Was there cremation in ancient China? What places or competitions are there?

In ancient China, after death, due to different regions, funeral customs were different, including three burials and four burials. Volume II of the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty says: "There are three devices for final mourning: cremation in one day, accumulation of salary and burning; On the second day of water burial, Shen Liu drifted away; Three days of wild burial, abandoning the forest to feed the livestock. " "Southern history? "Biography of Funanguo" said, "There are four burials of the deceased, water burial into the river, cremation to ashes, burial in the earth, and bird burial to abandon Nakano. "These two books are very similar, but they are actually the same. Among them, other burial methods other than burial are more common in frontier and wild areas; Cremation is very common in human life, not only quite, but also popular in the Central Plains and Han Dynasty.

So, when did China start cremation? To understand this problem, we must first understand what cremation is.

Cremation means burning the body with fire, putting the bones in a container, and then burying or preserving them. Book of rites? "Tan Gong" says: "Those who bury also hide; If you hide, you will see what you want from others. " It can be seen that the disposal of the remains after death can only be truly cremated if the above conditions are met.

As for the origin of cremation custom, Ci Hai and Ci Yuan both say that it originated from Buddhism, which first prevailed in ancient India and was introduced to China with Buddhism in Wei and Jin Dynasties. Ci Hai quoted On the Establishment of Adamo: "Those who float die, and the funeral mountain burns the body and abandons it, or puts it in the water, or buries it in the soil, or places it in the open space." According to Biography of the Monk, "(Kumarajiva) died in Chang 'an and was burned to death according to foreign laws. "It really is gold." Ci Yuan also said: "It was originally a funeral system in ancient India, which was introduced to China with Buddhism. "Shu Wei? "Shi Laozhi" also recorded such words: "Buddha died, incense wood burned the body, and the spirit slipped into pieces." It is obvious that Buddhism has the custom of cremation. Rongzhai Essays was written by Hong Mai, a writer in the Song Dynasty? Volume 13 "Folk Cremation" has a cloud: "Since the cremation of the Shi family began, people who died and burned corpses abound." As can be seen from Hong Mai's records, firstly, it is clearly pointed out that cremation began in Buddhism, and secondly, cremation was very popular in Song Dynasty.

Is cremation really a treasure in India? The answer is no, books like Ci Hai are all wrong.

The real cremation in China can be traced back to primitive society. In recent years, archaeological work has provided a lot of evidence that the ancient cremation custom in China originated from primitive society. Archaeologists in China discovered a large clay pot containing human ashes while excavating the prehistoric site of Siwashan in Lintao County, Gansu Province. Siwa culture belongs to a bronze culture in the late primitive society, which shows that the custom of cremation in China can be traced back to the late primitive society. According to the latest archaeological discovery, burnt human bones, clay pots and stone spinning wheels were buried in the double-chamber stone shed tomb in Xinjin County, Liaodong Peninsula, China, and it was confirmed as a cremation tomb. This tomb belongs to the late Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age, and it is the earliest known example of cremation in China. Domestic experts have demonstrated this point.

According to the ancient documents of China, there was a custom of cremation in China as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, such as Gansu, Qinghai and other ethnic minorities in the west. This is Liezi? Tang Wen, Lu Chunqiu? Reward ","Xunzi? Outlines and other articles are recorded. Mozi? "Sacrifice and Burial" records: "Those who have canals in the west of Qin Dynasty, their relatives died, and they collected firewood and burned them." Yi Qu is located in Qingyang, Gansu Province, which shows that cremation was practiced in the northwest region at the latest in the pre-Qin period, and it was very popular.

Gansu and Qinghai are both ethnic minority areas. For example, the site of Siwashan in the upper reaches of the Yellow River belongs to the primitive cultural belt of frontier strongmen, but this does not mean that cremation is only carried out in ethnic minority areas. Cremation is not uncommon in the lower reaches of the Yellow River. In Ludi, there was cremation as early as the Western Han Dynasty. 1928, a stone letter (sarcophagus) was unearthed in Tai 'an, Shandong Province, with an inscription on it, which read: "Only five winds and two years, on June 4, the fourth year of Lu Dynasty, a captain Bu Yi begged for the North Sea, died in forty battles, and went to the valley to cremate his family." The second year of Wufeng was 56 BC, which may be the earliest cremation case found in the lower reaches of the Yellow River basin so far.

In Song Dynasty, cremation flourished. In some notes, such records are common in unofficial history. It is worth mentioning that the traditional way of funeral is burial, which is safe. After the rise of Neo-Confucianism, orthodoxy rose and customs education was emphasized. Therefore, the government of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties explicitly banned cremation. However, folk has become a custom, which is hard to stop.

There is a story about "burning corpses" in the "gleaning gate" of Yuan Yiming's note novel "The Continuation of Huhai News". The first half of the cloud said, "Song Jiazi (1264 in the fifth year of Li Ding, in the Southern Song Dynasty) died suddenly in June before Xie Liu left the warehouse for his wife. His family said that his death was not timely, so it was a fire (burial) at night. "Finally, the author argued:" There was a saying in Chengzhi County that cremation is a capital punishment for people, and people's forbearance depends on their parents' bones, which is different from the punishment of burning to death! Today, cremation is forbidden in Dayuan, and the ancient people's legacy can reuse wooden stakes. " In the Qing Dynasty, Gu's Record of the Day (volume 15) said: "Since the Song Dynasty, the custom of cremation has prevailed in Jiangnan. In the twenty-seventh year of Shaoxing, Song Dynasty, Fan Tong said,' There is a so-called cremation furnace in folk customs today, which must be supported in the world to avoid decay or death and abandonment.' According to the History of Song Dynasty (volume 125), Fan Tong wrote to the emperor, demanding that indecent cremation be prohibited. Later, the implementation was weak, and the state had to let it go.

Not only the people, but also members of the royal family competed for cremation. The History of the New Five Dynasties records that after the death of the wife of Shi Jingtang, the "son emperor" of the late Jin Dynasty, she "burned her bones and was buried underground." /kloc-In the 3rd century, Italian traveler Kyle Poirot also recorded in his travel notes that there are cremation customs in many areas of China, including Ningxia in the north, Sichuan in the west, Shandong in the east and Zhejiang in the south. In recent years, the northern song dynasty ashes earthenware pot unearthed in the west of Luoyang, the burial tomb of Yuan Feng in the northern song dynasty in Fuzhou, the burial tomb of Song Liao Jin in Shanxi, the burial tomb of Song Yuan in the west of Yunnan, etc., all show the popularity of the funeral custom of cremation in China. The so-called changing customs now is actually an inheritance of the ancient cremation tradition.

Finally, I would like to mention "burning image". Burning is a kind of torture that burned people to death in ancient times, which began with Wang Mang. Hanshu? Biography of Xiongnu: "(The king) set up burning punishment, burning and killing, etc." Although this is burning the human body, it cannot be called cremation.