Home Numerology From the world of the living to the world of the dead. History of religion. Music as the key to the world of the dead

Numerology

From the world of the living to the world of the dead. History of religion. Music as the key to the world of the dead

Is there a connection between the world of the dead and the world of the living? Taking into account those situations and events that sometimes occur on Earth, it can be argued with a certain degree of certainty that there is such a relationship. Let's consider an ordinary everyday example, which clearly proves that the dead and the living are one inseparable whole, and the line between them is extremely fragile and easily overcome. It should be noted right away that the narrative below will not inspire confidence in everyone. But here much depends on a particular person and on his attitude to the eternal question - is there life after death?

This story took place in 1983. A man named Alexey told her. He stupidly lost his nephew, who worked as an instructor in a parachute club. It crashed during the jump. Together with him, two girls crashed, the first time they jumped with a parachute. Once in the air, they were in a critical situation. Their canopies and parachute lines overlapped. The newcomers could not separate in any way in order to unfasten the main parachutes and release the main ones.

The instructor jumped after them, approached in a long jump and tried to help the novice girls. He was 2-3 meters away from them when the girls pushed off from each other, and one of them immediately pulled the reserve parachute ring. The dome, opening up, imprinted on the head of the instructor and smashed his whole face. The man died instantly and fell to the ground dead. The girls also died, as their reserve parachutes did not have time to fully open.

The deceased instructor was buried with his face covered. And his parents did not believe that they were present at the funeral of their son, since they did not see his face. Alexey also doubted the death of his nephew, but more because people do not believe in the death of a loved one to the last.

Almost a month and a half passed after the funeral, and on one of the cold winter days Alexei was returning from work on a service bus. In the heat, the man was exhausted, and he dozed off. A push to the side woke him up. A colleague sitting next to me said that it was time to leave. Alexei got off the bus and found that he still had two stops to go. There was nothing left to do but take the tram. A cold piercing wind blew in his face, and Alexei turned his back to it. At that moment, he saw a tall young man dressed in a white sheepskin coat. The deceased nephew wore exactly the same.

The raised wide collar covered his face, but then the man turned and looked at Alexei. Everything froze in his soul from fear and at the same time from joy. It was a nephew buried almost a month and a half ago. Not believing his eyes, Alex took a step forward and said: “Hi, are you alive?” The nephew smiled and replied: “Hello, Uncle Lyosha. Yes, I'm alive. They buried not me, but a similar person. And I’m afraid to visit my parents, because they can blame me for the death of girls and put me in jail.

And where do you live, - asked Alex. - I live in a village outside the city. There are warehouses for clothing, so I guard them. I work as a watchman. The salary, however, is not very good, but now I have no choice.

Just then a tram pulled up, but not the one Alexei needed. But the nephew sat in it and shouted, turning around: “Farewell, Uncle Lyosha!” The tram started moving, and Alexey remained standing at the stop in confused feelings. And then someone punched him in the shoulder. He looked around and was surprised to find that he was sitting on the bus, and his colleague was pushing him. He said: "Wake up, you have to go out now."

Aleksey went outside on autopilot, and only in the cold realized that the meeting with his nephew was just a dream. When he got home, he told his wife everything. And she authoritatively remarked: "Tomorrow will be forty days, so he reminded himself of himself." But Alexei was overcome by doubts. Especially in his memory sunk words about the place of residence of his nephew. And he decided to go and look at these clothing warehouses.

The next day, he persuaded a friend at work who had a car, and in the evening they drove to the village. Aleksey went to a local store, as the sellers in such small towns know all the residents. He asked about a tall guy in a white coat. But the woman behind the counter said she'd never seen anything like it.

Warehouses were located at the end of the village. At the entrance they said that they do not have such a watchman. Alexey went out dejectedly into the street and decided to go into an unfinished house standing nearby for a small need. It had no glass, and there was a draft in the room. However, the doorway leading to the room was covered with a dirty blanket. Aleksey decided that this was a refuge for homeless people and entered the room. The window was covered with plastic wrap. There were cardboard boxes on the floor, and an iron stove in the corner. It seemed that someone lived in the room, but for a long time.

The visitor kicked one of the cardboard boxes with his foot, it turned over, and the man saw a small red book on the floor. It turned out to be a passport. Alexei opened it and was stunned. The passport belonged to a nephew. After that, a thorough examination of the room was made, but nothing else worthy of attention was found. Alexei stuffed his passport into his jacket pocket and went to his nephew's parents to celebrate forty days.

When he entered the house and wanted to tell about a strange find, he did not find anything in his pocket. There was no passport there. It was also not in the other pockets. After that, Alexey decided not to tell anyone anything, otherwise, God forbid, they would decide that he had gone crazy.

