Chapter 36 Section 2 Other Funeral Ceremonies

Burial is the dominant burial in the ancient Central Plains of my country.In addition, there are cremation, water burial, wind burial, tower burial, sky burial, wild burial, hanging burial, hanging coffin burial, golden altar burial, bed burial, etc.Various burial rites are practiced in different regions for the dead in different situations.For example, celestial burials are mainly popular in Tibetan and Mongolian areas, and hanging burials are mainly practiced in Dong areas in Guizhou.Water burials are mostly used for children who died young and poor people who died of infectious diseases, and tower burials are the burial ceremony for Tibetan living Buddhas.There are some etiquette ceremonies in various funeral ceremonies, which also reflect certain religious concepts and folk customs.Here are a few examples to get a general idea of ​​it.

Cremation has a long history in our country. In 1945, when excavating the prehistoric site of Siwa Mountain in Lintao County, Gansu Province, a large gray pottery jar containing human ashes was unearthed, which shows that cremation in our country can be traced back to the primitive society.After entering the class society, cremation continued to be popular.According to "Mozi Jiebuxia": "Where there is a country of Yiqu in the west of Qin Dynasty, their relatives die, and they gather firewood and burn them." It can be seen that the Yiqu area (southwest of Qingyang County, Gansu Province) in the pre-Qin period was Perform cremation.Buddhism was introduced to my country in the Han Dynasty. According to religious regulations, Buddhists should be cremated when they die.Affected by it, cremation became popular in some areas, and even royal family members practiced cremation when they had to. "New History of the Five Dynasties: Biography of the Jin Family" records that the empress Li, the queen of the later Jin emperor Shi Jingtang, died after being captured by the Khitan, that is, "burning her bones, piercing the ground and burying her."During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, more people practiced cremation and the area was wider.According to Wang Cheng [Cheng Said] of the Song Dynasty in "Eastern Capital Stories", in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, "following the barbarian law, many people were cremated". "Song History · Li Zhi" also said: "Hedong (now Shanxi area) is because of "the land is narrow and there are many people, even if the relatives are bereaved, they are all burned."In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, because the rulers prohibited cremation, and the Ming Dynasty had laws to punish cremators, the custom of cremation gradually declined, but it never disappeared.

The specific ceremony of cremation varies from place to place.In the Yuan Dynasty, the cremation of the residents of the water towns south of the Yangtze River was relatively grand. Clothing and hemp, playing music, and armor, gold and brocade were used to burn the corpses together ("Marco Polo's Journey").Others are relatively simple, such as Chapter 78, which writes that after the death of the girl Qingwen whose "heart is higher than the sky and life is thinner than paper", she was "immediately buried and carried to the Huaren Factory outside the city".The disposal of ashes is also different. Senior Buddhists with status will build a columbarium, while ordinary people will throw some in the water, some scattered in the wilderness, and some buried in earthen pots or wooden boxes.According to the investigation of the cremation tombs in Lufeng County, Chuxiong, Yunnan, from the early Yuan Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty, the method of processing the ashes is to select the skull and large bones after the body is burned until the bones are grayish white, and write Sanskrit scriptures on them with cinnabar or gold powder. Mantra to save the undead, and then put the bones into ceramic jars in order for burial.Some also drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank to allow the "soul" to enter and exit.This is obviously a ceremony with a Buddhist concept.However, even if the ashes are reburied after cremation, there will be no grave head.

There are probably two reasons why cremation was popular in ancient times.One is that Buddhists practice cremation. Even if the feudal emperors banned cremation, monks were not allowed to be cremated. Therefore, cremation must be popular in areas where Buddhism is prevalent.Second, cremation saves money and does not occupy land, so it is easily accepted by the working people who have no land and no money.As stated in Volume 11 of the "Huanyu Suoji" series by the Shenbaoguan, among those who used cremation, "half of them had no capital to conduct burials, and half of them were confused by Shi Shi's theory."From today's point of view, cremation is economical and hygienic. It is a better funeral method and should be vigorously promoted.

In ancient times, there was a superstition that the corpse would bind the soul, and only after the corpse was destroyed, the soul could ascend to heaven.The sky burial is a burial method that destroys the corpse quickly. Sky burial, also known as "bird burial", is a common burial method for Tibetans.The dead are generally not dressed, and the funeral director uses animals or backs to carry them to the celestial burial ground, with their heads facing west and lying prone on the ground.After the lama burned incense and chanted sutras, the funeral director dismembered the corpse, took out the internal organs and threw them around, then smashed the bones and head, mixed with ghee and Zanzan cake.Finally, the cypress branches were burned to burn the smoke, and the vultures came towards the smoke, vying to peck at each other.Eating up means that the soul of the deceased has ascended to heaven with the bird, so that the happiness of the afterlife can be obtained.

