introduction
Zhuangzi will die, and the disciple will want to bury him. Zhuang Zi said: "I take the heavens and the earth as the coffin, the sun and the moon as the continuous bibi, the stars as the pearls, and all things as the gifts." Isn't my burial instrument evil? Why add this! - "Zhuangzi Miscellaneous Chapters, Liekou"
Zhuangzi, as a representative figure of Taoism, still adheres to the law of natural things in the matter of life and death, does not attach importance to the funeral ritual system, and believes that with heaven and earth as a coffin, all things can become a funeral after their death, and if people die, then the corpse has no meaning of existence, and letting the goshawk crow peck is only to return everything to nature. In fact, Zhuangzi's different funeral method is only one of the many funerary methods in ancient times, and there are many other strange funeral methods in various places, such as wind burial and water burial, and the most difficult thing to say is the cliff burial we continue to write.
Coffin on the edge of the cliff
According to the Taiping Imperial Records
"The house of the earth immortals, half a cliff with a hanging coffin",
Hanging coffins, as the name suggests, are buried on a cliff, which is a kind of wind burial in our country, mainly popular in the ethnic minority areas of ancient southwest China, and only a few places in modern society have retained this custom. However, the process of cliff burial is not simply to put the coffin on the edge of the cliff, and it is very difficult in actual operation.
First of all, people need to find a suitable place for the coffin to place, such as chiseling out a cliff platform or cave, or punching some wooden stakes into the rock wall, placing the coffin on the wooden stake, or lucky to find a natural cave, after placing the coffin, you also need to decorate the surrounding environment, such as carving some patterns or inscriptions to mourn the dead, etc. The whole process is very difficult, time-consuming and labor-intensive, and in ancient times it should only prevail among the nobility, and even fewer people choose this method in modern society. The most famous of the known hanging coffins is the Dragon Tiger Mountain.
Cave puzzles, people are confused
Longhu Mountain is located in Yingtan, Jiangxi, the birthplace of Taoism, and the terrain is steep and steep. Behind the Dragon Tiger Mountain there is a rushing river, the river is a steep cliff, the wall stands on a thousand undependents, in a closer look at these cliffs are also covered with hundreds of caves, in order to know what is inside, archaeologists found dozens of local strong boys into the cave to explore, the original cave is not gold and silver jewelry, treasure coins, but a pile of hanging coffins and some funerary crafts.
So the question arises again? How did these coffins get into such a steep cave? Even now, these able-bodied young men need to climb the cliffs with external support, just to go up to see it is very difficult, if you carry such a coffin that is as small as a hundred pounds and weighs a thousand pounds, it is almost impossible to go up the cliff. But the facts were right in front of them, and scientists and archaeologists looked at the cliff and fell into deep thought.
In order to find the answer, the expert group also conducted a multi-faceted investigation, but because of the age, there is no clear record in the ancient books, and after years of wind and rain washing, there is no trace on the cliff, so despite a lot of efforts, the answer to the question has still not progressed.
Bounty bonuses, seek to break the game
Therefore, in order to seek the ancient "mystery of the hanging coffin", experts spent 400,000 yuan to find the answer, hoping to concentrate the wisdom of the people and jointly solve this ancient puzzle. Although 400,000 was already a very large number at that time, it was a pity that no one could provide a feasible solution. The expert group that did not give up put its hopes on visiting and investigating again, hoping that some folk legends or anecdotes could help, and finally an old farmer provided a "way to crack"!
It is said that in ancient times there was a kind of "rudder" that could pull things up the cliffs, victorious and steady, and the hanging coffin may have been sent by this tool.
At the prompt of the old farmer, a professor in Tongji tried to use the modern fixed pulley device to successfully deliver hundreds of pounds of heavy objects to the designated position, but the problem came again.
If such a device is used, then there will inevitably be deep marks on the rock wall, but the previous expert group has also conducted field surveys, but has not found such traces, is it really eroded by wind and rain? Or is there something else hidden? The secret of Dragon Tiger Mountain has still not been fully revealed.
epilogue
Time is like water, and there are many things that can be written down, but most of them are forgotten, and the profound Chinese culture is no exception. Just like the mysterious funerary culture and the mystery of the hanging coffin, due to the progress of the times, it is gradually unknown, when one day suddenly appears in front of people's eyes, people are amazed, surprised by the skills and ideas of the ancestors thousands of years ago, and then begin to explore the second time with respect, probably this is the unique charm of culture.