeling himself after them, being faithful and sincere.

Thus, the “ming gui” emerge as a special group of punitive ghosts, commonly referred to during the period, whose function is meting out justice. The punishment or reward, rather than an “actual” doom, such as death or the destruction of army and state, may mean the exposure of the culprit’s true virtue or lack thereof. This concept of punitive ghosts is not particular to Mozi. Master Mo does not offer his own unique theory about what or who ghosts are, where they come from, and what they are like, and it does not introduce a new, original lore. Instead, Master Mo adopts a pre-existing concept—of a group of ghosts with these specific functions—and incorporates it into his own doctrine.

”Sagely Illumination”—Transformative Power of Ming

In the Zuo zhuan, ming does not only apply to ghosts and spirits. More generally, it is an attribute of a sage and it stands for the quality of “sagely illumination”; ming jun is a sage ruler who, like his ancestors—the sage kings of antiquity ming wang 明王—without fail distinguishes right from wrong and governs by means of justice. “Sagely illumination” has a transformative power: humans who possess it obtain a spirit-like insight into the nature of things; in fact, on some occasions they follow a special ritual that involves shamanistic techniques, in order to actually become spirits themselves.

As we saw in the episodes in Mozi “Ming gui,” a human must turn into a ghost before he can carry out justice. It is not another, “independent” ghost agent who will punish the culprit on behalf of the victim, but the victim himself, after becoming a ghost, i.e. after death. Moreover, as the stories show, the implementation of ming is always deferred—there is a promise that justice will be served in the future, and it is served after a precisely predicted period of time (bu chu san nian 不 出 三 年 “before three years have passed”). In effect, Master Mo supports his view by means of historical evidence, and he persuades by presenting (and proving) specific predictions. Humans cannot punish; they need to become ming—in this case, turn into punitive ghosts—and only that entitles them to mete out the punishment. Ming is not valid without the transformation, hence the delay in the execution of justice. Three years is the regular mourning period after someone’s death, a time that marks the transition of the dead into his new identity;Footnote ⁶² it is this transformation of a human into a ghost that activates the fulfillment of the prediction. Knowing the future indicates that the human agent is “illuminated”—ming. Justice needs to be executed at the right time and not on a whim of the ghost; it takes ming to know when to strike and make it a legitimate punishment, so that it can serve as an example for everybody: a manifestation of justice—ming.

However, at the last stage of Master Mo’s argument for the existence of ghosts in “Ming gui,” we observe an interesting twist: it is not the ghosts who perform the execution of justice; while still rhetorically trying to prove that ghosts exist, Master Mo brings up examples in which justice is actually meted out by humans.

Master Mo argues that just punishment will be visited upon the culprits regardless of their social rank and wealth. He then goes on to prove it with the examples of King Jie of Xia and King Zhou of Yin. In both of these cases, Heaven destroys the tyrant by appointing a human to carry out what is described as Heaven’s “ming punishment” (ming fa 明罰):

Both examples Master Mo provides are empirical in nature and describe actual instances of historical figures that were punished for their transgressions.Footnote ⁶⁴ It is noteworthy that, even though Master Mo’s point is that ghosts unerringly punish the wicked and reward the worthy regardless of their station in life, this passage actually presents a human agent (Tang) meting out the punishment on behalf of Heaven and only later attributes the execution of justice to ghosts and spirits. Here, then, it is a human who takes up the role of the “discerning ghost”—the “ming gui”—that Master Mo presents earlier. In other words, according to Master Mo a human acting as a proxy of Heaven is in effect a ghost.

