The artifacts unearthed in the Han Dynasty reflect the extremely developed tomb civilization at that time, and it shows us the ancient people's concept of the universe and their fundamental attitude towards the problem of life and death—in the view of the ancients, death is not the end of life, but the transformation of life, so they achieved this transformation process through wonderful tomb design.
1. The tomb gate as the first line of defense
The Han Dynasty believed that after death, people would enter an underground world ruled by ghosts and gods, in which the dead were vulnerable to ghosts and gods without protection, and the victims would in turn bring disaster to the living. Therefore, when building tombs, Han Dynasty people usually performed exorcism rituals at the tomb gate, as the first line of defense to protect the dead, and the purpose was to reconcile with the underground lord before the deceased was buried.
Folk dance
The tomb door exorcism ceremony is one of the rituals of exorcism. During the Han Dynasty, there were two types of exorcism rituals. One is the time to go according to the season, which is generally held four times a year, and the year-end one is also called "Da Da". The other is the exorcism ceremony held at the entrance of the tomb before the deceased is buried. This kind of ritual is a combination of behavioral witchcraft and verbal witchcraft, in which there are both simulated actions of driving and killing, as well as verbal incantations. The presiding officer of the exorcism ceremony is called Fang Xiangshi, who wears a bear skin and a four-eyed mask made of gold, the mask is black and red, and he holds a shield in one hand and leads the exorcism team to open the way in front of the spirit team. After arriving at the cemetery, Fang Xiangshi took the lead in entering the tomb and hit the four corners of the tomb with weapons, implying that all the evil spirits lurking inside were driven out.
In the cultural relics of the Han Dynasty, the images of Xiangshi are painted on the doors, door posts, and lintels of many tomb doors. Placing such a picture on the door of the tomb can play a role in preventing evil spirits from invading the tomb and ensuring the auspiciousness and tranquility of the tomb owner.
Painted on the tomb gate
In addition to Fang Xiang's family, there are also carved heads painted on the tomb door of the Han Dynasty. It is the image of the mask worn by the Xiang clan and his exorcism team in the exorcism ceremony, so it also has the effect of driving away ghosts and evil spirits.
Head
2. Dolls, medicine stones and charms to dispel disasters and exorcise ghosts and souls
In ancient times, the most important function of a funeral was not to appease the living, but to protect the deceased from entering the underworld safely
Therefore, it is necessary to perform various spells in the tomb to dispel evil spirits and calm ghosts. In the tombs of the Han Dynasty, the most common forms of spells were doll stand-ins, medicine stone tombs, and spells.
First of all, we will introduce the method of puppet stand-in. The people of the Han Dynasty believed that people could still be guilty of sins in the afterlife. for
In order to save the deceased from all kinds of underground labor, people made dolls as substitutes for the deceased and suffered various punishments underground on behalf of the deceased. Some of these avatars are made of gold, silver, lead, and other metals. The "Red Songzi Chapter Calendar" records: "Depending on the size of the family, one person makes a doll, and the family without silver uses lead instead." "In addition to metal dolls, people also use ginseng and pine figures as stand-ins to bear calamities on behalf of the deceased.
Lead man in the Han tomb
In the tombs of the Han Dynasty, the method of calming the soul with medicinal stones was also popular. The magic medicine of the Han Dynasty was divided into two categories: plants and minerals. The medicinal stone is a mineral medicine, and the magic medicine that is often used to calm the soul in the tomb is Dansha, realgar, alum, Zeng Qing, and Cishi (that is, magnet). These five medicinal stones are black, red, blue, white and yellow, representing the five elements of water, fire, wood, metal and earth. The ancients believed that the five stones had mystical powers and could settle ghosts in tombs. They placed the five colors of ore in the clay vase of the town tomb and placed the clay vases according to the orientation of the five elements. The east is bluestone, the south is red stone, the west is white stone, the north is black stone, and the middle palace is yellowstone. The pottery vase unearthed from the No. 2 tomb outside the Peace Gate in Xi'an City is written on the words "and the essence of the five stones, the tomb Mo, and the descendants of the benefit", indicating that the five stones play a role in the tomb to suppress the soul and suppress evil.
