Burial began in primitive society
"Cremation treats people as garbage, lacks humanistic care, and recommends restoring burial."
This is a sentence said by Wu Fei, a professor at Peking University, as soon as this word came out, a stone stirred up thousands of waves, and netizens instantly exploded the pot and discussed whether it was feasible to restore the burial.
Burial has been passed down on the mainland for thousands of years, and after the abolition of the Republic of China period, if the mainland has been practicing the cremation system.
So is there anything unreasonable about cremation? Is the professor's words worth thinking about?
First, let's take a look at why the ancients liked burials.
The earliest burials appeared in primitive societies, because the body of the person will decay after death, if not properly handled will spread some diseases, the people of the primitive society realized this problem, began to throw the body of the deceased on the uninhabited hillside.
Later, with the evolution of civilization, people began to realize that this practice was a bit cruel, so they would bury the bodies of their loved ones.
It was not until the Yin Shang period that the system of martyrdom gradually developed.
The ancients believed that "death is like life", and the emperors had to sit in the world as they did when they were alive, so the tombs of ancient emperors were larger than one size.
Many cruel tyrants even demanded that the living be buried, which was very cruel, until after the Han Dynasty, the "feng shui treasure land" began to rise, and the system of human martyrdom was banned.
Although no one is martyred, the funerary products are surprisingly much more, from the emperor to the people, the location, specifications, and number of funerary items of the mausoleum have a strict hierarchy.
Ordinary people do not have a mausoleum, generally will use a coffin, put a few pieces of clothing into the burial, if it is a really poor family, even the coffin can not afford to buy, can only be wrapped in a straw mat directly into the burial.
The way of burial has been passed down for thousands of years, and people are also accustomed to letting the deceased "go into the soil for safety", and the reason for this concept is inseparable from the ancient ghost theory.
There is a saying in the "Fortune of Rites": "The soul returns to heaven, and the form returns to the earth."
That is to say, the ancients believed that if the body of the deceased was buried in the ground, then his soul could ascend to heaven.
The custom of burial has been passed down to modern society, and this concept is deeply rooted in people's minds, and even during the Republic of China, the government encountered great obstacles when implementing the reform of the funeral system.
So why did we have to abandon the burials that have been handed down for thousands of years and carry out reforms?
The original cremation arose from Buddhism in India, when Buddha Shakyamuni was cremated after his death and burned the world-famous relic, and since then, cremation has been on fire all over the world.
Why did Chairman Mao advocate cremation?
Indian Buddhism was only introduced to the Central Plains around the time of the Tang Dynasty, but this does not mean that cremation did not occur in China.
According to historical records, the earliest cremation appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period, and in the Song Dynasty, many people also practiced cremation, but at that time the population was limited, and the cremation was not carried out because of any protection of the environment, purely because of poverty, there was no condition for the deceased to be buried.
It was not until after the founding of New China that mainland leaders began to advocate the implementation of the cremation system.
At that time, the population had grown dramatically, and due to the increased demand for arable land, under the leadership of Chairman Mao, people began to advocate cremation.
Of course, the increased demand for arable land is only one of the reasons, and another important reason is that after years of decay, the land and water resources have been affected.
In addition, the burial coffin requires a lot of wood, which is bound to cause a large number of trees to be cut down, and the space demand for land for burial is large, resulting in a lot of waste of land.
In the future, the population will increase, and the demand for land for burial will increase exponentially, and for these reasons, the state decided to promote cremation.
In 1956, after Chairman Mao took the lead in signing the proposal, the country officially began to implement the cremation system, because people's thinking has long been deeply rooted, so the implementation of cremation at that time could not be carried out.
"Burial in the ground for safety" has long been the traditional concept of Chinese people, and people often believe that letting the deceased rest in peace is filial piety, so the implementation of cremation has been resisted, especially the elderly in the countryside are very opposed.
Even later, it developed that some people began to bribe relevant officials in order to be able to implement the burial system, which was enough to show that it was very difficult to change people's thinking overnight.
However, with the rise of many local crematoriums, a new generation of young people has gradually opened up their minds, and without the superstitious ideas of the ancients, people are no longer attached to the so-called "death is like life".
Many young people can see openly and think that sooner or later they will become a bunch of loess after death, so they are not so concerned about the things behind them, with the development of society for decades, our society is mainly based on cremation.
After the rise of cremation, one of the biggest benefits was that the occupation of arable land was reduced.