A week later, Aleksey decided to go to the village again, but this time by bus. I went on a day off, and immediately went from the stop to the house where I found my passport. But there was no house. Only one foundation remained. At the checkpoint they said that the building burned down for some unknown reason. There were no people in it, but for some reason it caught fire. And the deceased nephew never again reminded of himself.

This story points to the connection between the world of the dead and the world of the living. There is an opinion that the soul of the deceased stays on Earth for exactly 40 days, and then goes to another dimension. It is possible that the soul of the nephew wanted to say goodbye to someone close to her during her lifetime. She chose Alexei for this, but this is only a guess, but each of us will know the truth, but only when he leaves this world.

In many religions, there is some intermediate state between the real world and the other world. These "intermediate zones" serve for a wide variety of purposes: in some releases it is a kind of "waiting room" where a person ends up immediately after death, in others - a place where heavenly judgment takes place. However, options are possible.

1. River of death

In several religions, a river has been described that separates the earthly world from the afterlife. Perhaps the most famous is Styx, which is mentioned in many Greek myths. It was in this river, flowing in the realm of the dead Hades, that Hephaestus tempered the sword forged for the Faun. Achilles was immersed in the waters of the Styx to make him invulnerable (only the heel, which his mother held, remained vulnerable).

Hubur is the legendary river of Mesopotamia. Like Styx, she is directly connected with the gods, but we are not talking about invulnerability. Just as in the ancient Greek legends, the boatman transported the dead across this river.

Shinto describes the Sanzu River, which one must cross to reach the underworld. The Shinto version is slightly more humane than the Greek and Mesopotamian versions, as the dead could return to Earth on the seventh day instead of finally leaving for the afterlife.

2. Hamistagan

In the Zoroastrian concept, Hamistagan is the place where the souls of those who have committed equally good and bad deeds during their lives go. In this place, where there was neither sorrow nor joy, they waited for the day of judgment. Hamistagan is located between the center of the Earth and the "star sphere" and has the hallmarks of both areas. Although it is not a place for punishment, the souls there suffer due to extremely cold or hot (depending on the location) weather.

There are also different areas for those who are considered orthodox and wicked: good people, who made several blunders, went to the "good" part of Hamistagan. At the same time, the Zoroastrians believed that all people would eventually be saved and go to heaven.

3. Abraham's bosom

In the Gospel of Luke, a place called "Abraham's bosom" was described, where the soul of a beggar named Lazarus went after death. Some Jewish scriptures compare Abraham's bosom to paradise, but Christians usually consider it to be the place where the righteous fell before the resurrection of Christ.

Subsequently, the underworld was described as consisting of two parts - Gehenna and Abraham's bosom, which were divided by a large gulf between them. On the one hand, the souls of wicked people were in a state of eternal torment. On the other side were the souls of the righteous, who lived in almost heavenly conditions.

The New Testament says that Jesus allegedly "descended into hell," but the exact meaning of these words has been the subject of debate among Christian theologians for many centuries. Although many modern Christian views consider this phrase a metaphor, traditional Catholic doctrine says that Jesus descended into hell to forgive the righteous there for their original sins and take them to heaven with him.

4. Bardo

Bardo is a Tibetan variety of limbo, where the souls of the dead saw terrifying and peaceful scenes for 49 days. These images, which were called "mandalas of peaceful and wrathful deities", are a reflection of the fears and memories of the deceased. It is necessary that the soul during this time not succumb to fear or temptation and be aware of the illusory nature of the pictures it sees. After that, the soul could go to heaven.

5. Barzakh

Islamic barzakh is often compared to Catholic purgatory, but there are many differences between the two. Although barzakh is generally considered the boundary between this world and the other world, Muslim theologians often argue even about the very basic principles of this place.

Some believe that Barzakh is an incorporeal place where there is no physical pain, where food is not needed and nothing makes sense. From Barzakh, the souls of the dead can calmly observe the whole world, but cannot influence it. Others believe that staying in Barzakh depends on the actions of a person during life.

There are supposedly punishments for the souls of the wicked in Barzakh, and this place itself acts as a kind of prelude to Hell. Some traditions claim that living people can interact with those in Barzakh through dreams. The word "Barzakh" is mentioned only three times in the Qur'an and only once as an intermediate state between this world and the next.

6. Life before your eyes

Those who were on the verge of death often claim that their whole life flashed before their eyes in just an instant. Sometimes it was a whole life from beginning to end, while others saw a few selected moments. Some claim that they communicated at this time with deceased family members or some heavenly luminous beings. Studies have shown that approximately 25 percent of people see their past life. Near-death survivors also often reported flying through a tunnel with a light on at the end, or some existence in the void.