A charm is an exorcism document composed of spells and spells. "Huainanzi" records: In the past, when Cangjie created words, corn rose in the world, and ghosts wept at night. The high lure note explains: The ghost weeps at night because he is afraid of being judged by words. The ancestors believed that Chinese characters, with pictograms as their main characteristic, had the power to disgust ghosts. During the Warring States period, sorcerers commonly used spells that combined words and graphics to enhance the effectiveness of their spells. The people of the Han Dynasty often drew charms with red brushes on the above-mentioned pottery vases with five-colored stones. A talisman is the written form of a curse, and a talisman is a spell or a spell. Spells that survive in written form have long-term validity, i.e., the spell's effect remains after the original caster's witch exits. Take the charm on a pottery vase in Cao's tomb in Eastern Hanhu County as an example:
The symbol on the left is a star map, which represents the "Taiyi Feng", that is, the combination of the Taiyi Star and the Tianyi Star. The Taiyi Star and the Tianyi Star are the two stars responsible for driving away ghosts, and the two stars are combined here to keep all kinds of evil spirits in order. The spell on the right is made of the words sun, moon, tail, and ghost. Among them, the sun represents the yang world where the living are located, the moon represents the underworld where the deceased is located, and the tail and the ghost are one of the twenty-eight constellations. This symbol expresses the power of a person borrowing power from the stars in the sky to guard the tomb of the deceased.
Eastern Han Hu County Cao's tomb pottery bottle charm
3. The portrait in the tomb that guides the master to ascend to immortality
Various portraits in Han Dynasty tombs show that the burial chamber was not just a place where the tomb owner lived, it was also one
A model of the complete universe, symbolizing the entrance to the spiritual realm or to another cosmic space. Together, these images express the theme of the immortals guiding the dead to ascend to the heavenly realm. Take the two black lacquered coffins unearthed in Jiayuguan as an example. On the inside of the coffin lid is a figure of a human hand snake painted by Zhu, and the round object held by these two people is believed by scholars to be a golden crow symbolizing the sun and the moon, and the identities of the people in the painting are supposed to be Nuwa and Fuxi. This is an image of life after death depicted for the deceased, whose soul will reach the fairy world under the guidance of Nuwa and Fuxi.
Drawing of the inside of the coffin lid
The Qishan silk painting in Linyi County, Shandong Province also reflects the Han Dynasty's pictogram of the afterlife, which is both a fictional model of the universe and a beautiful vision of the tomb owner's ascension to another world. Before talking about this silk painting, I have to introduce the cosmology of the Han Dynasty. The cosmology of the Han Dynasty was centered on the Kunlun Mountains. Kunlun Mountain is a mountain where the Emperor of Heaven and the gods are together, it is not only the center of the universe on earth, but also the ladder of heaven that mortals must pass to reach the heavenly realm. Kunlun Mountain has three realms, the first layer is called cool breeze, and you can get eternal life when you climb this layer. The second time is a hanging garden, which contains all kinds of rare birds and beasts. The highest floor is called Zengcheng, which is the residence of the Emperor of Heaven.
Kunlun Mountain
The two dragons at the bottom of the picture of the silk painting of Qishan in Linyi County, Shandong Province are the tools for the tomb owner to ascend to immortals, and the four groups of images in the middle are the scenes of life in Kunlun Mountain, the three mountains at the upper end represent Kunlun Mountain, the three-legged black symbolizes the sun, and the toad symbolizes the moon. The whole painting shows the life of the deceased on the Kunlun Mountain after ascending to immortality.
Shandong Linyi County Que Mountain Silk Painting
Wen Shijun said
Death is the greatest enemy of life, and it is the ultimate threat and negation of life. And at the same time, it is a proposition that everyone cannot avoid. Therefore, in the process of civilization development, human beings created the culture of tombs, through the imagination of the afterlife world and various rituals, face death head-on, and achieve reconciliation with death.
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Li Hong, Death and Rebirth: Tombs and Beliefs in the Han Dynasty, Sichuan People's Publishing House, 2020.
(Author: Haoran Literature and History)
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