Wealth And Eternal Life

The money tree is a kind of the funerary objects especially popular in Han and Jin Dynasty, which reflected the situation of the society and the ideology at that time. The analysis of this object and its background, origin and development, to a certain extent, would present the culture beliefs and mortuary conceptions at that time. There are very important values to folk-custom research on the southwest region.Since 1940s, the number of excavated money tree have increased frequently. There are a mount of scholars have joined the research subject. So far, hundreds of articles have been published, including the archaeology bulletins, the discuss of the sculpture and image of the money tree, the study of the figure of Buddha in the money tree, etc. However, there' s no accordant opinions of the naming, origin, development, character and function of the money tree. It' s no doubt that money tree showed the mentality of treasure and supernatural being adoring. But the study results are still weak in many questions, including direct causes of money tree' s appearance, reasonable sequence of it' s development, the most important mentality factors, and the relationship of the factors, etc. Thus, these questions will be father discussed in my article, so as to comprehend more about the character and function of money tree.There are four chapters in the article: the first one is the review of former discovery of money tree, and the sum of the sculptures and images of money tree. Second, combining the traditional beliefs and buries circumstance in Sichuan province and around, I will introduce how money tree come into being and the evolvement of money tree' s image. The third part is the classify and interpretation of the images of money tree, so as to comprehend the function. The last chapter offer the further research based on former parts, and indicate the definition, function, and belief root of money tree. To sum up, the money tree is an object with a lot of spirit connotation—especially with fortune intension—at the same time a funerary object used in buries and may played a special role in funeral ceremonial.