Why do funerals in China have to be "ritualized" every seven days?

"Seven" is an important number in China's funeral folklore. Seven days after death is called "the first seven". Fourteen days is called "Erqi"; Twenty-one days is called "Sanqi"; Twenty-eight days are called "April 7" ... and so on until "July 7". Each "seven" has its own unique features, such as sticker boat and paper burning boat. According to folklore, this is to enable the dead to cross the Styx. Why do you have to do "ceremonies" every "seven days" instead of "six days" or "eight days"? There is a saying about female development in Huangdi Neijing: "Female is seven years old, full of kidney qi and long teeth; On the 27 th, when the sky comes, the pulse is too strong, and the moon is in the present, so there is a son; Sanqi, the average kidney qi, so the real teeth are born and long; 47. Strong bones and muscles, extremely long hair and strong physique; On may 7, Yangming's pulse failed, the face began to burn and the hair began to fall; Sixty-seven, Sanyang pulse declines in the upper, the face is burnt, and the hair begins to be white; On July 7, the pulse was weak, the pulse was too weak, the sky was exhausted, and the tunnel was impassable, so the shape was bad and there was no child. " Its meaning is translated into modern Chinese: when a woman develops to seven years old, her kidneys are full of vitality, her deciduous teeth are replaced, and her hair grows more luxuriant. /kloc-when she was 0/4 years old, Erqi gave birth to Tiangui, with smooth and strong pulse, and her menstruation came on time, so she was fertile. The ancients believed that "Tiangui" was the substance in charge of female fertility. At the age of twenty-one, "Sanqi" was full of kidney qi, with real teeth and full-length teeth. At the age of twenty-eight, the bones and muscles are strong, and the hair growth reaches the most vigorous stage. At this time, the body is the strongest. At the age of 35, the qi and blood of two Yangming meridians, the large intestine meridian of hand Yangming and the stomach meridian of foot Yangming, gradually weakened, and his face began to gaunt and his hair began to fall off. At the age of 6742, the Sun Meridian, Shaoyang Meridian and Yangming Meridian are weak in qi and blood, with a gaunt face and hair turning white. At the age of forty-nine, Renmai's qi and blood are weak, and Taichong's qi and blood are also weak. The substance in charge of fertility-Tiangui is exhausted, menstruation is cut off, the body is aging, and fertility is lost. The divination of "Fu" in Zhouyi says: "It is beneficial to return to the Tao in seven days." What does this "seven-day return" mean? Jing Fang, a Yi-ology scholar in Han Dynasty, discovered the "Twelve Words" in Zhouyi by studying this sentence. Fang Jing believes that the ancients selected twelve hexagrams from the sixty-four hexagrams in Zhouyi to represent the twelve months of a year, so as to reflect the changes of Yin and Yang in the twelve months. The so-called "elimination" refers to "elimination of yin and yang"; The so-called "interest" refers to "Yang Long printing interest", which is collectively called "news", so the "twelve hexagrams" refers to the natural climate rhythm in which yin produces yang and yang produces yin. It turns out that Come Back in Seven Days is about the changing law of Yin and Yang in nature. From the beginning of re-divination, a yang began to grow. It experienced seven divinations: re-divination, pro-divination, Thai divination, Zhuang divination, dry divination and * * * divination, in which yang eliminated yin, reached its peak when divination was dry, and began to grow in divination. "Seven days" completed a cycle in which the sun gradually came, the yin gradually went away and the yin began to come again. The transition from one yang to one yin happens to be "seven days", which happens to be from 1 1 month in winter to May in summer. Judging from the twelve hours in a day, it happens to be from midnight to noon. The reason why people in China hold a "ceremony" on July 7th is because the ancients thought that people would "return" on July 7th after their death, so they should bid farewell to the dead again and again so as not to disturb the living. If so, is this concept of the ancients also based on the experience of the real world? Social existence determines social consciousness, and ideas are nothing more than realistic things transplanted into people's minds and transformed in their minds. Professor Qu Limin from Beijing University of Chinese Medicine believes that the average person's illness will recur every seven days. For example, a person's cold usually takes seven days to recover. Even if he doesn't take medicine or seek medical treatment, his symptoms will be obviously alleviated or even recovered after seven days. She believes that this is the result of "seven days and one yang returning", that is, the transformation of Yin and Yang Qi in the seven-day cycle in the human body. In Talking about Health from Head to Toe, she pointed out: "There is an old saying that the physical condition will be repeated every seven days ..." There are many coincidences about "seven": a woman's time from pregnancy to delivery is exactly forty-seven days, which reminds people of an anthropological point of view that "the development of an individual will repeat the whole history of human evolution". If the cycle number "seven" is of great