Spirit way

A spirit way (Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is the ornate road leading to a Chinese tomb of a major dignitary. The term is also sometimes translated as spirit road,spirit path or sacred way. The spirit way is lined on both sides by a succession of statues, pillars, and stelae. The statues along the spirit way depict real and mythical animals, as well as civilian and military officials.

Spirit ways were a well-developed feature of tombs by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty. A traditional burial site of an emperor or a high official of that era would be typically arranged along the north-south axis; the spirit road would lead from the south to the southern gate of the enclosure within which the tomb itself and the associated buildings were located. This layout, with few exceptions, has persisted since then through the entire history of the spirit road.

A characteristic feature of an East Han spirit road were monumental towers (que), which were much larger and more expensive than the statues and stelae. The que were followed by statues of animals, among whom feline-like creatures were prominent: both fairly realistic-looking tigers (long known to Chinese artists) and lions (a Han Dynasty innovation), as well as more fantastic varieties, provided with wings, beards, and/or horns. The feline-based fantastic creatures were known under a variety of names, among which the most common were tianlu, bixie and qilin. As in later dynasties, the creatures were facing the road, and were designed to be primarily viewed from the sides. There is no definitive information about any elephants appearing on Han Dynasty spirit roads; however, it is speculated that an ancient stone elephant (which may have originally been part of a pair) 2 km south of the Eastern Han imperial mausolea near Mangshan (in Luoyang area) may have been associated with those mausolea: the two elephants may have marked the entrance to the mausoleum area.

As on the later spirit ways, the stone animals on the Eastern Han spirit roads must have been followed by human statues, but very few of those have survived. A pair of well-preserved stone officials from that period are now kept at the Temple of Confucius, Qufu.

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