7. Summerland

Summerland is often referred to as "Wiccan Heaven," although the place is actually more like a kind of in-between, limbo state. This is the place where the dead come to rest and think about their lives before their next reincarnation. Since Wicca is a decentralized religion, the specifics of Summerland may differ in different interpretations.

Some believe that the soul's previous experience will influence its next incarnation. For example, if someone treats others badly, then in the next life exactly the same attitude awaits him. There is an opinion that the next reincarnation of a person is an event that can be planned. Allegedly immortal soul learns more with each incarnation until he knows enough to reach the level of higher existence. After the soul reaches this peak of existence, it stops in the cycle of rebirth and remains in Summerland.

8. Spiritual world and spiritual prison

The Mormon Spirit World is the place where righteous souls go in anticipation of the day of resurrection. Relationships and desires of souls are no different from the desires of people on Earth. Souls have the same form as mortals, but their spirit and body are perfect because Mormons believe that all souls were adults before they were born into this world.

Mormons claim that the Mormon Church is organized in the spirit world in exactly the same way as it is on earth. The priests perform the same tasks there, even after their physical death. While the Spiritual World is for the righteous, the Spiritual Prison is for sinners who did not believe in Jesus on Earth.

9. Limbo for babies

The question of where unbaptized infants end up after death was of great concern to the ancient catholic church because the New Testament does not say a word about it. The Church believes that original sin separates a person from God, and that baptism is necessary for admission to heaven. However, children are not evil and naturally should not be sent to hell. Several theories have been proposed in response.

One of them is "Limbo for babies" - the eve of hell, where children will not be under the care of God, but will not suffer any punishment. The point is that the children were not sinful and do not deserve punishment, but they are not worthy to go to heaven. Modern Catholics claim that God must save unbaptized babies and take them with him to heaven.

10. Hall of Two Truths

In the ancient Egyptian religion, before the soul ascended to the Kingdom of Heaven, it fell into the Hall of Two Truths. There she confessed all kinds of sins on 42 different points, after which she was evaluated by the goddess of justice and truth, Maat. Sins and good deeds were weighed on special scales. If the soul was recognized as "pure", then it fell into the Field of Reeds, where there were no diseases, disappointment and death, and lived the way it wanted during its mortal existence. "Black" souls did not go to hell, which the ancient Egyptians simply did not have. Such souls were thrown into the abyss, where they were devoured by crocodiles.

A small chapel is located on the territory of a Buddhist temple complex in the city of Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture (in the early 2000s, this area became part of the "Greater Tokyo"). The architects not only reconstructed a forty-year-old building, they built a complex path to it, filled with traditional symbols, but corresponding to modern ideas about the farewell ritual. Firstly, the high fences separating the buildings of the complex were removed. Secondly, the path leading from the temple and the hall of farewells to the ossuary, where the burials are located, was made perfectly straight and planted with trees and flowers (a visual demonstration of the change of seasons and the passage of time). Thus, it was possible to clearly distinguish between the zone of burial and the zone of veneration. Around this path, a symbolic path of tranquility and remembrance was organized with a cleansing washbasin, benches, several statues of the Buddha and Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha.

Ossuary Chapel of Hassoden © Masao Nishikawa

In order to finally get into the ossuary, one has to cross the steps of a small artificial reservoir, symbolically separating the world of the living and the world of the dead. The total area of the three-story building, trimmed on the outside with black wooden planks, is less than 200 m 2. The architects chose the shape of a regular octagon, symbolizing the Universe. There is a mandatory washbasin at the entrance. The dim light in this zone helps to prepare psychologically for the changing worlds. Further, the visitor gets to a winding staircase placed in an earth-filled volume with a light hole at the very top and finds himself almost literally underground. The space of the ossuary itself continues to form a model of the Universe: rays of light breaking through the cracks of the black bamboo ceiling are perceived as stars, and the illuminated doors of the cells denote planets.

Ossuary Chapel of Hassoden © Masao Nishikawa

The architects emphasize that they thought of their building not as a gloomy temple of sorrow, but as a place of bright memory and the triumph of life, important and even attractive for many generations. Such an integral and natural part of family leisure: children first come here very young, with their parents, and play in the water of the pond, then, having matured, already with their own children, and at the end of their lives they find rest here and their grown-up children bring little ones to the temple grandchildren. It turned out to be an extremely visual image of the eternal circle of life. And unexpectedly symbolic in this context is the name of the bureau that turned the “architecture of death” into the “architecture of love”.