In order to prove that ghosts exist, Master Mo presents “ghost stories” as historical events—he “historicizes” them. By assuming that the narrated events actually took place, he, in effect, uses history—record of precedence from the past—as evidence supporting his argument. In contrast, when using transmitted historical narrative to serve as his evidence, Master Mo turns it into accounts of the spirit world, in which historical—human—figures act as ghosts. In telling the tale thus, Master Mo interprets history: he attributes the downfall of the tyrants of antiquity not to human actors, but to Heaven’s intervention in human affairs. When a just war takes place, it is by Heaven’s will that the victorious army succeeds in punishing transgressions and is duly rewarded. Ming emerges as a divine quality—an “illumination” that originates from Heaven; meting out of punishments and rewards is coordinated with Heaven and endorsed by it.Footnote ⁶⁵

This transformation of the capacity from human to non-human (ghost-like) seen in the Mozi is not merely conceptual, but instead it is a reflection of an actual ritual practice of the time. The human agent executing justice on behalf of Heaven is not just a “replacement” for a ghost, but an actual one.

In his article about the meaning of the term ming, Henri Maspero discusses the mourning clothes ming yi 明衣;Footnote ⁶⁶ he observes that, according to Huainanzi 淮南子, a general of an army, before going out to battle, had to go through a complex ritual in the ancestral temple that resembled a funerary ceremony. During the ritual, he would undergo a transformation: he would be treated as a dead person, and he would go into the battle wearing the clothes of the dead; upon return, he would go through the process again to reenter the realm of the humans.Footnote ⁶⁷ In effect, the general would lead the army against the enemy not as a human (a living person), but as a dead person—an ancestor (a living ghost). If we consider the fact that just wars conducted by virtuous rulers were always regarded as punitive expeditions, we can see how the general in the battle is acting in the capacity of a “ming gui”—he is punishing evil on behalf of Heaven, after having undergone an actual, both physical and spiritual, transformation from a human into a ghost.Footnote ⁶⁸

Mozi offers more insight into the relationship between Heaven, humans, and the ghosts in “Fei gong xia” 非攻下, where we can see more clearly how humans on punishing expeditions act as ghosts.

From the very outset of the chapter, Master Mo establishes the hierarchy of the three realms:

Master Mo positions ghosts as the intermediary between Heaven and humankind, and he insists that their interference is required, as if Heaven could not implement punishments or rewards without them. However, the examples he uses in “Fei gong xia” to illustrate the punishments visited upon those who practiced aggressive warfare prove that Heaven, instead of dispatching the ghosts, endows human agents with ghost-like powers to do the job.

Master Mo uses the same episodes as in “Ming gui,” except here the presence of the ghosts is actually pronounced. Heaven first expresses its wrath by sending down natural calamities, such as the sun coming out at night or rains of blood.Footnote ⁷⁰ Then, as also occurs in “Ming gui,” Heaven appoints a human to do the punishing. In “Fei gong xia,” however, unlike in the “Ming gui” examples, a ghost appears to assist the human, as if to endorse and to reinforce the mandate of Heaven.

Accordingly, when Tang is about to punish Jie, a spirit communicates with him and prepares the ground for destroying the offender:

Similarly, in the instance of King Wu punishing Zhou:

Even though it is not spelled out directly, the text implies a shamanistic relationship between the ghosts and their human agents. Ghosts appear to be Heaven’s power descending upon the humans, entering their minds, and imparting to them divine knowledge and skills. Through dreams and other (unspecified) forms of communication, ghosts rectify the actions of people; they sharpen their vision and, perhaps most importantly, reveal to them the imminent future. All of the spiritual interventions narrated by Master Mo can be read as predictions of the villains’ doom and the chosen human agent’s certain victory. The ghosts do not act “on the ground”; as in the context of the covenant, they merely stand by and oversee the proceedings; they need human agents who, being transformed by them, act with, if not in, the capacity of punitive ghosts.Footnote ⁷³ In “Ming gui,” Master Mo skips that step of spiritual transformation and presents only the final result, which is the deliverance of a ming punishment.

Mozi “Ming gui” does not explain ghosts, but it does reveal the metamorphosis powered by ming and necessary for the execution of justice. Ming is an illumination that comes from Heaven; it transforms humans into Heaven’s agents. The person acquiring it is able to discern right from wrong, mete out punishments and rewards, and see into the future—he is a sage. These are the principal qualities of a ming jun—the “illuminated” (sage) ruler, and we can see this concept developed and put into practice in the Zuo zhuan.

