Chapter 35 Chapter IX Funeral Etiquette and Customs

The ancients called it "Zhu kuang main mine" when they were dying.According to the "Book of Rites", "Jixi Rituals" and "The Book of Funerals", when a person is critically ill, he should take off his underwear and put on a shroud prepared in advance.The shroud is worn when a person is critically ill because the body is not stiff when the person is not dead, so it is easy to wear.At this time, his limbs are being held by someone to prevent his limbs from convulsing, and then he "belongs to the scorpion to wait until he dies."Genus means to place, and 纩 means new silk flocks.The new cotton wool is very light, and it is used to put it on the mouth and nose of the dying to test whether it is breathless.If there is no shaking of Xinxu, the patient is dead, and this can be called a "pawn".Later, the zodiac sign became synonymous with dying.

When a person dies for the first time, the funeral cannot be held immediately, but the soul of the deceased must be summoned, which is called "recovery".When performing the restoration ceremony, one person holds the deceased's coat and goes up to the roof, facing north, and calls out the name of the deceased three times in a row, then rolls up the deceased's coat and throws it in front of the house.Performing rituals is "the way to love to the fullest, the way to look back (return) to all the ghosts, and seek the ghosts and gods" ("Book of Rites·Tan ​​Gongxia").That is to say, the living can't bear the death of their relatives, and hope that by praying to ghosts and gods, the soul of the deceased can return to the body.Recover but not wake up, and then do the funeral.

The first thing to do is to bathe the dead. To wash is to wash the hair, and to bath is to wash the body.When bathing, use a basin to hold water, use a spoon to pour water on the corpse, scrub with a fine kudzu towel, and cut nails and beards.The person in charge of bathing, such as the deceased, is a male attendant for men and a female attendant for women.Relatives of the deceased temporarily retreated outside the house while bathing.Bathing is to help the deceased to leave the world cleanly. Its custom is recorded in "Book of Rites·Daji of Mourning" and has been passed down to future generations. "Book of Jin·Wang Xiang Biography" records that Wang Xiang was about to die, and he warned his son: "If you have no breath, but wash your hands and feet, you don't need to take a bath." It can be seen that if the deceased has no special will, most people have to take a bath after death.

After bathing is encoffining, that is, dressing the dead and putting them in the coffin. Both "Book of Rites: Funeral Records" and "Rituals: Funeral Rituals for Scholars" have specific records on the rituals of funerals.There are large burials and small burials.Small funeral refers to wrapping the deceased in a quilt, and the time is on the morning of the next day after the death.The big funeral is to put the body into the coffin, and the time is the next day after the small funeral.Regardless of the small funeral or the big funeral, the filial son and relatives must be by the side, and cry and dance many times according to etiquette to express their grief.By the Qing Dynasty, the folks had combined large and small coffins into one, collectively referred to as encoffining.There is a funeral ritual of "rice containing" when encoffining.Rice is to put rice and shellfish in the mouth of the deceased; Han is to put pearls and jade in the mouth of the deceased.Rice contains different due to different respect.Regarding rice, it is stipulated that "the emperor (princes) use beams, the officials use millet, and the scholars use rice" (Zheng Xuan's note in "Zhou Li·Diguan·Sheren"); ("Book of Rites Miscellaneous Notes").Regarding Han, according to Liu Xiang's "Shuo Yuan Xiuwen" in the Western Han Dynasty: "The son of heaven uses pearls, princes use jade, doctors use shells, scholars use shells, and ordinary people use grains." The above-mentioned items contained in rice were the regulations at that time. Later, the things used by Fanhan changed in the past dynasties. For example, there were money in the Song Dynasty.After the deceased is put into the coffin, the filial son and relatives will finally visit the remains and cry loudly to show farewell.The ceremony of encoffining is not over until the coffin is covered and a sacrifice ceremony is performed in front of the spiritual seat.

After the body is buried, there will be a period of time for the coffin to wait for burial, which is called "funeral".According to records, the Xia Dynasty was buried on the east steps, the Yin and Shang dynasties were buried between the two couplets, and the Zhou Dynasty usually dug a ridge to rest on the west steps of the hall.The west step is the guest seat. When a loved one dies, he is reluctant to let him leave early. He stays at home and treats the deceased like a guest, so it is called funeral.In the Spring and Autumn Period, there was also the etiquette of burial in the ancestral temple. According to "Zuo Zhuan Thirty-two Years of Duke Xi", after the death of Duke Wen of Jin, he was "furied in Quwo".Quwo is the seat of the ancestral temple of the Jin Dynasty, and the funeral in the temple is even more solemn.Later generations Minwen also set up another coffin to park the coffin.Funerals vary in length.In the Zhou Dynasty, the emperor was usually buried in July, the princes in May, the officials in March, and the common people were buried after the month.But there are also those that last three years. For example, "Huainanzi Yaolue" records that after the death of King Wen of Zhou, "the three-year funeral was held, and the funeral of King Wen was between two couplets".In later generations, the funeral dates of feudal emperors were uncertain, and most officials were buried in March.

