What is the difference between "sacrifice" and "lay" in funeral? Getting it wrong isn't a simple joke
Whether it is a stick of incense on the mourning hall or a kowtow in front of the tombstone, these activities to mourn the dead can be collectively called a memorial today.
But in ancient times, if you said this, you would definitely be ridiculed by people for not knowing etiquette, and if you confused the two at a funeral, it would be disrespectful to the deceased, and you might be punished by the government.
Because in ancient times, it was a ritual society, and the ritual system involved all aspects of people's lives, from people's birth to death, from national society to people's daily life, they had to follow different etiquette laws.
In the ancient system of rituals, "laying" and "sacrifice" cannot be generalized, the former refers to the laying ceremony to be followed by people from death to burial, and the latter refers to a series of rituals after burial.
The formation of ritual law has gone through a process from scratch, from single to complex.
In primitive societies, there was no such thing as burial, and after death, the body was abandoned in the wilderness and eaten by wild beasts.
In ancient times, people had the practice of building tombs and burying corpses, but the tombs at that time were very different from the real tombs in the later sense, just a tomb pit, and there were no tombs.
Without a burial mound, the cemetery would soon be flooded with grass and difficult to find again, which meant that there would be no subsequent rituals.
In the Shang Dynasty, a relatively complete memorial system was formed, although there is no written record, but the archaeological discovery of the tomb of Yin Shang can be seen that the people of the Shang Dynasty attached great importance to funerals, and there were a large number of burial goods and martyrs in the tombs.
But the funerals of the Shang Dynasty only served the upper strata of society, who had a high social status and possessed a lot of possessions during their lifetimes.
After death, they will build a burial chamber according to the living specifications of their life, and accompany a large amount of wealth and burial of the living, so as to ensure that they can enjoy the same life after death.
After the burial of the deceased, the descendants of the deceased were sacrificed on a specific date, including wine, food, clothing, ornaments, and slaves.
Slaves refer to human sacrifice, that is, murderous sacrifice, and according to the oracle bone inscriptions, the number of human sacrifices in the Shang Dynasty was staggering, and it once threatened the normal functioning of society.
It was not until the Zhou Dynasty that the formation of the ritual music system and the abolition of human sacrifice made funeral rites a universal ritual law, and there was also a special chapter in the Book of Rites that stipulated the way of sacrifice after death.
There are two articles in the "Book of Rites" called "Shi Funeral Ceremony" and "Ji Xi Li", which record all the sacrificial activities from the death of a person to the burial, and it calls all the mourning and sacrificial activities "laying".
It can be seen that "lay" refers to the sacrificial activities before the burial, which is why the word "lay" is written instead of the word "sacrifice" in the wreath now.
Because wreaths are generally offered at funerals, they belong to the sacrificial activities before the burial and belong to the memorial ceremony.
Therefore, the word "lay" written on the wreath is not only in line with the ancient meaning of the word, but also in line with the etiquette of the memorial ceremony, and in the modern society that does not distinguish between "lay" and "sacrifice", it can be regarded as a relic of the ancient rites.
The reason why the ancients wanted to make a funeral and a sacrifice as the boundary is because in their cognition, only by burying the coffin can the death of a person be truly announced.
In addition to the sacrificial activities after the burial of people, all prayers and sacrificial activities are used in rituals, such as sacrificing to the sky, sacrificing mountains and so on.
In the current dictionary, the meaning of "lay" and "sacrifice" is almost the same, both of which mean to sacrifice the dead or gods with tribute, while in ancient funerals, in addition to the different times used for the funeral rites and sacrifices, the meaning of the rites and methods performed is also very different.
"Dien" is a kind of funeral sacrifice, in this process, the utensils used should be simple and unpretentious, emphasizing the grief and remembrance of the person who performs the ceremony.
The memorial ceremony begins with the death of a person, and when it is found that the person has died, the "first death" is carried out, and the prepared food and wine are offered on the table for the deceased to eat.
On the second and third days of death, a small funeral and a large funeral are held respectively, and the specific method is to offer wine and food according to different specifications.
On the fifth day, the morning and evening prayers are to be laid, and from that day onwards, the descendants are required to weep once in the morning and once in the evening, and to offer new food and wine.
For ordinary people, the time to stop the funeral is relatively short, and it is necessary to prepare for the burial after the morning and evening memorial, and the ancestor should be held before the burial, that is, to offer wine and food to the ancestors, and carry out sacrifices.
