Tang And Song Dynasty Folk Funeral Consumer Practices,

Death is a realistic problem haunting human being. In ancient China,people believed that the soul of a man was eternal and so the extravagant consumption for funeral ceremony became one big event in human sociallife. Accordingly, the custom of extravagant consumption for funeral ceremony sprouted, developed and also passed down to the latter generations. The funeral consumption custom in Tang and Song Dynast)' were manifold. The funeral ceremony could be divided into three parts: pre-funeral ceremony, the funeral ceremony and the follow-ups. The features in the c-ustom includes buying luxury coffin, entertaining guests, choosing sites a-nd building tomb, held luxury ceremony and offering sacrifices to the deadand so on. Most of the conventions were inherited from the past dynasties and prevailed in both Tang and Song Dynasty. But some of them might b-ear Tang or Song special characteristics which were influenced by the special politics, economics and culture in those two dynasties. Some of themprevail in both dynasties, but some only prevail in Tang or Song Dynasty. Compare the funeral customs vertically, we may find some common features : extravagant funeral ceremony, grand sacrifice, long lasting funeral period which were also the major character for funeral customs in ancient C-hina. The formation of the conventions was influenced by the filial obedience idea of Confucianism. The convention was not immutable. It changed continuously according to the political and economical conditions in different times , but the ides it reflected such as kinship, the sociality1 of human being, the ways of the world and the fear for death and the reluctance to die, would not change over time. Those psychological mentalities came together and became a kind of mental power . Together with social morality, state institution, they curbed the main trend of funeral culture and made this culture to be one special culture. It bared social, practical, and educational functions.Compare the funeral custom of Tang and Song Dynasty horizontally, we might find their separate characteristics. In Tang Dynasty, people attached much more importance to material expenditure, such as buying expensive coffin, building luxury tombs; while in Song Dynasty, people attached much more importance on spiritual activities, such as spending much more money on Buddhist rites, deliberately selecting the site for building tomb, entertaining guests, etc. The reason for this change was firstly dueto the influence of Buddhism and Daoism. The secularization of Buddhis-m and Dao in Song Dynasty not only changed people's way of looking at the birth and death, but also influenced the funeral consumption. Furthermore, Buddhism had greatly influenced the formation of the custom of cremation. Secondly, the change of social hierarchy strcture and the eevolut-ion of agrarian institution in Song Dynasty influenced people's phycholog-y. The last reason was that the development of commodity evonomy in Song Dynasty stimulated the vanity feeling of the people at that time. The phychology of flaunting one's richness made the funeral become a kind of luxurious activities.The formation of conventions on funeral consumption was influenced by a lot of social factors in Tang and Sung Dynasty. At the same time, these conventions influenced the social order, laid heavy financial burden on society and family, changed the traditional morality. Although the government tried hard to forbid and reverse these conventions, but these conventions was deeply rooted in people's mind. Most of people accepted them and managed the funeral in accordance with these conventions. New trends of the times and the old traditional culture mixed together gradually, which gave impetus to the evolution and development of the society in Tang and Song Dynasty.