After the Separation of Soul from Body: The Imagination of Death in the Tang Dynasty.

The way people understood death and spirit in the Tang Dynasty was inherited from the Han Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, people believed human was a composite of "xing (...)" and "shen (...)". If "xing" and "shen" were united, one lived; otherwise, one would die. Soon after one died, people recalled the leaving spirit back to the place where the corpse was with a ritual called "fu (...)", in order to hold the funeral ceremony afterward. After the funeral, people believed the spirit would stay in the tomb together with the corpse. Therefore, the tomb is regarded as the place of "hiding xing (...)" and "pacifying spirit (...)", where the spirit staed. Although the spirit existed, it was hard to be seen and perceive. The only thing which surely existed was the corpse. People believed both would stay together after death. The corpse could be used to make sure that the spirit existed. No matter which form of the funeral was adopted, such as joint-burial (...), "guizang (...)", nether-world marriage (...) or hunsummoning burial, the key point is to bury the corpses of the dead ones properly, which promised that the spirits would stay there. In sum, people believed "xing" and "shen" would separate after death during the Tang Dynasty, but actually, the two elements were not totally separated. They would still stay in the tomb together. This is the basic understanding of the relationship between the spirit and the corpse after death and burial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]