Basic Characteristics of Chinese Ghost Culture

Looking at the whole process, we find that China's ghost culture, due to the particularity of its formation background, also presents in general prominent features that are fundamentally different from those of other geographical regions.

(1) The long-term existence of the family patriarchal system makes the concept of ghosts and ancestral spirits in China closely integrated, thus leaving a distinctive patriarchal imprint on the Chinese ghost culture.

After the establishment of the family patriarchal system in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the family patriarchal system, as the basic cell of the Chinese social structure, responded to all changes with no change, running through Chinese society for more than 3,000 years, which had an extremely far-reaching influence on the Chinese ideology. The concept of ghosts in China was influenced by it and underwent qualitative changes before and after the Western Zhou Dynasty. From the archaeological data excavated in the ruins of Yin Du, the Yin people before the Western Zhou Dynasty, the view of ghosts and gods still exists in a variety of worship tendency, the sun, moon, stars and morning, wind, rain, thunder and lightning, mountains and rivers have souls, all have the function of descending disasters and blessings, blessing and harming people. Not only that, in the view of the Yin people, parents and ancestors of the spirits and other gods in nature, as often as not to do evil, jeopardizing future generations. "Ching Zu Xin sneak me" [1], "ching mother mother ji sneak broom good son" [2], here the deceased kao, mother and ancestor kao, ancestor mother for no reason to do sneak, and other natural and man-made disasters have the same significance.

After the Zhou Dynasty, with the establishment of the family patriarchal system, the pro-ancestor spirit of the mention of the spirit gradually disappeared. Because in the minds of the Zhou people, the spirit of the ancestors is to "respect the moral protection of the people" as their own responsibility, they are not only high moral character, but also is the guardian of the moral behavior of the descendants of the relatives, will never be no reason to haunt, endanger the descendants, do against the morality of things. With the glorification of the role of the dead ancestors, ancestor worship gradually occupied an important position in various worships, and various forms of ancestor worship, such as ancestral worship, family worship and grave worship, appeared. In particular, the construction of clan temples and ancestral halls, as an important place for ancestor worship, was gradually emphasized. Rituals - Qu Li on the so-called "temple for the first, stables for the second, living room for the latter," that is, the vassals, the son of heaven to build a palace, the first to build the temple. In line with this, in the clan temple, ancestral hall gradually appeared in a variety of complex sacrificial activities, "moon festival", "four seasons of the sacrifice" and so on. In addition, for those orphaned souls, in order to prevent them from haunting, a temporary altar was set up in the countryside for "inviting souls to sacrifices". During the long period of ancient times, ancestral temples and cemeteries, which were connected with ancestor worship, were widely spread throughout China, forming a large system of cultural dissemination. Up to now, most of the people, scenes and objects involved in novels, operas, art and dances about ghosts in China are closely related to the spirits of dead ancestors, ancestral temples, shrines and cemeteries. Due to the regularization of ancestor worship activities, the diversification of ancestor worship forms, and the generalization of ancestor worship consciousness, Chinese ghost culture has taken on a strong family patriarchal character, which makes it significantly different from the ghost culture of the West and other regions.

(2) The widespread popularity of Taoism has made Chinese ghost culture characterized by the unity of Taoism and witchcraft, and the interconnection of ghosts, gods and immortals. Taoism is a religious system with Chinese characteristics synthesized from the philosophy of Laozhuang as the theoretical basis, folk sorcery, fairy magic as the main content, and absorbing part of Confucianism and Buddhism ideas. It has a history of nearly 2,000 years since its emergence in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, occupies a very important position in the history of Chinese culture, and has had a far-reaching impact on many aspects of our ancient society, including the influence of Chinese ghost culture is particularly significant.

We know that folk sorcery, as one of the important sources of Taoism, was created in the late primitive society. Witch is an intermediary between human beings and ghosts and gods, capable of séances, interpreting dreams, prophecies, praying for rain, healing and astrology, etc. It was an indispensable occupation in ancient society. The ancestors thought that diseases were possessed by ghosts, which needed to be removed by witchcraft, and thus there were spells to drive away ghosts. To a large extent, Taoism inherited the idea of relying on witchcraft to pray for luck and avoid disasters. In the middle of feudal society, with the decline of witchcraft, Taoist priests replaced most of the functions of witchcraft, such as presiding over funeral ceremonies, exorcising ghosts to seek peace, supernatural spirits, and so on, and became an important player in the manipulation of ghost culture, thus creating a situation of unity between Taoism and witchcraft in ancient Chinese society.