After completing the above process, the coffin of the deceased can be loaded into the hearse, when the hearse is started, the deceased has officially entered the ranks of the ancestors, and the descendants will carry out ancestral burial, and the specific method is to offer wine and food.
At this point, for ordinary people, the memorial service has come to an end, and the mourning of children and grandchildren and the coffin make a final farewell, that is, the funeral.
The reason why it is said that this is a funeral for ordinary people is because the funeral ceremony of princes and ministers is often more complicated, and the higher the status, the longer the funeral will be suspended.
For them, after the morning and evening funeral, there is also the new moon and the lunar half funeral, which are held on the first day of the lunar month and the day of the month.
If the memorial ceremony coincides with summer and autumn, it is necessary to recommend a new memorial, which is to worship seasonal grains and fruits.
It can be seen from the way of offering that the purpose of the funeral ceremony is to express mourning, so in the process of worshipping, the deceased is treated as if it were the living, and during this period, the descendants generally cannot do anything against the wishes of the deceased.
The operating mechanism of ancient society is to rule the country by etiquette, and whether it is the emperor or the general or the cloth and grass people, they will follow the ceremony.
Even if the new emperor succeeds to the throne, the top priority is not to govern the country and secure the country, but to complete the funeral of the first emperor.
After Song Huizong ascended the throne, he began to handle Song Zhezong's funeral, and the specifications and production processes of the coffin had to be discussed with the ministers, and finally confirmed by the ceremonial officials.
Before Song Huizong succeeded to the throne, there were constant party disputes in the Northern Song Dynasty, and conservatives and reformers sang and I appeared, which made it difficult to implement many policies that benefited the country and the people.
After Huizong ascended the throne, he wanted to reconcile the contradictions between the two parties and remove the ** who was keen on infighting led by Cai Jing, but he did not do it for a long time.
The main reason is that Zhezong has not yet been buried, and during the funeral ceremony, he belittled the important ministers of the reign of the first emperor, which is contrary to the law of etiquette and is also a great disrespect to the first emperor.
After the burial of the deceased is completed, it is announced that he has left this world, and in the ritual after the burial, the deceased is officially sacrificed as a ghost or a ghost.
In this process, the sacrifices and tributes must be abundant, and the respect for the deceased must be demonstrated, and the etiquette will be more complicated and lasts longer.
After the burial of the deceased, the ritual begins, at noon on the day of the burial, it is necessary to carry out the first Yu, the next day to hold the next day, and then the next day to hold the three Yu, these three sacrifices are collectively called the Yu sacrifice, the main purpose is to attract the soul of the deceased.
After the end of the Yu sacrifice, it is the sacrifice of the pawn crying, before the pawn crying, filial piety and filial piety, if you feel sad, you can cry at any time, after the pawn crying, the sadness is relieved, and the number of times you cry is twice a day.
After the pawn cries, it is necessary to hold a sacrifice, and the spiritual position of the deceased should be enshrined in the ancestral temple according to the generation, and the wine and food should be offered in the ancestral temple, which is the first sacrifice of the deceased in the ancestral temple, so the tribute is relatively rich, and there are many people who participate.
At this point, the funeral ceremony of the deceased is temporarily over, and the children and grandchildren except the eldest son can start a normal life.
However, in the case of the eldest son, the obligation to observe filial piety for three years has only just begun, during which the eldest son is not allowed to do any red business, but to live in the cemetery to keep a watch, and to perform the following rituals.
The first time is held on the first anniversary of his death, which is called the practice festival, and the second time is held on the second anniversary, which is called the Daejo Festival.
One month after the Great Auspicious Festival, the eldest son performs the last sacrifice to the deceased, called the Sacrifice of Removal of Clothes, which heralds the end of the three-year mourning.
After the sacrifice is over, the eldest son can take off his mourning clothes and start a normal life.
However, the end of the three-year mourning does not mean the end of the sacrifice to the deceased, because according to the ritual system, as long as the descendants continue, the sacrifice to the ancestors will not end.
However, sacrifices in this sense are generally relatively simple, and can be divided into temple sacrifices and tomb sacrifices according to the place of sacrifice.
Temple offerings are generally for people of social status, who have an ancestral hall and will be held at the beginning of each month.
