Qinghai Tibetan funeral ceremony

The Qinghai Tibetan funeral rites, generally have the following kinds:

(1) sky burial:

This is the main burial style of Tibetans. When a person stops breathing, some areas stop the body for three or five days, set up a hearth, altar, burning butter lamps, offering all kinds of food, please monks chanting sutras, overcoming the dead, friends and relatives mourning. Some areas are quickly sent to the sky burial ground, simmering mulberry rituals, monks chanting, blowing the conch, inviting vultures to peck. The male members of the deceased's family all participate in the funeral. Some of the funeral paraphernalia are discarded in the mountains and not brought home.

(2) earth burial:

This is prevalent in the eastern agricultural areas, especially with the Han Chinese mixed areas of a burial. People need to wash and dress as soon as possible after death, before the stiffness of the rope or white cloth will be tied into the body of a monk "Zen" style, wrapped in white cloth, coffined into a white cloth bag, and finally placed into the shape of the premises of the quadrilateral high-seat coffins, monks are asked to read the scriptures to superhuman, Funeral corpse three or five days, according to the time of the hour of the divining, will be lifted to the burial ground coffin burial. After the burial, there is a round grave mound, and in some places, small white stones are piled up to commemorate the death. However, minors and those who died violently are not allowed to be buried in the graveyard.

(3) Water Burial:

This is an extremely simple way of burial. Mainly prevalent in areas along the rivers. Water burial coffin and sky burial is roughly the same, according to the time of divination into the river, three days later, the family of the deceased to cast the body at the downstream patrol, if the body was found floating in the water, or stagnant corpse riverbanks, re-introduced into the water.

(4) cremation:

This is a more ideal burial. In history, it was used for monks. After liberation, the state workers and some agricultural areas of the Tibetan people also practiced this type of burial. Cremation of the mortuary and burial of the same, the day of the funeral, the body will be carried to a fixed crematorium (some areas are temporarily selected), from the top of the furnace into the funeral furnace, pouring oil to burn the body. Three days later, relatives went to pack the ashes, buried in the graveyard, or scattered on the top of the mountain, the river.

Regardless of the type of burial, after the funeral, we have to ask the monks to recite the sutra, superdeath. Relatives are all mourning with filial piety.