Dan jing, carrying the scriptures
The mourners carry a pair of scripture baskets round the altar, setting down a scroll at each circuit — the living carrying the scriptures on the dead person’s behalf.
Pronunciation dān jīng｜Rites of life｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
Dan jing is the stretch of the merit-making where the mourners do the carrying. The carrying pole is of wood, a basket at each end, scriptures in one and paper money in the other; a scroll is set down at the end of each circuit, the point being that the living carry the scriptures for the dead.
The pole is usually shouldered by sons and nephews and may not be set down on the way; only at the burning place is that scroll put down, and the empty pole goes round again. The order of the circuits is the same as for carrying the censer, seniority not to be confused.
When you see it
It is added or dropped according to the troupe engaged and the family’s means; a single-night service usually leaves it out. It often runs with the pardon: the pardon asks forgiveness for the dead, the carrying carries scriptures for the dead — one asking, one carrying, both on living shoulders.
Words easily confused
The mourners do this, not the clergy: those on the altar chant, while the pole below is carried by the family itself. It belongs with the carrying of the censer — both are the mourners’ work in the service, one carrying a censer, one a pole.
Custom in Chaoshan funerals; this page describes only, and neither endorses superstition nor urges anyone to follow it.
Read next: Funeral custom: from reporting the death to the raising of the tablet.
See also: Rites of life: the five thresholds side by side, merit-making: whose feast is it.
Same group: the reading of the pardon, merit-making.
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Last revised: 4 November 2026