The Bon Funeral Ritual Of Tubo Royal

P.t.1042 is the only Dunhuang Manuscript that adequately describes the Bon funeral ritual of Tubo Royal which we have acquired till now.And it is also the particularity of its historical value.The writting date of the manuscript was from 822 AD to the beginning of the 11 th century AD.The nature of the volume is “generally applicable” to the description of “general” procedure of the Bon funeral ritual of the Tubo Royal,rather than the record of the process of “individual” Bon funeral ritual of a member of the Royal.There are 148 lines in the full text of the Manuscript.Except for the first 12 lines which are partly incomplete,the rest are completely discernible.The main content is the description of the funeral ritual process,in which the procedural requirements and taboos for holding a big funeral three years later are narrated.The grave layout and sites mentioned in the volume include graveyards,cemeteries,mausoleums,tombs,tombs,funeral palaces,places for funeral and dining halls.The funeral ceremony was presided over by Tubo Tsanpo.Royal Bonpo Teacher “sku gshen” was the chief priest.Priests and executives mainly included sku gshen,Bonpo,cooks,hexagrams,dealing with corpses and dissecting martyrs.Participating in the mourning were relatives of the deceased,uncles and relatives from various small states,attendants and waiters of Tsanpo,etc.According to the time sequence,the main processes include worship and mourning of various cemeteries,donation of funds,determination of power by Tsanpo,purification ceremony and priest sku gshen,matching ceremony of corpses and souls,hatred of victory in graves,identification of blessings,harmony ceremony,dissection of martyrs,shooting and riding.P.t.1042 described the content of the Bon funeral ritual and the performance of the Tubo coffin prints in Guolimu,Qinghai,have much in common and mutually corroborated,such as public mourning,offering sacrifices to the deceased,in-tent funeral banquets,raising banquets,shooting and riding,and the ceremony of harmony.By comparing the two,the narration in P.t.1042 will help to clarify the doubts about the interpretation of the contents of the coffin paintings in Guolimu Tubo tomb in the past studies,and the physical pictures unearthed by referring to the coffin paintings will make our understanding of the contents of the funeral ritual of P.t.1042 Tubo Royal Bon religion more vivid and intuitive.