Cremation is generally centralized, and does not need to build a mausoleum like the ancients, which can save a lot of land, which is developed into arable land, which can solve a major farmland problem for farmers.
Secondly, cremation is also a powerful factor for people to abandon feudal superstitions and move towards a modern new society, after the collapse of ancient emperors, they built mausoleums on a large scale, which not only hurts the people and money, but also makes people more superstitious about ghosts and gods.
After the founding of New China, the ancient funerary system was completely overthrown, and without the martyrdom system, naturally there would be no feudal thinking.
In addition, the practice of cremation has greatly reduced the plague phenomenon.
After the body is decomposed, it will produce a lot of chemicals, thereby increasing the reproduction of germs, and many natural disasters in ancient times often followed the plague after the occurrence of plagues, which is caused by the proliferation and outbreak of germs.
The medical technology and knowledge level of the ancients were relatively backward, and once the plague broke out, the treatment methods were extremely cruel, and they could only seal the village and let the people inside fend for themselves.
After the people inside were infected with the plague, another fire burned the village, which was the fastest and most effective way to eliminate the plague.
But if cremation is practiced, this phenomenon can be directly eliminated, at least not because of improper disposal of corpses and cause plague.
On the whole, the implementation of cremation is indeed a good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, although the biggest obstacle is that people's old ideas are difficult to change, but as young people gradually open up ideas, the idea of clinging to "going into the soil for safety" has been greatly reduced.
So since cremation has so many benefits, why did people react so strongly when Peking University professors called for the restoration of burial?
Which way is more reasonable?
In China, the implementation rate of cremation is now more than halfway, at least in the rural areas of remote areas, most of the population is ideologically agreeing with the cremation system.
This was originally a good thing, but now no one has thought of it, and it seems that the center of gravity has begun to deviate.
Nowadays, many remote rural areas still retain the tradition of burial, the original burial system is definitely gone, after the death of relatives, it is generally a coffin, a birthday coat is enough.
Some exquisite families will ask someone to sort out the remains of the deceased, and there are famous people in the village to preside over the funeral, without much expense and without going around looking for a cemetery.
But what exactly is the so-called cremation situation in the city?
After the death of a loved one, the first thing people have to prepare is the high cost of cremation, because in people's minds, this industry is more or less "obscure", and it is not the mainstream industry in society.
The so-called rarity is expensive, so the cost of the funeral industry has always been ridiculously high.
After cremation, the urn is prepared, followed by the burial fee, the ceremony fee, etc.
Of course, these are still small money, the most exaggerated of which is that nowadays, with the outrageous development of the real estate industry, cemeteries have also been speculated to sky-high prices.
Many cemeteries are more than 100,000 flat, and even the most expensive ones have been speculated to hundreds of thousands, and it costs millions to buy a cemetery, and many people can only buy a house to dedicate to deceased relatives because they can't afford to buy a cemetery.
What's even more outrageous is that some banks have also jointly launched a "graveyard loan" business, which does not require any collateral and can easily borrow a large amount of money.
In such a deformed social environment, many people shout "if you don't work hard, you can't afford to die."
Then this will cause a phenomenon, the original purpose of the implementation of cremation is to reduce the occupation of cultivated land, but now after the cremation, but also to let relatives "into the ground for safety", then the demand for land in the cemetery has not decreased.
In addition to these subjective factors, cremation can also cause environmental pollution.
In the process of cremation, a lot of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other substances will be released, which are directly emitted into the air without treatment, which is bound to have a certain impact on the environment.
Cremation requires resources, a cremation needs to consume 10 to 15 kilograms of diesel, as well as about 20 degrees of electricity, China needs to be cremated every day more than 40,000 people.
The resources lost every day are entirely conceivable.
On the whole, since cremation has no advantage over earth burial, why should cremation be promoted?
Wu Fei, a professor at Peking University, believes that cremation is too impersonal, and people treat the deceased as "garbage", so that the deceased has no half dignity and lacks humanistic care.
As soon as Professor Wu's words came out, it caused an uproar on the Internet, and many people supported the abolition of the cremation system so that their relatives could be completely buried.
Some people also believe that it is not possible to apply one size fits all, and if you want to solve the dilemma of funerals, you must "adapt to local conditions", that is to say, the population in the city is cremated, but the population with burial conditions in the countryside can be buried.
In general, most people are currently inclined to abolish cremation and re-implement earth burial, so which way do you think is more reasonable?