Ossuary Chapel of Hassoden © Masao Nishikawa

History of Religion Zubov Andrey Borisovich

"WORLD OF THE DEAD" AND "WORLD OF THE LIVING"

“They buried their dead in the ground,” wrote S. G. F. Brandon, “because they were convinced that the abode of the dead was underground ... The provision of the dead with objects that they needed in this life, apparently, can be explained by that primitive people were absolutely unable to imagine life after death in any other way than the life that they knew here on earth. This statement of the largest religious scholar in a special work devoted to the posthumous judgment in the beliefs of various peoples is remarkable for its specificity. But in reality it is very stupefying. ancient man who knew perfectly well that the buried dead man lies where he was buried, does not use any tools and does not eat anything from the food left in the grave.

The funeral rite of prehistoric man should at least suggest that in the minds of those who performed it there was an idea of duality. human nature, about the body rotting in the grave, and about the soul that descends into the "abode of the dead." Accordingly, the soul needs not the material objects themselves, but their “souls”. Just as on earth a corporeal person eats material food from an earthen cup and strikes the enemy with a battle ax, so in the world of souls, the soul of the deceased is able to eat the soul of food and strike the soul of the enemy with the soul of an ax. In order for a person to “give up his spirit”, for the soul to be separated from the body, the death of the material body must necessarily occur. In order for the souls of objects to become part of the world of the deceased, they, as material objects, must also die. Hence - a fairly common custom of later centuries - to kill slaves and wives on the graves of their masters and husbands and the tradition dating back to the Neolithic of breaking dishes and other household items on the grave. The tearing of clothes as a sign of mourning for the dead goes back, perhaps, to the same series of symbols.

But, although knowledge of the fact of dual, and even trinity (spirit, soul and body) of human nature can already be found in the earliest eras of the existence of the genus Homo, in the middle and even in the early Paleolithic (Zhou Koudian's Sinanthropes), his explanation of the fullness of the funeral ritual hardly possible. First, the body is buried, the body is given a fetal or sleeping position. This means that they believe in awakening, in the rebirth of the body, which means that the ancient otherness of man is not limited by the life of the soul, but they are waiting in the future for some wonderful moment when the souls will reunite with the bodies and the dead will wake up. Secondly, the breaking of gifts for the dead is a rather late and not universal custom. Rather, here we are faced with a secondary rationalization of the funeral ritual. Initially, the posture given to the body of the deceased, and food, and objects of labor, and weapons placed in the grave, emphasized, symbolically denoted that the deceased was alive, that death was his temporary state.

In other cultures, to signify this fact, they resorted to other symbolic rows and did not accompany burial with objects of earthly life. Yes, and the tradition of the earth, recorded from the Mousterian burials of the Neanderthals, arose not from the desire to “bring” the deceased to the underground abode of souls, but rather from a simple and at the same time infinitely deep conviction that Mother Earth, from which the body was taken, should be returned to her. And she, the Earth, when the time comes, will revive the seed of heavenly life, the Eternal Sky. And again, only a secondary rationalization connected the abode of souls, the kingdom of the dead, with the underworld, precisely because the bodies of the dead were placed in the earth from ancient times in anticipation of the resurrection. We will see how they fight, how the heavenly, extraterrestrial and underground locations of the souls of the dead coexist in the most ancient written cultures - in Sumer, in Egypt.

Neolithic burials, in comparison with the Upper Paleolithic ones, may surprise you with the poverty of grave goods. In the protoneolithic and early neolithic period, the dead become part of the world of the living, and therefore their life does not need to be marked with funeral "gifts". The skulls of the dead stand in the house next to the hearth, the bones rest near the altar. With those who no longer “exist”, this cannot be done. The dead in that era were not only considered alive, but their life was the most essential support for the life of the living.

In those cases where burials were made in the open air, we find a thick layer of ash on the mortuary altars. In Nahal Oren, it reaches half a meter. To whom sacrifices were made on the graves of ancestors - the deceased themselves or their Creator - is not clear. But one thing is absolutely clear - the fiery sacrifices could not be offered to those who live "under the earth." Fire ascends from earth to heaven, and the object of the sacrifice of the Natufians (Nakhal-Oren, one of the Natufian settlements in Palestine) had a heavenly nature. When the ideas about the underground topography of the world of the dead became fixed, the sacrifices to the dead began to be performed differently - the blood of sacrificial animals was supposed to nourish the earth, and the altars themselves, for example, in the Greek hero cult, were arranged below ground level.

Burials with ungulate horns in the hands or on the chest of the deceased (for example, Einan), and later with amulets in the form of bull heads (Sesklo, Thessaly, VI millennium BC) certainly indicate the purpose of the posthumous journey - to Heavenly God. The expectation of a journey is indicated by the frequent finds of dog skeletons near human burials (Erk el-Ahmar, Ubeid, Almiera). Sbaka, the hunter's guide in this world, turns out to be an understandable symbol of the right path during the transition to other existence. Dog-headed Anubis, Kerberos are a late memory of this early Neolithic image.

