Research on the funeral ritual about lightning death：Take the Taoist manuscripts of the Qing Dynasty in Hunan as an example

• Main Authors: Meng-ILin, 林孟毅
• Other Authors: Tai-chih Chiang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/34w3zv

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 歷史學系 === 102 === In the concept of the secular, the abnormal death include die young or evil death was caused by offend the gods or possessed by devil, and the most special die is lightning death. People always say that “If a man had been bitten by a snake, it caused by resentment in three times of transmigration, and if a man death by lightning, it is immediately retribution” . It means that the deceased was heinous or seems to go against the Chinese traditional rules, whether lightning death by gods or five-thunder, it is always the most severe punishment. So, the deceased can not receive the traditional funeral rituals, no reincarnated because incomplete soul, the deceased can not be buried in the family cemetery, and even the soul can not be worship in family temple or ancestral halls because he was ashamed of his ancestor. Finally, the lightning death becomes a lonely ghost, and even his dead body was buried in a rash. In the view of the “Immortal Soul” , each transitional ritual are combined into a cycle in Chinese traditional customs, and the restriction of lightning death causes the cycle broken, it means that the soul of lightning death can not be reborn and decease forever. For the families of the dead, they still hope the deceased get nice treatment even in the conflict about family and secular norms because of emotional factors and the view of “bringing benefit to younger generations” . In order to link up the traditional funeral rituals, a special ritual was created. The focal point of whole rituals is the behavior of confession and repentance must be doing by the families of the dead，and the process of the rituals are knowing crimes, admit the guilt, seeking forgiveness, exonerate the death, thanks for punishment, and finally drive out the devil. The funeral ritual about lightning death is not only special, but it is also mysterious, including the worship of Thor, the fear of devil, and even the constraint of moral codes. The emphasis of this report is going to writing by the process of the funeral ritual about lightning death, and then researching the meaning of every ritual, the part of study materials are based on the Taoist manuscripts of Qing Dynasty in Hunan, the methods are classifying of the detail, restituting the process of the ritual, and finally researching it. Because of the ritual was belong to the Thunder Rites, it will focus on the description about the magic figures and symbol, and researching the level of Taoist rituals and the culture about Spell.