The early Mongolians also practiced sky burial.After a person dies, he wraps his body in white cloth, loads the body on a Lele cart or on horseback, and drives it away. The place where the body falls is the burial place.Some are also transported to the top of the mountain or valley designated by the Lama in advance.The deceased was transported to the burial place, and the mourners returned to let the hawks and dogs eat the body.Three days later, the tribe went to check, and if the body had been eaten by birds and beasts, it was believed that the soul of the deceased had ascended to heaven, and the whole family was happy.Otherwise, it is considered that the sins of the deceased have not been eliminated, and a lama must be asked to chant scriptures and pray for the deceased to eliminate disasters and repent until the corpse is eaten up by birds and animals.After the deceased is buried in the sky, his descendants are required not to shave their heads, drink alcohol, or entertain themselves within 49 days or 100 days, and do not greet friends and guests when they meet to express their condolences.

This is a special way of disposing of the bones of the dead, mainly distributed in the minority areas in the ancient south.From the pre-Qin period to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, hanging coffins existed.According to ancient documents and archaeological findings, there are many types of hanging coffin burials.One is to drill holes in the rock wall, wedge into wooden piles, and place the coffin on the wooden piles.The second is to use natural caves to place the coffin half in the cave and half outside the cave.The third is to use the cracks between the two rocks to erect wooden beams between them and place the coffins, all of which are exposed.The fourth is to drill the rock as a hole, insert the coffin, and one end is exposed outside the hole.The above four types are all characterized by "hanging", so they are called hanging coffin burials, also known as "cliff burials".There are also some burial styles in which all the bones or coffins are placed in caves on the rock wall, which are often called "rock cave burials", "rock tombs" or "rock coffins", and they are also of the same type as hanging coffin burials.The styles of the hanging coffins are also different.There are canoe-shaped wooden chisels, rectangular coffins made of planks, and burial utensils made of ceramics and bamboo mats.

As for the funeral ceremony of the hanging coffin, there is a simple record in Shen Ying's "Linhai Foreign Objects" of the Eastern Wu of the Three Kingdoms.It mentioned that during the period of Sun Liang Taiping (256-258 A.D.) in Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, people living in the deep mountains in Linhai County (now Tiantai, Jinyun, Lishui, and Longquan, Zhejiang Province) used a square wooden box to enshrine after death, and killed dogs. Sacrifice, drinking and singing at the same time, after the religious ceremony is over, the coffin is "hanged between the rocks of the mountains".As for why hanging coffin burials are implemented, it may be related to the religious ideology of the ancient southern minorities.According to Zhang 's "Chao Ye Qi Zai" in the Tang Dynasty, after the death of the old man of "Wuximan", he put the body in the coffin and placed it outside the village, and then placed the coffin on the high rock near the river three years later.They believe that "the one who is taller is the most filial", that is, the higher the coffin is placed, the more filial piety has been done.Therefore, judging from archaeological materials, some hanging coffins were actually placed on cliffs as high as one or two hundred meters.

This refers to the burial forms of various jade articles such as bi, yuan, ring, cong, jade bracelet, jade cone, jade cicada, and jade pendant in the tombs of the Liangzhu culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.Because there are sayings in "Zhou Li" that "Cangbi salutes heaven", "Huang Cong salutes land", and "Bicong collects corpses", some scholars refer to the tombs of Liang Zhu culture as jade burials.This emphasizes the importance of burial objects, because according to the etiquette system of the Zhou Dynasty, Bi and Cong were ritual vessels used for sacrifices. The owner of the tomb possessed these ritual vessels, indicating that he had the power to sacrifice to heaven and earth during his lifetime. By analyzing the nature of the burial objects, it can be inferred that the tomb The identity of the master has its particularity.But in essence, jade burial is also a kind of burial.

In connection with this, in the Han Dynasty, after the death of emperors and upper-class nobles, the system of burials in jade clothes prevailed.Jade clothing, that is, clothes made of jade pieces, is a special high-end funeral clothing.The ancients believed that wearing jade burial clothes could bless the immortal bones and keep the soul forever, so no expense was spared in making jade clothes.At present, the most complete and best-preserved jade garments found in our country are the two gold hazel jade garments of Liu Sheng, King Jing of Zhongshan in the Western Han Dynasty, and his wife Dou Wan, which were unearthed in Lingshan, Mancheng County, Hebei Province in 1968.Jade clothes are divided into different grades such as gold-threaded jade clothes, silver-threaded jade clothes, and copper-threaded jade clothes.According to the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty Etiquette Records", the emperors of the Han Dynasty wore gold-threaded jade clothes after their death, the princes, nobles, and princesses wore silver-threaded jade clothes, and the nobles and princesses wore copper-threaded jade clothes.However, judging from Liu Sheng and Dou Wan's use of golden jade clothes, this rule was not strict in the Western Han Dynasty.After the Han Dynasty, jade clothes were used less and less.In the third year of Cao Wei Huangchu (AD 222), Wei Wendi Cao Pi ordered the abolition of the jade clothing burial system in view of the fact that the golden jade clothing from the tombs of the Han Dynasty was constantly being excavated and stolen.