Out of the Inner Quarters: A Study of Funerary Writings for Eunuchs of the Mid- to Late Tang (ca. 755–903)

This project will open up new ways of understanding medieval Chinese society by examining epigraphic sources for eunuchs, a group still little understood despite its enormous impact on all areas of politics, society, and culture. The project is the first systematic study of the military role of eunuchs and the ‘palace domestic service’ (neishi sheng 内侍省), the eunuch agency of the Tang 唐 dynasty (618–907), during the period of its radical transformation after the Rebellion of An Lushan (安史之亂, 755–63). In that time, the neishi sheng took control of much of the military, and eunuchs forged kinship ties with members of the military and civil elites of the empire through marriage and adoption. While past research on eunuchs has relied on traditional sources – depicting them as morally corrupt and politically subversive –, this study undertakes close readings of newly discovered epigraphic sources and thereby reconstructs the life worlds of eunuchs, their gender, family, and other relationships with members of the Tang elite. That way, it breaks new ground in taking eunuchs as a social entity with a group interest and agency of its own. In addition, it utilizes hitherto neglected literary sources on the homo-social bonds between eunuchs and other men at court. As this study will show, those bonds were not, as the traditional record suggests, all political in nature and constantly fraught with tension, but often characterized by friendship and common cultural (religious and literary) pursuits. Until recently, research on Tang eunuchs was greatly restricted by a scarcity of sources and mostly based on historical writings (Jiu Tangshu 舊唐書, Xin Tangshu 新唐書, and Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑). The excavation of thousands of muzhiming 墓誌銘, tomb epitaphs buried with the dead, around the Tang capitals of Chang’an 長安 (Xi’an 西安) and Luoyang 洛陽 since the mid-20th century has changed that situation dramatically. At the moment, ca. 250 of those epitaphs are believed to be dedicated to eunuchs, their spouses, and adopted children.

Apart from papers at international conferences, the project will produce articles in internationally peer-reviewed journals and a monograph on the social networks of eunuchs with other elites, and a searchable database of images, transcriptions, and translations of epitaphs into English and modern Chinese. In addition, the PI will seek further funding to host a conference with international experts in Hong Kong, to look at the military eunuch from a cross-cultural perspective.