Unnamed Infant

Chen Shi gave birth to a daughter on June 6, 525, in the hill country above the coast of southern Zhejiang. The village fell under the Liang dynasty; magistrates and tax clerks reached it through local headmen who kept registers of households. Her family spoke the local Sinitic tongue and kept a small altar shelf for the Zhou ancestors. A few times each year they carried incense to a nearby Buddhist temple to ask for merit and protection.

The house held only the married couple and their children. The eldest son, Da-lang, had died the previous year at twenty-four, leaving his father without the strong back he had leaned on for hired fieldwork. Of the living children, San-lang was fourteen and already going out before dawn to take day labor where he could. Si-niang, nine, kept watch over little Liu-lang, a toddler still unsteady on his feet. Another baby, Wu-lang, had died in 522. Chen Shi had not forgotten; she washed the newborn carefully and tied the cord tight.

The infant was never given a settled name. Chen Shi kept her near the cooking place, wrapped and pressed to her breast between turns at the spindle. Her husband burned a pinch of incense to the kitchen god and set out a small bowl of rice, then went to labor in another man’s fields. Old Woman Lin came once to check the child and told Chen Shi to keep her warm and feed her often.

On June 22 the baby died from weakness after a premature birth. That evening Zhou Shi carried the tiny body to an unused slope above the village, and Chen Shi set a few coins and a strip of plain cloth with her, then lit incense and recited a short Buddha-name chant taught by Miao-fa at the temple.