Burials under the floors of houses and inside settlements, characteristic of the Early Neolithic, remain common in holy cities VII-VI millennia. More than five hundred burials were found in Catal Huyuk on an excavation area of half a hectare. They buried under the beds of residential buildings, and men - under the corner bench, and women along the long wall. Mellart suggests that living men and women slept on these same benches. In addition, many burials were found in oval pits outside the houses. Quite a few people are buried in shrines. In the sanctuary VI. 10, 32 skeletons were found, in the sanctuary of vultures (VII.8) - six burials. Mellart notes that the clothes, jewelry, and belongings of those buried in sanctuaries are usually much richer and more varied than those of those buried in houses and oval pits. The scientist suggests that the remains of high priests rested in the sanctuaries, who during their lifetime performed sacred rites in them. It is noteworthy that burials are completely absent in utility yards and storehouses. This indicates that the choice of burial places by the Chatalhuyuk people was not accidental. They were buried not there "where it is simpler", but where they considered it necessary.

The location of the bones of the skeleton, the incompleteness of the skeletons indicate the secondary nature of the burials in Catal Huyuk, and it was impossible to do otherwise with the desire of the townspeople to live in the same houses with their dead. A number of sanctuary wall paintings show that the bodies of the dead were left outside the city on light platforms for excarnation (disintegration of soft tissues). Then the cleaned bones were wrapped in clothes, skins or mats and buried in houses and shrines. The remains were sent in ocher and cinnabar, the skulls in the neck and forehead were painted with blue or green paint. Small “gifts” were placed with the buried, but there are no figurines and ceramics in the graves of Çatal Huyuk. Sometimes the skulls, as in the beginning of the Neolithic, were separated from the skeletons and placed openly in sanctuaries.

The "holy cities" seem to complete the tradition of the 10th-8th millennia BC. Since the 6th millennium, a new trend towards the division of the worlds of the dead and the living has become more and more noticeable. In the Hassun culture (Mesopotamia, 7th-6th millennium), the dead, as a rule, are already buried outside the settlements. Only the bodies of children and adolescents continue to be buried under the floors of houses. In Byblos of the 6th millennium, only children's burials were found under the houses, in which human bones are sometimes mixed with sheep's. Such burials were made in special small vessels. Almost complete absence adult burials indicates the presence of special cemeteries.

Such "cemeteries" or transitional forms such as "houses of the dead" were soon discovered. In Byblos, this is the building "46-14", under the floor of which more than 30 people are buried, in Tell as-Savan (Middle Mesopotamia) - building "No. 1" of the VI millennium, under which in the pits for 30-50 cm more than a hundred secondary burials were located below the floor level.

At the same time, the skulls of deceased relatives, which used to be often placed along the walls and around the hearth, also disappear from the interiors of dwellings. The same tendencies are noticeable in the burial customs of the Danube Plain of the 6th millennium. Adults here are now rarely buried under houses, but usually outside the settlements, in caves or in special cemeteries.

The reasons for the change in a seemingly established custom can be understood, since the change did not extend to children. For some reason, the inhabitants of the Middle Neolithic believed that it was those who died in adulthood that needed to be separated from their homes, interred in the ground or in cemeteries or in special "houses of the dead." But how are children different from adults?

Like Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, the inhabitants of the Neolithic settlements believed that dead children would become adults in other existence. In the same Tell as-Savan, children's burials are indistinguishable from adults in terms of inventory, they do not contain special children's things. Therefore, it was not age itself that confused the living, but something only partly connected with the years of earthly life, and not with “age” in eternity. It should be noted that even at present in India, the common law for all Hindus on the cremation of the dead does not apply to children under five or six years of age and to saints. These “exceptions” are usually explained by the fact that small children are still free from sin and therefore do not defile the earth with themselves, and the holy ascetics destroyed everything sinful in themselves through asceticism. It is very possible that people of the middle Neolithic thought in this way and therefore stopped burying adults in their dwellings. The adults were wrong.

The concept of sin is one of the most important in most religions. Its essence is that a person willfully violates some laws established by the Creator of the world. If everything in the world - both living and non-living - naturally follows the rules that are laid down in the foundation of the universe, then a person may or may not do it. He's free. This freedom is not unlimited. In some way, like all living beings, a person instinctively obeys the natural law - he is not able to freely refuse to drink, breathe, sleep, although he can significantly limit his needs and desires by an effort of will. But somewhere, and in a very vast area of his actions, a person is completely free. He can do nasty things to other people, or he can help them, he is able to sacrifice himself for the sake of his neighbor, loved by him, and he can also demand sacrifice from other people. Each of us makes many times a day, often without noticing it, such choices between good and evil, good and bad. For the religious mind, good is not just what people have agreed to consider as such. Good is an objective establishment God's man, this is the will of God in relation to a person, this, if you like, is the law prescribed to him by the Creator, following which he will certainly achieve happiness, since God is good.

