Five burial methods of Tibetans after death

Tibetan traditional funerals are mainly divided into five ways: tower burial, cremation, sky burial, water burial and earth burial.

Due to the influence of religion and feudal hierarchy, people of different grades adopt different funeral methods. In different regions, different funeral methods are adopted.

Tower burial is the highest level of all funeral forms, which is mostly carried out in living buddhas. The method is to rub the corpse with special drugs such as salt water and saffron, and put it into the stupa after plastic surgery; Some people put their ashes in the stupa after cremation. A very small number of people, such as the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and the Living Buddha, can enjoy this kind of funeral.

Cremation is a noble way of funeral. Only monk Dade can hold this kind of funeral in Lhasa. After some monks are cremated, their ashes are made into "Maha Zi" (small clay bodhisattva) for use in religious places, or taken to the top of the mountain to drift with the wind, or scattered into rivers to let them drift with the tide. In the southeast of Tibet, far from Lhasa, ordinary people also use cremation because there are abundant trees as fuel.

Celestial burial is the most common burial method in Tibet now. It is said that it originated in 1 1 century and rose at the initiative of the Indian monk Tangba Sanjie. Celestial burial method, the body is transported to a specific celestial burial place, dissected by the celestial burial master, and then fed to the eagle, which means that the last body is also dedicated to the eagle. Buddhism believes that this is a kind of merit, which can redeem the sins before death and is conducive to the reincarnation of the soul.

Water burial is very popular along the Yarlung Zangbo River and in deep valleys in southern Tibet. During the water burial, the bodies were carried back to the river, dismembered one by one and thrown into the rapids; In some places, it is convenient to wrap the body in white cloth and throw it into the river.

Burial is the earliest popular funeral method in Tibet, with a history of about 3000 years. It is an ancient funeral custom popular during the period when Tibetan people believed in the primitive religion-Bonism, which lasted until the collapse of the Tubo Dynasty in the middle of the 9th century.

In Lhasa Valley, children under 8 years old can't enter the celestial burial platform because they are minors. According to the traditional customs of Tibetan people, their hands, eyes and mouths should be sealed with salt and ghee, put in a clay pot and hung in ventilated old houses or caves to keep their bodies intact.

In the southeast forest region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, children's bodies are placed in bamboo baskets or wooden boxes and hung on branches in specific areas, which is called "tree burial". ?

Extended data

Tibetan funeral custom

Because of the influence of Buddhism, Tibetans are not extravagant about funeral, and death is only the beginning or "liberation" for Buddhists, so they are not particularly sad. The early Tibetan society believed in Bonism, believing that the soul would be separated from the original body after death, and it was necessary to use a method of descending the soul to make the soul meet the corpse.

In this spiritual ceremony, wine is used in many places. After the soul-descending ceremony begins, you should offer a gourd ladle of "evocation wine" and invite the soul to descend to earth. In the process of descending, a ceremony of "offering three spoonfuls of wine" should be held. In the "combination of corpse and soul", "combined wine" will be offered three times. Inviting free souls with wine symbolizes the attraction of a better life to souls.

The status of wine here has been on an equal footing with food necessary for survival. Although there is no such ceremony in modern Tibetan funerals, wine is still needed: during celestial burial, the families of the deceased should send wine to celestial burial professionals, and when cremation, people who guard the cremator should be invited to drink. At Jia Rong's Tibetan funeral, we should "drink and ask God";

At the end of the funeral, the bereaved family and the uncle's family will drink "miscellaneous wine" together, and sing wine songs in pairs to recall the life of the deceased and express their praise and regret for the deceased.

Baidu encyclopedia-Tibetan funeral

People's Network-Six Traditional Funeral Ways of Tibetans