The Sage (ming) Ruler—Example of Duke Wen of Jin

According to Mozi, the sage kings of antiquity always conducted rectifying campaigns and never engaged in aggressive wars.Footnote ⁷⁴ The ability to correctly apply punishments is the defining trait of a sage:

The characters portrayed as sage rulers in the Zuo zhuan share the same principal functions and characteristics. Moreover, the mechanism of justice also echoes the one proposed in Mozi, where the sages are endowed with ghost-like powers and qualities.

The story of Duke Wen of Jin 晉文公 will serve as a perfect illustration to these points. The protagonist, Chong'er (Duke Wen), is modeled after King Wen of Zhou 周文公 and presented as a ”cultural” (wen 文) hero.Footnote ⁷⁶ He repudiates arms: he first refuses to fight his father, and all the wars he wages as Duke Wen are punitive expeditions; he is endorsed by the ghost of his late brother Shensheng, who appears to predict the doom of Yiwu, the illegitimate ruler in Jin, in the battle of Han;Footnote ⁷⁷ and he establishes his rule in Jin and his hegemony over the entire Zhou domain by means of virtue and ritual. He is portrayed not as a ”military” wu 武, but a ming and a wen ruler. The Narrator emphasizes three characteristic aspects of Duke Wen’s rule that put him in line with the sage kings—sheng wang 聖王—of antiquity and prove his ”sagely illumination”—ming: (1) meting out justice by rewarding the virtuous, appointing the capable, and punishing the evil; (2) knowing, relying on, and transforming the people; and (3) being truthful—xin. He transforms the Zhou realm and his achievements are long lasting.Footnote ⁷⁸

In Xi XXIII (637 b.c.e.), Chong'er returns after nineteen years of exile to reclaim the throne in Jin, and along with his return comes also the final execution of justice. Characteristically, in the accounts of his return he is regarded as a dead person.

In Xi XXIII (637 b.c.e.), Duke Hui of Jin dies and his son Yu takes over as Duke Huai. He fears the return of his exiled uncle and the legitimate heir to the throne of Jin, therefore his first command is that nobody must follow “the fugitive”:

“The fugitive” here refers to Chong'er, who otherwise remains nameless in the text. This word choice has an emphatic function: it reveals Yu’s perception of Chong'er and defines his status. A “fugitive” (wang ren 亡人) is someone who has “departed,” who has left the boundaries of a certain domain, state, or realm. By extension, it is someone who “is no more,” a dead person. This is a play on words, since wang 亡 means “dead.” After a prolonged absence, Chong'er’s reappearance seems sudden, improbable, and unreal, as if he were returning from the dead, a specter-like figure; but more importantly, he is also regarded as a person coming to reclaim his right, and a savior who will put the state back in order.

The punitive aspect of Duke Wen’s return to Jin, and in effect his ming, is indicated at the very outset of the narrative. When Yu, trying to prevent Chong'er’s return, orders Hu Tu to summon his two sons—Chong'er’s partisans—back to Jin under the law of abolition, the minister refuses and says:

The minister was then put to death. Diviner Bu Yan 卜偃, upon witnessing these events, predicts the doom of Yu; he indicates that this is because of the quality of Yu’s ming:

Both Hu Tu and Diviner Yan emphasize the importance of the punitive aspect of ming as an indispensable quality in a ruler. Yu—the illegitimate ruler in Jin—is unable to apply correct punishments, and thus is denied ming. Yan’s judgment is devastating: no ming means no future. As a ruler, Yu will not be able to unite the people and consolidate the state; thus, he loses his legitimacy. It is Duke Wen and his ming—execution of justice—that both Hu Tu and Yan are anticipating and hoping for.