On the contrary, evil is a departure from God into self-will. Contempt for the law this person Creator. Since God is the only primary source of life, the departure from Him is death, the transformation into nothing. Sin - this is such self-destruction, although from the point of view of the person who commits the sin, he asserts himself, realizing the goals he has set for himself. A person cannot fully understand with his mind, for some reason it’s good, but this is bad, and the desire for something bad, moreover, often obscures his eyes. Hence, the law is the objectified, but not explained, will of God. In many religions, it is the divine law that is the thread leading a person to his Creator, to bliss and immortality.

The separation of funeral customs, differences in the topography of the burials of children and adults with the greatest certainty can be explained precisely by the consciousness of the sinfulness of an adult. But so is the conviction of the sinlessness of babies. Therefore, we can assume that in the Neolithic era, sin was considered the work of man himself, his free volitional choice. It is clear that the baby cannot yet make such a choice and therefore retains sinlessness. The deceased adult begins to be recognized as a receptacle of sins that can pass on to the living, who continue to live in the house where he rests. After all, the idea of the interchange of forces of the living and the dead over several millennia of the division of the house and the cemetery has already formed the basis of the religious existence of man, having brought to life, as we assumed, both settled life and domestication. But then, in the Protoneolith and Early Neolithic, this "reciprocity" was perceived as a blessing, but now - as a harmful danger. And the dead leave the world of the living. From now on, their abode is the necropolis - the city of the dead, the cemetery.

It is noteworthy that around the same time, the sanctuary finally turns into a temple, separating from the dwelling. The living, not only the dead, but also themselves, do not consider themselves more worthy of constant standing before God and the shrine. They are wrong in their Everyday life and therefore, in order not to provoke the wrath of the Deity, it is better to separate His house from your own and visit the House of God in special days in a state of purity.

Isn't this exacerbation of the experience of sin connected with the penetration of anthropomorphism into the iconography of the Creator? That is, when people were able to liken God to themselves, thereby saying that they are like God, they carry His image in themselves, they acutely felt their own imperfection, that the divine in them was suppressed by the human, the good - by the evil.

Be that as it may, but at that time in the burials, still poor in inventory, often only one deliberately placed object is found - this is a vessel of various shapes, but always small. Sometimes there are several such vessels. They are placed at the chest and arms, less often at the feet and crown of the deceased (Tell as-Savan). In the burials of the Samara culture (Mesopotamia, 6th-5th millennium BC), a small stone figurine with a cup on the head was placed in the hands, on the chest or at the head of the deceased. J. Ots, who devoted a special work to these figurines, noticed that the decorations of the figurine and the body of the deceased, near whom it was placed, coincide. In the Ubeid culture (4th millennium), ceramic plates with cups overturned on them are found in burials.

Judging by the later analogues of already historical time, all these vessels and cups contained vegetable oil. Apparently, it is from the 6th-5th millennia that the custom of anointing the bodies of the dead, which is widespread and now in many religions of the western half of the world, comes. What did oil symbolize?

Funerary vessel from Tell Arpachia

The drama of the struggle with death is beautifully depicted in a burial vessel from Tell Arpachia (Mesopotamia,VImillennium). A skull was buried in it. The outer wall of the vessel is ornamented with Maltese-type crosses and bull heads. Also depicted is a huge burial vessel, over which two people leaned. Between their hands is a cup, apparently full of oil. The inner wall contains a scene of the battle of the deceased with death, personified by a predatory beast. There is also a bull and two women with flowing hair and underlined gender signs are holding a funeral cloth.

The hot and dry climate of the Near East quickly dries out the skin. Under the merciless rays of the sun, it cracks, begins to ooze with ichor, causing severe suffering to a person. But, if vegetable oil is rubbed into the skin, the suffering stops. The skin becomes elastic and soft again, painful cracks are quickly healed. This softening effect of the oil must have attracted the attention of ancient man. In addition, oil feeds the fire of the lamp. The wick saturated with it burns, but does not burn out. The second quality is a beautiful image of prayer, the first is mercy. The combination of these two qualities in one substance corresponded very well to the religious feeling - a prayer directed to God evokes His mercy, which softens the wounds caused by sin.

