Why do people need to be cremated after death?
Why should people be cremated after death?
Why should people be cremated after death? No matter what kind of life a person lives, he will eventually go to the road of death. Some people will choose to be buried after death, which means falling leaves to return to their roots. Some people choose to be buried in water, but now more and more people choose to do so. cremated. Why should people be cremated after death? Why should a person be cremated after death 1
Cremation is a burial method in which the body is broken down into ashes and smoke. Cremation in our country originated from business loans and emerged in the Tang Dynasty. It was mainly due to the introduction of Buddhism. Under the influence of Buddhism, cremation became popular. However, due to the influence of the traditional concept of "burying people in peace", in modern China, the concept of cremation is much more accepted among urban residents than in rural areas. In order to establish the concept of cremation, many areas even require cremation through systems and regulations.
Cremation can save a lot of cemetery space. Some people choose cremation for personal reasons. But for some people, it's because they don't like traditional burial because they think the decomposition process is slow in the long run, and some people feel they prefer cremation because the body can be disposed of immediately. Others view cremation as a way to simplify their funeral rituals.
These people believe that traditional burial will make the funeral process more complicated, so they choose cremation to make the service as simple as possible. Additionally, cost factors often make cremation more attractive. - Generally speaking, cremation costs are lower than traditional burial services, especially if you choose direct cremation, the body only needs to be cremated as soon as possible in accordance with the law, without any other form of service.
In Asia, in addition to ancient India and China, Japan and Thailand also practiced cremation a long time ago. Among them, the history of cremation in Thailand has been more than 1,000 years, and kings of all dynasties have been cremated after their death. Japan had urban crematorium facilities in the mid-19th century and implemented centralized cremation of corpses. In 1873, the Meiji government of Japan once issued a ban on cremation, but the ban was abolished two years later. Now there are crematoriums all over Japan
In Puteng and rural areas, the cremation rate is over 90%. In fact, cremation has a long history among all ethnic groups in China.
Historical records show that this burial method was first practiced by ethnic minorities. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" contains: "When the Qiang people die, their bodies are burned." "Southern History. Lin Yi Biography" records: "The deceased was burned in the middle of the field, which is called cremation." The "Red Tu Zhuan" and "Shi Guo Zhuan" in "Sui Shu" all have records of the custom of setting fire to corpses.
After Buddhism was introduced into my country, the Buddhists practiced cremation, which had an impact on the Han people. The Han people already had the custom of cremation in the Song Dynasty, which was recorded in the "History of Song Dynasty. Rites". In some places in the south of the Yangtze River, there are "Human Pavilions" built specifically for cremation.
In the Yuan Dynasty, cremation became more popular. According to "Marco Polo's Travels", Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Bashu, etc. all have the custom of "burning corpses after death". Because cremation is inconsistent with Confucian ethics, there were laws prohibiting cremation among Han people in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The fire ban is relatively rare among the Han people and is only followed by ethnic minorities. Until now, although the government advocates cremation, people are still not used to it and always think of burial in earth.
It can be seen from the origin and spread of cremation in history that the reason why cremation is popular is nothing more than the following aspects: The influence of Buddhist beliefs has changed people’s traditional funeral concepts, and this concept Consistent with the traditional belief that the soul returns to heaven after death, people follow cremation customs; the influence of ethnic minority funeral customs and people's herd mentality, especially the funeral customs of the upper class, affects the funeral customs of the common people.
The narrow land and the large number of people, and the intensification of the contradiction between man and land, have caused the land to be highly concentrated, leaving the poor with almost no place to stand. Burial cannot be carried out, and they have to be replaced by cremation; Impact, such as cremating those who died young or died of murder to benefit the living. Because of this, cremation was once popular in history and became an important burial method among the Han people, second only to burial.
Cremation is being accepted by more and more people and has become the development direction of my country's funeral reform. Why should people be cremated after death 2
First, corpse cremation, also known as cremation, is a scientific method of handling corpses. Since corpse cremation can quickly destroy traces of violence or poisoning on the corpse (except for heavy metals and radioactive substances), in order to prevent hidden crimes, corpse cremation must have a strict management system. Before cremation, there must be an application from the person concerned and a death certificate from a doctor. Identify the body. All suspected and abnormal deaths (such as violence, poisoning, illegal surgery, medical accidents, etc.) must undergo systematic forensic examination and only allow for cremation after an identification conclusion is reached.
Second, funeral reform refers to actively promoting cremation, reforming burial, breaking old funeral customs, and conducting funerals frugally. Burial is the direction of funeral reform. However, cremation is not completely compulsory for the masses. Cremation is promoted, burial is gradually restricted, and eventually burial is completely replaced by cremation.
Third, in places that do not yet have the conditions for cremation, in line with the principle of being conducive to the development of production and construction, the local government shall uniformly plan the land for burial, and use the barren hills and barren land to establish cremation sites on a township or natural village basis. cemetery. The burial method of deep burial on the ground without leaving a grave is advocated.
Fourth, reform the old funeral customs
1. Get rid of the feng shui, choosing a cemetery, setting up a funeral tent, setting up roadside sacrifices, holding a big funeral, beating flags and throwing pots, and burning incense. Paper, collection and delivery of funeral curtains and other superstitious and extravagant waste phenomena, vigorously promote civilized, frugal and frugal funeral customs.
2. Reduce the trend of extravagance and waste, and establish a good trend of socialist spiritual civilization.
Fifth, at the same time, the funeral reform saved a lot of farmland, timber and other financial, material and human resources; reduced the spread of diseases and the pollution of water sources; reduced the economic burden on the people; and was beneficial to afforestation and industrial and agricultural production. Cremation began in the 20th century. Cremation was promoted all over the world in order to save scarce arable land. The current cremation ratio in mainland China is 53, the United States is 26, the UK is 70, and Japan is over 90.