In addition, Taoism also absorbed the ideas of "godman", "supreme man" and "real man" in the philosophy of LaoZhuang, and catered to people's desire to ascend to immortality. The idea of "man", "supreme man" and "true man" is to cater to people's desire to ascend to immortality and to construct a complete genealogy of immortals. According to incomplete statistics, there are 430 Taoist gods***. Such as: Bodhisattva, Jade Emperor, Xuan female, God of Wealth, God of Door, God of Stove, God of the Sea, Guan Di, City God, etc., there are also many industry gods, such as: blacksmith Chong Laojun, dyeing Chong Meigu Xianweng, beggars Chong Luo Zu Daxian and so on. As for the ghost valley, Zhang Tianshi, Xu Zhenjun and people often say that the eight immortals is known to women and children. Through the study of the Taoist classics, "Taoist Collection", we found that the Taoist gods and goddesses have a prominent feature, that is, a name, a name, a shape, a quality, a feeling, a desire, and a life history of the Taoist immortal. Taoism's thinking method of creating immortals is very easy to create an illusion to the ordinary world, that is, the death of a person is a ghost, but as long as the Taoist can be a ghost or become a god or an immortal, which led to the Chinese ghost culture of ghosts, gods, and immortality, mixed and undistinguished characteristics.

(3) The introduction of Buddhism has made the Chinese concept of hell colorful.

Buddhism was introduced to China after the B.C., and flourished through the Three Kingdoms, the Two Jin dynasties and the North and South dynasties, and its influence on the Chinese ghost culture was highlighted in the "concept of hell". Compared with China's inherent concept of the underworld, the Buddhist hell highlights the characteristics of "prison". That is, the punishment of the world of people, no matter how rich or poor in life, after death their ghosts are to the underworld hell to accept the trial of the king of the underworld, which undoubtedly for the entry into the class society, redress of grievances of the Chinese people have no way to provide a psychological means of liberation. The number of hells in Buddhism is incomparable to that of other religions and is extremely confusing, roughly speaking, there are fundamental hells, solitary hells, eighteen hells, etc. Each of these large hells includes many other hells. Each of these major types of hells consists of numerous minor hells. Inside each kind of hell, there are various kinds of torture instruments, so that the dead souls can be sanctioned either lightly or heavily for the good or bad behaviors in their past lives, and there is also a whole set of bureaucratic system for managing hell headed by the King of Hell, and supported by judges, ghost officials, ghost pawns, all of which are unprecedented in our country's ancient worldview of the underworld. Later on, the Buddhist concept of hell absorbed some elements of the "Nine Layers of the Underworld" from the early Chinese concept of hell, and combined them with the Chinese bureaucratic system to create the Chinese version of the "Ten Temples of Hell". "The first hall: King Jiang of Qin Guang; the second hall: King Li of Chu Jiang; the third hall: King Yu of Song Di; the fourth hall: King Lu of Wu Guan; the fifth hall: King Bao of Yan Luo; the sixth hall: King Bi of Kacheng; the seventh hall: King Dong of Taishan; the eighth hall: King Huang of the Metropolis; the ninth hall: King Lu of Equality; the tenth hall: King Xue of the Wheel of Reincarnation" [3]. The duties of the kings of the underworld are clearly defined, and they are in charge of all kinds of matters in the underworld. It can be seen that the Buddhist view of hell and China's inherent concept of the underworld complement each other, relying on each other, **** with the composition of our country after the Middle Ages, a huge and complex system of the netherworld.

(4) Confucianism, as the mainstream of traditional culture, is influenced by the principles of loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, which are highly regarded as the principles of human behavior, and the ghost culture in China is characterized by a strong ethical supremacy.

Confucianism holds a skeptical and distant attitude towards the existence of ghosts and gods, and Confucius believes that we should "respect the ghosts and gods and stay away from them"[4], and that "if we cannot serve the people, how can we serve the ghosts"[5]. But on the other hand, Confucianism attaches great importance to funeral and sacrificial activities related to ghost culture. In response to this phenomenon, it has been argued that, fundamentally, Confucianism recognizes the existence of ghosts and gods. To a certain extent, there is a reasonable side to this view, but it should be pointed out that the reason why Confucianism attaches great importance to funerals, rituals and other ghost activities is not entirely to deal with ghosts and gods, but to use them as a means of enhancing people's concepts of loyalty, filial piety, benevolence and righteousness, and to consolidate the hierarchical system of respect for the inferior and the superior. Zeng Sen's "prudent to the end of the day, the people's virtue to the thick "[6] is the concentrated expression of this idea. The founder of Confucianism and the successors of later generations is to "the people's virtue to the thick" as a starting point, the ethical concepts of "loyalty and teach benevolence and righteousness" into the purely sorcery, rituals in the category of ghost culture activities. With the increasing consolidation of the patriarchal system, Confucianism has become even more elaborate and even unsympathetic to funeral and sacrificial rites. Throughout the ages, there have been many expositions and treatises on funeral and burial rites, and the amazing esteem for filial piety shown in funerals and sacrifices has been well documented. The Book of Rites is one of the masterpieces that completely summarizes funeral and sacrificial activities. This kind of funeral and sacrificial activities institutionalized, standardized, the practice of righteousness, objectively greatly promote the development of ghost culture, but also make the Chinese ghost culture with a strong ethical supremacy of the color, which constitutes the Chinese ghost culture is significantly different from other ghost culture is another important feature.