Thus, Chong’er’s return has a salving quality—it is presented as a rescue of Jin from the hands of illegitimate and incompetent rulers. After nineteen years of exile, Duke Wen resumes the power in Jin and begins his rule from punishing the traitors and rewarding all of the faithful followers (jin hou shang cong wang zhe 晉候賞從亡者).Footnote ⁸³ He exercises power by appointing virtuous men, defending weaker states, and teaching and transforming the people by exposing them to the example of himself; he also seeks and heeds good advice.Footnote ⁸⁴ Most importantly, though, his government has a strong transformative impact on the people. The text says:

Duke Wen’s victory is not a military, but a moral one. In all his actions, he relies on the people and works for their benefit; he cannot succeed without them, and vice versa, they cannot thrive without his leadership; he “illuminates” them, and by doing this, he proves, exposes, and transmits his ming.

In Xi XXV (635 b.c.e.), Duke Wen restores King Xiang in the Zhou capital. In Xi XXVIII (632 b.c.e.), he fights the battle against Chu, which confirms his hegemony. Before the battle, even the king of Chu recognizes Duke Wen as a sage and he understands that acting against him is futile:

Thus, the Chu ruler likens Duke Wen to a covenant ghost ming gui as a man for whom the people’s feelings are transparent; he is appointed by Heaven to punish and reward them accordingly.

After the battle of Chengpu 城濮, where the Chu troops were defeated, Duke Wen and the army of Jin returned triumphantly to the capital. There, the Duke distributed lavish rewards and meted out punishments. The Superior Man commented:

Finally, the King of Zhou officially appoints Duke Wen as the “chief of the princes” hou bo 候伯. His hegemony was confirmed through a covenant with all the feudal lords. According to the narrative, the Superior Man—junzi 君子Footnote ⁹² —deemed this covenant “truthful,”

and concludes:

As shown before, truthfulness xin was an indispensable condition for a covenant to be valid. In his judgment about the covenant that made Jin the hegemon among the states, the Superior Man is not so much acknowledging its validity as he is recognizing the “sagely illumination” (ming) of Duke Wen. It is his participation in the covenant that validates it; he both oversees and guarantees the agreements. Able to mete out punishments and rewards, as well as transform the people and screen their feelings, Duke Wen guarantees that the agreement is xin—truthful. Indeed, he acts as a “ming gui.”

Duke Wen owes the hegemony to his “sagely illumination” ming, which, in turn, is the engine of his transformative power. By correctly executing justice, he educates the people and brings order not only to Jin but also to the rest of the Zhou realm.

Duke Wen fights for the right cause and does so by means of virtue. He is just and has a transformative influence upon the people. The King of Zhou acknowledges his hegemony through a truthful covenant and correct ceremonies. He is righteous yi and sincere xin, and he observes the ritual li 禮. He is the object, the medium, and the actor of ming. In effect, Duke Wen goes down in history as a great hero, one of the five hegemons ba, a virtuous and illuminated ruler ming jun, and is compared to the sage kings of antiquity. His story shows that justice is served in a timely manner.

A “ming punishment” presented in Mozi “Ming gui” is one that is (1) exemplary and “illuminating”: it illuminates the people by presenting them with an example of a wrong behavior and its consequences; and (2) is executed by means of the application of the faculty of “illumination”—the correct discernment of right and wrong—thereby guaranteeing that the punishment is just; and, finally, (3) is perfectly appropriate to the evil committed; ming indicates that the punishment is the punitive action of Heaven.

However, Heaven does not use the human agent instrumentally; rather, the latter is the one who perceives the will of Heaven and seizes the right moment to act. He changes his action to conform to the will of Heaven, which shows that he possesses the faculty of ming, and that, consequently, his action is a ming action—a punitive act inspired and supported by Heaven. He perceives Heaven’s will, and by taking his action, he makes it clear: he manifests (ming) his own “sagely illumination” (ming). Like Duke Wen of Jin, by revealing his divine quality, he reveals himself as a sage. Zuo zhuan:

I will only add from myself that shen and ming, the two aspects of the sage’s nature, correspond with heaven and earth that shelter and accommodate his people, and that the two characters for sun (ri 日) and moon (yue 月) combine into the character for ming (明).