IncensePaper moneyFruitVegetarian foodA bowl of rice for the deadThe seventh day rite
Invocation Approach
Tone
Formal bureaucratic austere
Address
Yanluo WangKing YamaJudge of the DeadLord of the Fifth Court
Relationship
A petitioner before a magistrate who has the file
Warning
The underworld does not need your testimony it has the record
Resonance
The bereaved those keeping the funeral cycle those who work with the dead
Symbols
The ledger of life and deathThe judge s deskOx head and horse faceThe ten courtsThe register of deedsThe karma mirror
Mythology Summary
Yanluo Wang is the Chinese form of Yama, absorbed into a bureaucracy of the dead: he is the fifth of the Ten Kings of Hell (Shidian), the judge before whom the dead are brought, and the underworld's registers and mirrors show each person their own life rather than hearing testimony. The Ten Kings are a Chinese development, attested from the Tang in apocryphal sutras and Dunhuang manuscripts, and their courts are keyed to the funeral cycle — the seventh, fourteenth and twenty-first days through the forty-ninth, then the hundredth day and the anniversaries. He is not the ruler of hell but one judge in a system that reports upward, and the whole apparatus is administered like a magistracy.
Modern Practice
The practice is the funeral and the seven-day cycle: incense and vegetarian food, paper money for the dead, the rites on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first and forty-ninth days, the hundredth day and the anniversaries. He is petitioned for a fair hearing rather than for a verdict, and the living are meant to do the ledger work themselves while they can.