The dead are all the more in need of God's mercy. He's already powerless good deeds undo the evil he has done in his life. Relatives of the deceased can only hope for the mercy of the Creator. And therefore, vessels with healing oil are placed near the body of the deceased. Oil is a symbol of God's healing of a person suffering from the flame of sin.

The feeling of sin, the experience of one’s own poor quality, depravity, materialized in the separation of the house from the cemetery and the sanctuary, in the widespread use of oil in funeral rite is a feature of the Neolithic. Realizing his inconsistency with the Creator, a person with a new dramatic force begins to look for ways to overcome the clearly seen gulf between himself and God.

From the Sutra of the Basic Vows of the Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha author Buddhism Author unknown -

Benefits for the living and the dead CHAPTER SEVEN At this time, the mahabodhisattva Ksitigarbha said to Shakyamuni Buddha, “World Honored One, I can see that the beings in Jambudvipa committed sins in body, speech and mind. If they have any opportunity to do something good, then

From book Afterlife the author Fomin A V

ABOUT WHY NOT ALL LIVING INTERCESSION IS BENEFICIAL TO THE DEAD, AND NOT ALL DEAD ARE BENEFICIAL INTERCESSION OF THE LIVING Man must live for God and for his neighbors; the name of God must be sanctified in his life and work. Activity must be founded, dissolved and directed by the heavenly,

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“WORLD OF THE DEAD” AND “WORLD OF THE LIVING” “They buried their dead in the ground,” wrote S. G. F. Brandon, “because they were convinced that the abode of the dead was under the earth ... this life, apparently, can be explained by the fact that

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2. And I have blessed the dead, who have died long ago, more than the living who live until now; 3. And more blessed than both of them is he who has not yet existed, who has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun. Violence, the oppression of the strong and rich over the weak and poor, has penetrated to such an extent

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19. And when they say to you: turn to the callers of the dead and to sorcerers, to whisperers and ventriloquists, then answer: should not the people turn to their God? Do the dead ask about the living? These signs are sufficient for the believer. To nothing therefore to turn to a different kind

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God is not of the dead, but of the living 23 On that day the Sadducees came up to him, who claim that there is no resurrection of the dead, and asked him: 24 “Master! Moses said: “If someone dies childless, then the brother of the deceased should marry his widow and continue the family of his brother

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God is not of the dead, but of the living 18 Also the Sadducees, who claim that there is no resurrection of the dead, came to Jesus and asked Him: 19 “Teacher, Moses gave us this decree: “If a brother dies childless and leaves his wife a widow then let another brother have it

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God is not the dead, but the living 27 Then some of the Sadducees came up to Jesus (they deny the resurrection of the dead) and asked Him: 28 “Teacher, Moses gave us this ordinance: “If someone’s brother, being married, dies childless, then let him brother will take his widow as his wife and

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§ 263. Preliminaries of the universal judgment: a) the coming of the Lord, Judge of the living and the dead. The coming of the Lord to earth as Judge of the living and the dead: this is the first great event that will take place on the last day of the world! 1) The reality of this future, the second

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§ 264 b) Resurrection of the dead and change of the living. On the same last day (John 6, 40, 44) and at the same time as the glorious descent of the Lord from heaven to earth, surrounded by celestials, He will send His angels before Him with a great trumpet voice (Matt. 24, 31), and

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8. God of the living. 12.18-27 - “Then the Sadducees came to Him, who say that there is no resurrection, and asked Him, saying: Teacher! Moses wrote to us: if anyone's brother dies and leaves a wife, and leaves no children, then let his brother take his wife and restore seed to his brother. There were seven

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Feast of the Living and the Dead Let's go back to the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In one of the showcases of the department of South America, an exhibit that is not very remarkable at first glance is exhibited - a wooden flute that has dried out from time to time, or rather, a pipe about a meter long. Visitors

“They buried their dead in the ground,” wrote S.G.F. Brandon, - since they were convinced that the abode of the dead was underground ... The provision of the dead with objects that they needed in this life, apparently, can be explained by the fact that primitive people were completely unable to imagine life after death in any other way than the life they knew here on earth.”

This statement of the largest religious scholar in a special work devoted to the posthumous judgment in the beliefs of various peoples is remarkable for its specificity. But in reality, it is very stupefying to the ancient man, who knew perfectly well that the interred dead man lies where he was buried, does not use any tools and does not eat anything from the food left in the grave.

The funeral rite of prehistoric man should at least assume that in the minds of those who performed it there was an idea of the duality of human nature, of the body decaying in the grave, and of the soul that descends into the "abode of the dead." Accordingly, the soul needs not the material objects themselves, but their “souls”. Just as on earth a corporeal person eats material food from an earthen cup and strikes the enemy with a battle ax, so in the world of souls, the soul of the deceased is able to eat the soul of food and strike the soul of the enemy with the soul of an ax.