significance in the process of individual development, "Seven" is also an important cyclic number in western civilization. As recorded in the Bible, it took God six days to create the world. On the seventh day, God rested. Six plus one is exactly seven. At present, the seven-day work week prevailing all over the world comes from the Bible, which is the schedule set by the Egyptian king to improve work efficiency after the Hebrews became slaves of the Egyptians. However, this rule has been popular in the world for thousands of years and has not changed during this period. This can not help but remind people that the cycle number of "seven" reflects people's own activity cycle. Similar to the cycle in which God created man in seven days, there is also a saying in China traditional culture that "man was created in seven days". In traditional festivals in China, the seventh day of the first month is called "Everyone's Day". The ancients believed that the first day of the first month was the Year of the Rooster, the second day was the Year of the Dog, the third day was the Year of the Pig, the fourth day was the Year of the Sheep, the fifth day was the Year of the Ox, the sixth day was the Year of the Horse and the seventh day was the Year of the Man. Here we can see the "evolution" thought of the ancients. People's Day was once the most important festival in China traditional culture. After the Revolution of 1911, this "People's Day" was named "Spring Festival", which was merged with the traditional "New Year's Day" and changed to the first day of the first lunar month. There are many records related to "Seven" in the Bible. For example, the Hebrew prophet Yue Se was sold to Egypt in his early years, and was later appreciated by the Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. Yue Se's two dreams about Pharaoh both contain the number of cycles of "seven". One of the dreams is that Pharaoh dreamed that seven fat cows walked in front and seven thin cows followed. Suddenly, seven thin cows caught up with seven fat cows and ate seven fat cows. The content of another dream is: a corn stalk grows three full grains of corn, and another corn stalk next to it grows three thin grains of corn. Suddenly, three lean grains of corn leaned over and ate three full grains of corn. Pharaoh didn't understand the meaning of these two dreams and ordered the officials in the palace to interpret them, but no one could interpret them. Finally, find Yue Se. Yue Se said: Both dreams mean that there will be a bumper harvest for seven years and then a famine for seven years in this part of Egypt. Therefore, he suggested that Pharaoh use the bumper harvest in the first seven years to store more food to cope with the famine in the next seven years. Pharaoh did as Yue Se said with a grain of salt. As a result, everything is as Yue Se said. Because Egypt acted according to Yue Se's inference, it escaped the famine scene of starving people everywhere. Therefore, Yue Se was highly valued by Pharaoh. According to the research of modern scholars, absurd stories in the Bible often describe real history. Similarly, the periodicity of agricultural production related to the Seventh National Day was recorded in ancient China. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, wuyue fought for hegemony and Yue was defeated. Gou Jian, the king of Yue, became the groom of Fu Cha, the king of Wu. Later, Gou Jian, the King of Yue, wanted to avenge his country. Ji Ran, a big businessman under Gou Jian, advised him that according to his observation, the weather should have a cycle every 12 years. The first six years are good, but the last six years are not. Therefore, the first six years are the year of harvest, and the last six years are the year of famine. In harvest years, the grain harvest is cheap, in famine years, the grain harvest is poor and the price is expensive. He suggested that Gou Jian use cheap grain to store grain in good years and sell grain in bad years to stabilize grain prices, which can not only earn the difference to enrich the state treasury, but also stabilize the market. The King of Yue did this, and thus the State of Yue accumulated the material basis for restoring the territory and avenging national humiliation. Ji Ran thinks that the basis of a good cycle and a bad cycle of twelve years is that the running cycle of the old star is twelve years. There are many descriptions of "seven" in the Bible, such as: God wants to destroy the world, in order to prolong life, let Noah take the animals he can catch to Noah's ark, and God requires Noah to keep the number of animals of each kind of "seven males and seven females"; God said to Noah, in seven days, I will send rain on the earth. When the rain stopped, Noah let a pigeon go out to see if the water was gone. Because the water hasn't receded, the pigeons have flown back. Seven days later, Noah released the pigeon again. In the evening, the dove came back with an olive branch. Seven days later, the pigeons were released again, but they didn't come back ... maybe it was some accidental "seven" But in any case, "seven" is probably an important cycle number in the objective world, and it is also an important cycle number closely related to human health. If this conclusion holds, some superstitions about "Seven" in traditional culture may have new explanations. It is of great practical significance to study, attach importance to and make use of "Seven".