Since ancient times, China has been a country that pays great attention to the affairs of the afterlife, and it is extremely important for funerals. Not only is filial piety required to be kept for three years, but there are also many ways to bury, such as common burial, cremation, less common water burial, tank burial in Buddhism, etc., but when it comes to the most spectacular and peculiar, it may be necessary to count the cliff burial of the hanging coffin.
>> A Brief History of the Hanging Coffin
The word hanging coffin first appeared in the pen of the Southern Liang official Gu Yewang - "the residence of the earth immortals, there are thousands of hanging coffins on the half cliff". It can be seen that as early as 1500 years ago, the special funeral of hanging coffins has appeared and is popular in the south.
In the Tang Dynasty's "Chao Ye You Zai" recorded - "the high one thinks that filial piety, that is, lifelong sacrifice", the ancients believe that the higher the ancestors are buried, the more they can reflect filial piety, even if they are no longer sacrificed in the future, it is enough to show filial piety, so the ancients began to look for holes and chisel walls on the top of the cliff, trying to bury the deceased higher.
As for why this idea of filial piety appeared, it was the ancients' attachment to the ascension immortals, and The King of Gu Ye used the earth immortals as the title of the person who hung the coffin, which was because the ancients believed that the closer to the sky, the easier it was to ascend the immortals. The hanging coffin is more buried in clear water, which is the ancient people's idea of "returning to the water and returning to the truth".
In general, the hanging coffin is actually the same as the "fallen leaves returning to the roots" of the earth burial and the "sitting into the immortal" of the tank burial, which is actually a manifestation of filial piety, and it is the vision of the descendants for the ancestors to harvest peace and even get the immortals after death, and is an inseparable part of the traditional culture of the mainland.
>> the mystery of the hanging coffin
As long as the current hanging coffins are distributed in the southern territory, the reason for this should be related to the crisscrossing of the southern water system. The distribution area is mainly in Jiangxi, Sichuan, Chongqing, Fujian, Hunan and other places. Among them, the hanging coffin group in Longhu Mountain and other places in Jiangxi is the most representative.
In ancient times, these hanging coffins were buried on the cliffs, and even tomb robbers were difficult to touch. However, with the change of the times, the rise of the riverbed, the advancement of technology, even these hanging coffins have begun to be coveted and destroyed by some thieves in the past hundred years, and the protection work is imminent.
Therefore, in 1978, the Jiangxi Cultural Relics Bureau organized a special team of experts to study and protect the hanging coffin tombs. Through suspension cables, chiseling walls, setting up platforms, etc., the expert team built a small platform on the hanging coffin and began to study and identify the hanging coffin.
To the surprise of experts, the age span of these hanging coffins is extremely large, as recent as the Tang and Song dynasties, and as far as the Spring and Autumn Period of more than 2600 years. The weight of this two-thousand-year-old hanging coffin has reached more than 300 kilograms, and other hanging coffins are also more than 150 kilograms, and the heaviest one has reached 500 kilograms!
But at that time, the ancients even used bronze, under such backward technology, how did the ancients send the hanging coffin to this cliff?
>> the farmer revealed the secret
Experts debated for a long time, but there was no definitive answer. Later, in 1997, Longhushan Tourism Group and experts also released a bounty to the whole country to offer the answer to the coffin on the cliff, and the prize was 300,000!
Soon they received all kinds of answers, what hot air balloons, piles of dirt, ladders and other fantastic ideas came out, but none of them were really reliable. However, an old man from Longhu Mountain later found them and unveiled the mystery.
The old man is a native of Longhu Mountain, and he naturally knows more about the hanging coffin. He only said two words to the experts - "rainbow", which made the expert team suddenly realize. Rainbow is a local old man to know a saying, simply put, the use of long ropes to tie the coffin, suspended from the cliff above, these long ropes are made of kudzu, fine contempt, animal skins and other materials, its toughness is extremely high, so it can withstand the weight of thousands of pounds.
In simple terms, it is to use a rope to fall on top. In fact, the expert group had previously proposed a similar suspension method, but according to the various rope cultural relics that had been discovered at that time, there were very few that could withstand the weight of thousands of pounds at a length of several hundred meters, so they denied it.
And now after the old man used the word "rainbow" to remind, the expert immediately understood. But there is still a problem, that is, the term "rainbow" actually only exists in the area of Wushan and Longhu Mountain, and it is unknown whether the hanging coffins in other places also use the method of rainbowing. Moreover, the Spring and Autumn Coffin of Longhu Mountain, whether there is a special rope making technique mentioned in "Rainbow" more than 2600 years ago has not yet been concretely proven, so Rainbow Still cannot perfectly solve the mystery of the hanging coffin.
>> conclusion
The hanging coffin carries the culture of the mainland, carries the wisdom of the working people, and is the treasure of the mainland. Our task is not only to unravel the mysteries of the hanging coffin, but also to protect this treasure from further victimization. Therefore, most of the hanging coffins in China have been protected now, and I hope that in the future, people can completely uncover the mystery of the hanging coffins