The ancients were "seeing death as life", believing that the dead were still conscious and seeing death as a place to continue to live. According to the explanation of natural science, once a person dies, it is really dead, everything that the living person does for the dead person will not be known by the dead person, and what the living person asks for is just a psychological comfort. But this statement is also not entirely scientific. Life and death is a big topic, and natural science also has phenomena that cannot be explained, but the ancient funerary culture can be said to be part of the ancient traditional culture and deserves the respect of future generations.
Funeral is to hold a funeral, so that the dead have a home, the living have mourning and other related matters of the ceremony, for thousands of years, folk funeral forms in different regions have different forms, such as burial, cremation, water burial, different forms have a common point, that is, the ancients can not hesitate to manage funerals, and even pour out all the treasures, that is, we often mention the "thick burial" in costume dramas.
As early as the Yin Shang period, the level of productive forces has been initially developed, the aristocratic class has been with rich wealth for the deceased or themselves to hold a thick funeral ceremony, with the funerary items more and more abundant, waiting for the arrival of the western Zhou, the master of the ancient Chinese etiquette system, the funeral form is more and more perfect, and gradually form a national funeral culture psychology, the funeral concept of later generations is basically along here.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, even though the world was chaotic, the rulers and aristocratic classes of various countries still had the heart to improve the funeral system for themselves, after all, this symbolized the prominence of their status before they died and the glory after death, so the wind of thick burial has always been highly respected.
After Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms and established the great unification of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang was the first iron-fisted political figure to complete the unification of China, he was also the first feudal dynasty monarch to be called emperor in ancient and modern China and abroad, and after his death, he was naturally supreme, and his imperial tomb showed the momentum of overwhelming mountains and seas and swallowing mountains and rivers, majestic layout, tall walls, gorgeous sleeping halls, solid tombs, rich funerals, and became a model for the tombs of later kings.
Not only the emperor of the dynasty, from top to bottom, although they can not have the highest standard of thick burial like the emperor, but they can also use the wealth in their hands to hold a thick burial ceremony for themselves or their relatives as much as possible, not only to express feelings to the deceased, but also to show off their social status and economic strength, so the thick burial culture can be inherited.
At a time when the whole upper class society was prevalent, the ordinary people in the middle and lower classes were forced by social pressure to maintain human face, and even if the financial resources did not allow it, they had to do their best to hold a luxurious and decent funeral. Some emperors of some dynasties know that in fact, there is no benefit to the wind of thick burial, it is easy to form a wind of comparison, it is easy to be too luxurious and damage the blessings of the royal family, more importantly, the labor of the people and the loss of wealth is not good for the people, so some enlightened empresses are not willing to hold a funeral of thick burial specifications for themselves after death, they often show their intention to be frugal before they die, such as Emperor Wen of Han was frugal before his death, and repeatedly asked for a "simple burial" after death, do not bother the people.
But that is after all a minority, most of the royal nobles in the past dynasties are willing to enjoy preferential treatment before and after death, and in the Song Dynasty, the basic requirements of royal members are thick burials, of which the construction of a mausoleum for each person is the most important link. Song Yingzong said that "no more ornaments", but Song Renzong still repaired his mausoleum to the extreme, calling forty-six thousand seven hundred people to servitude, and spending "1.5 million yuan of hidden money, 2.5 million horses of fine silk, and 500,000 taels of silver, helping the mountain mausoleum and rewarding the duty." "Maybe this is already a restraint, and you can imagine how luxurious and honorable the thick burial of the emperor's specifications will be."
Upward and downward effects, the rulers respect the wind of thick burial, the princess, brothers and concubines and other places of burial will naturally not be bad, even the young son of Song Renzong Yu Wang passed away, "in the middle of the spring, in the middle of the summer to raise the grave, chiseling the soil through the mountains", serving people "hundreds of thousands of workers", the cost of the wealth reached about half a million Xu, and even there was a serious situation of "three divisions of force, a hundred measures to converge", Song Renzong's Zhang Guifei died, but also "the multitude of ten thousand soldiers, the cost of millions of wealth". The ruler can decide what kind of funeral to hold for them, and since the ruler personally respects the burial, who else can stop it?
The construction of the mausoleum is a big expense, after the burial of the royal family members, their mausoleum can not be too cold and miserable, every year need to maintain and sacrifice, which is an indispensable expenditure every year, Song Zhezong once issued an edict "Jingxi Ti Criminal Division to give money and goods 200,000 to the mausoleum", it can be seen that the red tape of the palace will eventually become a straw that crushes the country. The influence of the royal palace will sweep the country, and the extravagant funerals organized by the family are spread across a wide range of social classes, and as the society develops, it is constantly injecting new content into it.
For example, the Song Dynasty's prevalent yin-yang feng shui geography said: "The burial book of today is the situation of the Xiangshan Shui gang bark, and the stem branch of the years and days, thinking that the descendants are noble and poor, and the longevity and foolishness are all related." "They will spend a lot of money and effort on finding a cemetery just to find a feng shui treasure." The choice of coffin was also crucial, and when King Jide of Pingjiang died, his family bought a coffin for half a million yuan, risking the officials to violate the funeral hierarchy stipulated by the imperial court, just so that their families or themselves could enjoy the best treatment after death. As for the funerary items in the tomb, the world did their best to find some precious things, thus forming a trend of extravagant consumption, fortunately, the rulers of the Song Dynasty had ordered that all people could not build their family's mausoleums too ornately, and could not carve painted paintings, Shi Fangyuan sills, and could not hide gold or jewels in the coffin.
Often those who are buried thickly are not allowed to live in the cemetery, because their burial chambers hide too many treasures, and the tomb robbers of later generations specially pick these hands, dig them into a thousand holes, so that the dead can not rest in peace, which actually violates the original purpose of funeral, everything is heavy on the dead, so that the dead can rest underground and be clean.
Therefore, the wind of thick burial is not worth advocating, and later emperors have corrected this atmosphere, but the results are minimal, but it is precisely because of the ancient promotion of thick burial that modern archaeologists can understand ancient culture through tombs.