HU Baozhu, Believing in Ghosts and Spirits: The Concept of Gui in Ancient China, Monumenta Serica Monograph Series LXXI, Routledge, 2021, 318 Pages.

胡寳柱:《笃信鬼神:中国古代关于“鬼”的观念》，华裔学志丛书LXXI，劳特利奇出版社，2021年，共318页。

The present book by Hu Baozhu explores the subject of ghosts and spirits, thus mapping the religious landscape of ancient China. The main focus is on the character gui, an essential key to the understanding of spiritual beings there. The author analyses the character gui in various materials–lexicons and dictionaries, excavated manuscripts and inscriptions, and received classical texts. Gui is examined from the perspective ofits linguistic root, literary interpretation, ritual practices, sociopolitical implication, and cosmological thinking.

胡寳柱的这本书探讨了“鬼神”的主题，从而描绘了中国古代的宗教景观。主要的焦点是在字符“鬼”——一个基本精神生命的理解的关键。笔者分析了各种资料——词典、辞书、出土的手稿、碑文以及收到的经典文本中的“鬼”字，从语言根源、文学阐释、仪式实践、社会政治意蕴和宇宙学思维等方面考察了“鬼”。

The Shuowen jiezi’s interpretation of gui as a sort of negative force tending to harm people’s properties or even their lives greatly influenced later understandings of the concept. In addition to early lexicons, the present study also traces the understanding of gui in oracle bone script (jiaguwen) and bronze script (jinwen) where gui chiefly referred to concrete persons, groups or places, seenas remote, foreign, vigorous or malevolent, and then to ghosts/spirits of thedead. Linguistically the compound phrase guishen came later to denote all spiritual beings. The book further investigates essential layers of meaning of gui and its literary functions as a part of speech in some Chinese classics, the Zuozhuan, Liji, Lunyu, Zhuangzi and Mozi as well as in popular traditions, namely the Rishu (Day Book) unearthed in 1975.

《说文解字》关于“鬼”这一消极力量的理解，对后世对“鬼”的理解产生了深远的影响。除了早期的词汇外，本文还追溯了甲骨文和金文对“鬼”的认识，其中“鬼”主要指具体的人、群体或地方，视之为遥远的、外来的、活跃的或凶恶的，进而指亡灵。在语言学上，后来的复合词“鬼神”表示所有的精神存在。该书进一步探讨了“鬼”的深层含义及其作为词性的文学功能，在一些中国经典著作中，如《左传》《礼记》《论语》《庄子》和《墨子》，以及在通俗传统中，即1975年出土的《日书》中。

In the gradual process of coming to know the other world in terms of ghosts and spirits, Chinese people in ancient times attempted to identify and classify these spiritual entities. In their philosophical thinking, they uniquely connected the subject of gui with the movement of the universe. Thus the belief in ghosts and spirits in ancient China appeared to be a moral standard for all, not only providing a room for individual religiosity but also implementing the purpose of family-orientedsocial order, the legitimization of political operations, and the understanding of the way of Heaven and Earth.

古代中国人在逐渐从鬼神认识另一个世界的过程中，试图对这些精神实体进行识别和分类。在他们的哲学思想中，他们独特地将“鬼”的主题与宇宙的运动连接起来。因此相信鬼魂和中国古代精神似乎是一个道德标准，不仅为个人宗教提供了空间，而且实现了以家庭为导向的社会秩序的目的，政治运作的正当化，天地之道的理解。

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