Death And Rebirth: A Study On Burial Belief In Han Dynasty

Death is the end of life. However, the complicated funeral ritual which is a refusal of death is an actual part of the process for the soul to be immortal, the symbolization of which is established on the idea that the soul of human can exist forever. Human being believes that physical death does not mean the end of life, but a form of transformation, the soul will enter into another world to begin a new life. The soul concept is an important component of early Chinese thoughts and beliefs, and also the important faith of tomb ideological basis in Han dynasty.Tombs are symbolization of the cosmic center. Once the dead is put into grave, he/she will be accepted into celestial world and get reborn. The premise of tomb is to provide a similar environment as living before for the dead. As a result, both the structure of the tomb and the arrangement of the funerary wares should be in shape and position similar to before when living. In addition, the decoration of tomb should reflect the knowledge of the universe. From Han dynasty, people at that time considered Tomb as a mini world which is a prime feature differentiated from before and it is a faith basis of Han dynasty.The Chinese ancestors believe that there was a ghost world beyond current world, and the ghosts can dominate current people's lives. So the living people should hold various kinds of ritual to ask ghost spirits to bring good luck and ward off calamities, to make living safe and grave stable. This ritual is called solution. " Fang Xiang hit ghost", "Wizard and Witch Releasing Earth" are the earlier prime rites of solution. With the wide influence by Daoism religion, the way of solution changed. For example, using instruments to represent human, this symbols can be found in tombs, such as "magic medicine of five stones", tomb stabilized stamps, and solution bottles can be found inside tombs, in the hope to drive ghosts away by written words. Archaeological discovery of solution bottles, the text shows that the solution activities are related to the wizard and witch. Funeral document applied in Han dynasty is one of the features of Han's faith. Han people believed that there was a return life after death, but worried the possibility of reborn after death, thus the funeral document was considered as their pass to the new world. In addition, when the document was buried underground with the dead, it can not only drive away evil ghosts, but also built a channel for the dead to communicate with their ancestors and underneath spirits who were in charge of under earth. This document can gave the tomb holder legal right to own the tomb area and it is also an attempt for the living people to build a good relationship with the underground world. Thereafter, both the living and the dead were released from the potential menace.It is believed that Hu Tian in human's body has the same structure and function as Dan Ding for alchemy. Hu is the symbol of immortals, which can change into heaven and earth. Ding is a kind of instrument to be used for people in Shang dynasty to pay respect to heaven, when in alchemy it was used as a tool for refining medicine that can make people long life. Thus the magic function of Ding was considered as a small model of the universe and Ding has the same philosophical significance as the universe, in which Heaven and Earth is an enlarged human while human individual is a concentrated universe. The magic power of alchemy took place around Ding (the furnace) while the change of universe took place within universe. As a result, Dan Ding, Heaven and Earth and the universe are naturally connected together.Long life and being immortal is human's wishful dream, which requires human to jump over the big gap over the death. Though being immortal is not easy, people would like to consider how to escape the fate after death. Thus, since the end of Han dynasty and Wei-Jin Dynasties, a subtle but important change appeared in immortality and long life faith. Since human couldn't escape from death, they can do exercises in tombs to be immortal after death. Thus Daoism ideas such as Shijie, lianxing and Qianyi appeared along with this change. In this change, tomb is the most important place in which the dead people will experience from dead to be immortal process. It is a transition station from death to rebirth and a place to exercise. The key points of funeral rite prepare people for rebirth. Besides the ways of going on a journey with horses and carriages, or leading the host's spirit into the Heaven gate, there are a lot of other ways to become immortal, such as, rebirth by means of bones transformation, water transformation, TaiyinlianxingThe aim of burial belief is to establish an intact and inner relationship between death and immortals. Tomb is the medium place between life and death, where people think it is a transformation of identity and significance of life. Through this place, the dead could be transformed and get rebirth, and thus the process of death could be developed fully and completely.