In order for a person to “give up his spirit”, for the soul to be separated from the body, the death of the material body must necessarily occur. In order for the souls of objects to become part of the world of the deceased, they, as material objects, must also die. Hence - a fairly common custom of later centuries - to kill slaves and wives on the graves of their masters and husbands, and the tradition dating back to the Neolithic of breaking dishes and other household items on the grave. The tearing of clothes as a sign of mourning for the dead goes back, perhaps, to the same series of symbols.

First, the body is buried, the body is given a fetal or sleeping position. This means that they believe in awakening, in the rebirth of the body, which means that the ancient otherness of man is not limited by the life of the soul, but they are waiting in the future for some wonderful moment when the souls will reunite with the bodies and the dead will wake up.

Secondly, the breaking of gifts for the dead is a rather late and not universal custom. Rather, here we are faced with a secondary rationalization of the funeral ritual. Initially, the posture that was given to the body of the deceased, and food, and objects of labor, and weapons placed in the grave, emphasized, symbolically denoted that the deceased was alive, that death was his temporary state.

And again, only a secondary rationalization connected the abode of souls, the kingdom of the dead, with the underworld, precisely because the bodies of the dead were placed in the earth from ancient times in anticipation of the resurrection. We will see how they fight, how the heavenly, extraterrestrial and underground locations of the souls of the dead coexist in the most ancient written cultures - in Sumer, in Egypt.

Fire ascends from earth to heaven and the object of the sacrifice of the Natufians (Nakhal-Oren - one of the Natufian settlements in Palestine) had a heavenly nature. When ideas about the underground topography of the world of the dead became fixed, sacrifices to the dead began to be performed differently - the blood of sacrificial animals was supposed to nourish the earth, and the altars themselves, for example, in the Greek hero cult, were arranged below ground level.

Burials with hoofed horns in the hands or on the chest of the deceased (for example, Einan), and later with amulets in the form of bull heads (Sesklo, Thessaly, VI millennium BC) certainly indicate the purpose of the posthumous journey - to Heavenly God. The expectation of a journey is indicated by the frequent finds of dog skeletons near human burials (Erk el-Ahmar, Ubeid, Almiera). The dog, the guide of the hunter in this world, turns out to be an understandable symbol of the right path during the transition to other existence. Dog-headed Anubis, Kerberos are a late memory of this early Neolithic image.

Burials under the floors of houses and inside settlements, characteristic of the early Neolithic, remain common in the sacred cities of the 7th-6th millennia. More than five hundred burials were found in Catal Huyuk on an excavation area of half a hectare. They buried under the beds of residential buildings, and men - under the corner bench, and women along the long wall. Mellart suggests that living men and women slept on these same benches.

In addition, many burials were found in oval pits outside the houses. Quite a few people are buried in shrines. In the sanctuary VI. 10, 32 skeletons were found, in the sanctuary of vultures (VII.8) - six burials. Mellart notes that the clothes, jewelry, and belongings of those buried in sanctuaries are usually much richer and more varied than those of those buried in houses and oval pits. The scientist suggests that the remains of high priests rested in the sanctuaries, who during their lifetime performed sacred rites in them.

It is noteworthy that burials are completely absent in utility yards and storehouses. This indicates that the choice of burial places by the Chatalhuyuk people was not accidental. They were buried not there "where it is simpler", but where they considered it necessary.

The "Holy Cities" seem to complete the tradition of the 10th-8th millennia BC. Since the 6th millennium, a new trend towards the division of the worlds of the dead and the living has become more and more noticeable. In the Hassun culture (Mesopotamia, 7th-6th millennium), the dead, as a rule, are already buried outside the settlements. Only the bodies of children and adolescents continue to be buried under the floors of houses.

In Byblos of the 6th millennium, only children's burials were found under the houses, in which human bones are sometimes mixed with sheep's. Such burials were made in special small vessels. The almost complete absence of adult burials indicates the presence of special cemeteries.

Such "cemeteries" or transitional forms such as "houses of the dead" were soon discovered. In Byblos, this is the building "46-14", under the floor of which more than 30 people are buried, in Tell as-Savan (Middle Mesopotamia) - the building "No. 1" of the 6th millennium, under which there were more than one hundred secondary burials.

At the same time, the skulls of deceased relatives, which used to be often placed along the walls and around the hearth, also disappear from the interiors of dwellings. The same tendencies are noticeable in the burial customs of the Danube Plain of the 6th millennium. Adults are now rarely buried under houses here, but usually outside the settlements, in caves or in special cemeteries.

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