The climax of the funeral is the funeral, that is, the funeral.In the pre-Qin period, there was no particular emphasis on the funeral date. After the Han and Wei dynasties, funeral customs were influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, so auspicious dates had to be chosen.At this time, the etiquette is white clothes holding silk (fufu).The Buddha is the rope that pulls the hearse, and relatives and friends help to pull it. "Book of Rites·Qu Li 1" says that "the funeral assistant must hold the rope".According to "Zhou Li · Di Guan · Sui Ren" and "Book of Rites", "The Great Records of Funeral" and "Miscellaneous Notes", the emperor used six large ropes to pull the chariot at the funeral, called six ropes, and there were about a thousand people holding the ropes; There are four princes, 500 people; two doctors, 300 people.The original intention of holding a rope is to help pull the hearse, but in reality it is just a formality.Later generations stretched two ropes on both sides of the funeral procession, which is the legacy of the ancient rope.Those who bear the coffin at the funeral also sing dirges.The earliest elegy can be found in "Zuo Zhuan Eleven Years of Duke Ai": "Gongsun Xia ordered his apprentice to sing "Yu Funeral." Du Yu noted: ""Yu Funeral", a funeral song." Later, elegy gradually became popular, such as "Jin "Book·Li Zhi" said: "Stories of the Han and Wei Dynasties, great funerals and funerals of ministers, elegy for those who hold the rope." Elegy usually uses fixed words and music, and words and sentences can also be created temporarily.For example, "Northern History Lu Si Dao Biography" contains: "Wenxuan Wang died, and the literati of the dynasty each wrote ten elegiac songs, and chose the best ones to use." The elegiac couplets of later generations also evolved from elegy.In the Yuan Dynasty, the funeral ceremony developed again.According to the description of the funeral ceremony in Hangzhou in "Marco Polo's Journey", there was also a drum band in the funeral procession, playing and drumming along the way, and the monks chanted scriptures loudly.After arriving at the burial place, many paper-made male and female servants, horses, camels, silks and satins woven with gold threads, and gold and silver coins were thrown into the fire.When this batch of things was incinerated, the drums and music played in unison, and the noise continued for a long time.

In ancient my country, coffin burial was the most important burial method.In order to better preserve the corpse, most of the coffins of nobles have two parts, the coffin and the coffin.The coffin refers to the inner coffin; the outer coffin refers to the outer coffin, which is set outside the inner coffin to protect the inner coffin.Coffins are not available to ordinary people, and even Kong Li, the son of Confucius, "has coffins but no coffins" after his death ("The Analects of Confucius Advanced").In the Zhou Dynasty, the coffins of emperors and princes could be triple or quadruple ("Book of Rites · Tan Gong Shang").

When buried in the coffin, there are generally sacrificial objects.This is because the ancients all had the concept of the immortality of the soul, and believed that the soul is still alive after death as before.Therefore, it is necessary to bury the dead with some things needed for production and life.In the tombs of the early primitive society, most of the burial objects were complete sets of living utensils for drawing water, cooking, storage, and eating, and there were also a few decorations or production tools.In the late primitive society, the phenomenon of burial with human sacrifices appeared.Entering the slave society, burying slaves and letting them continue to serve their masters in the underworld has become a system.As "Mozi Festival Mourning" said: "The son of heaven killed hundreds of people and dozens of widows; generals and officials killed dozens of people and several widows." Judging from the tombs of the Yin Ruins In the Shang Dynasty, hundreds or even thousands of people died at every turn, which highlights the cruelty of slavery.After the Western Zhou Dynasty, figurines, that is, human idols made of pottery, wood, and metal, began to replace human sacrifices.But human martyrdom is still common.Human martyrdom in the Qin Dynasty was once pushed to its peak, and the number of human martyrs in the Mausoleum of Qin Shihuang exceeded 10,000 (see "Historical Records: The Chronicle of Qin Shihuang" and "Hanshu: Biography of Chu and Yuan Kings"), which was the largest human martyrdom in Chinese history.From the Western Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, the system of human sacrifice in the Central Plains basically declined.However, since the Song Dynasty, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongolian, Manchu and other frontier ethnic groups entered the Central Plains one after another. They all had the tradition of human sacrifice, which prompted the resurgence of Central Plains people's sacrifice.In short, although the system of human martyrdom in ancient society experienced several ups and downs, it has continued for a long time and has not been cut off.Although later the feudal rulers used the feudal ethics to reward the martyrs and their families spiritually and materially, such as adding titles to the buried princesses, and calling the martyred women martyrs and giving them tributes, but they did not It has not changed its brutal and coercive nature.From the Shang Dynasty to the Warring States period, the ruling class also brought many practical objects such as chariots and horses, weapons, musical instruments, jade and eating utensils used during their lifetime to the tomb, which were called "sacrificial vessels".Later, with the development of society, symbolic utensils began to be buried, that is, physical models made of bamboo, wood, clay, etc., called "Ming Utensils".The artifact system is the evolution of the human sacrifice system and the sacrificial vessel system, and it is a progress.After the Song Dynasty, Ming vessels made of paper gradually became popular among ordinary people.However, after the death of feudal emperors and high officials and dignitaries, they were still buried with a large amount of gold, silver and jewelry.

After the coffin is put into the tomb (or buried in the pit) and the burial is completed, the funeral ceremony comes to an end.