Worship and worship on the 1st and 15th and specific dates such as Qingming and cold food.
In the temple sacrifice, the highest level is the Taimiao, the eldest lady in the TV series "Know", the reason why "my father deserves to enjoy the Taimiao" is because "deserving of the Taimiao" is the highest honor that can be obtained in ancient times, and only those who have made outstanding contributions to the Jiangshan Society can enjoy it.
After death, the ministers who are worthy of enjoying the Taimiao will be enshrined in the imperial Taimiao and enjoy the same rituals as the emperors of previous dynasties, and their descendants will not have material or power benefits.
But this does not mean that the Taimiao is just a false name, it is very important in the ritual society, the Qing Dynasty that lasted for more than 200 years, there are countless civil and military generals, and there are only 26 people who enjoy the Taimiao.
Compared with the cumbersome temple sacrifice, the tomb sacrifice is much simpler, and it is generally the descendants to sweep the tomb and make offerings in Qingming to express their sorrow for their ancestors.
Qingming is the solar term when all things grow and are full of vitality, and the sacrifice held at this time also reflects the thinking of people in the ritual society about death and life.
The ancients believed that death is like life, and for the living, once the Qingming is over, everything recovers, the cycle of the four seasons has just begun, and the dead relatives are buried in the ground forever.
Therefore, future generations will clean the graves and worship the ancestors, although people cannot be resurrected after death, but the respect and sorrow for the ancestors have been passed down endlessly through this simple sacrificial activity.
It can be seen that from ancient times to the present, the "laying" and "sacrifice" in the funeral are very different, and what he represents behind is our respect for the deceased, and the mistake is not simply a joke!
In modern society, the complex and cumbersome sacrificial rituals can no longer meet people's needs, and many sacrificial activities no longer exist, but people's grief is still the same, but in a different way of expression.
Today, there are also funerals and sacrifices, but simple burials and thin burials are the mainstream concepts, and the outdated concept of treating the funeral as filial piety has also been abandoned.
People's practice of filial piety will focus on the period of death, which can be described as a bowl of water in front of the bed of filial piety, and a race over 10,000 tons of ash in front of the grave.
As for the memorial ceremony, there are no mandatory regulations now, and the general practice is to follow the wishes of the deceased, which is more humane and respectful of life than the ritual system.
In today's world when cremation has become the mainstream, there is not much time left for people to mourn, and the descendants should dress them in shrouds according to the wishes of the deceased, and the special mortuary will make up for them, and finally invite the relatives and friends of the deceased to say goodbye to the body.
There is no coffin or worship for this memorial service, and the cremated ashes are only about 3 kilograms, which is the same as the weight of a newborn baby.
From three kilograms at birth to three kilograms after cremation, it is a cycle of life, dust to dust to earth, according to the theorem of conservation of mass, the body of the deceased does not die, but exists in a different way.
In ancient times, sacrifices were performed because after a person's death, his voice and appearance also disappeared, and future generations could only mark them through specific objects such as tombs and tombstones as evidence that they were once alive.
Nowadays, people have a variety of media to preserve the voice, experience, teachings, etc. of the deceased, and the best way to express their grief may be to look through photo albums, read the words written by the deceased, and so on.
On the other hand, grave sweeping and offerings, which cause a lot of waste and pollution, are gradually disappearing, and many young people are no longer doing so to sweep graves.
All of the above shows that the funeral and the ritual are developing in the direction of becoming simpler and simpler, and the sacrifice without offerings, incense, candles and paper money is less atmospheric and ritualistic, but it is closer to the essence of the sacrifice.
Because the essence of sacrifice is not to worship the remains of the deceased, but to pass on their teachings, sympathize with their suffering, and better live their lives.
Thinking about life and death is a sign that human beings have entered civilization.
In the ancient society of the rule of law, the funeral ceremony and the sacrifice ran through all levels of society, and it is through this way of sacrifice that people have the awe of life, and use it as a carrier, many folk culture and skills have been passed down to this day.
However, people in modern society have a new understanding of life and death, and their attitude towards death has changed from fear to calmness, and the memorial has also changed from advocating thick burials to pursuing thin burials, and paying more attention to spiritual remembrance.
Today's people, while abandoning the tedious sacrifices, should also carry forward the ancients' attitude of respecting the beginning and being cautious in life, have the open-mindedness to live to death, and cherish the present and live a good life.
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