Why did the ancients always put a pair of shoes on the shore before they threw themselves into the river? Why is it awesome?

"If there is a gap between heaven and earth in life, it will be sudden."

A person's life is extremely short, and he spends it alternately in joy and bitterness. Sometimes, people will laugh because of some small moments and feel the joy brought by life instantly. Sometimes, people can't help falling into the endless depression of the secular world, and may even choose to end their lives temporarily. Many poems praise the tenacity of life, but many times, life is extremely fragile. For example, Qu Yuan threw himself into the river, for example, Liu Lanzhi died. In Peacock Flying Southeast, the author recorded Liu Lanzhi's suicide in this way: "Take off her skirt and silk shoes and lift herself to the pool." Elegant literary talent, full of picture sense. However, in this account, we can easily find one thing, that is, when Liu Lanzhi threw herself into the lake, why did she take off her shoes and put them by the river? Is this a sense of ritual before suicide? Why did the ancients leave their shoes on the shore before they threw themselves into the river? The reason behind it is awe-inspiring.

Put your shoes away before committing suicide, so that the yamen can judge the case conveniently.

It turns out that when you throw yourself into the river, you take off your shoes and put them away in advance to facilitate the judgment of the yamen. It is understood that in ancient times, anyone who disappeared or died had to go through the yamen to close the case. Moreover, for every county magistrate, a life-threatening case is related to his political achievements. If a person's inexplicable disappearance can't solve the case, and a tricky county magistrate is demoted, then he will definitely not let the families of the missing person go. For the sake of his relatives, he naturally dared not throw himself into the river without leaving anything.

Generally, after someone disappears, people around him will report the case to the government, and then the yamen will send an official to investigate the case. If the person who threw himself into the river didn't leave anything behind, then the official can't judge the cause of his death. Whether he committed suicide or was murdered by others and pushed into the river is unknown. However, if the person who committed suicide took off his shoes before he threw himself into the river, then when the director saw the shoes and saw that there were no obvious signs of struggle around him, it would be easy to judge that the person committed suicide, and he could file the case after summing up the case.

Put your shoes away in order to observe the custom.

There is another reason. In ancient times, people believed in some customs. For example, the deceased in an accident can't be buried in the ancestral grave, but the suicide will be fine. Those who die unexpectedly usually show that their blessings are weak. If such people are included in the ancestral graves, their family's blessings will be reduced and even bring disaster to the new generation. In ancient times, concubines who could be buried with kings were generally very rich, and we also know something about them in history books. Suicide is not a blessing, but at least it can't be included in sudden death. Because the ancients obeyed the rules, people who committed suicide still expected to be buried in their ancestral graves in the future, which was regarded as finding a home for their souls. So even if they commit emotional suicide, they will take off their shoes and put them on the shore.

Put your shoes away for divination.

In ancient times, shoes were extremely sacred. Usually, some fortune tellers have the ability to use shoes for divination. The ancients believed in these divination techniques, and even the king would spend energy on them. In divination, one thing is divination by shoes, which has been described in Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio. A soothsayer with Hong Xiuxie in his hand can divine ghosts. From the records in the book, we can also see how much the ancients respected the art of divination. How do fortune tellers use shoes for divination? First of all, they will throw their shoes up like copper coins. After the shoes fall, they will begin to study and divine their directions, and each direction has a related explanation. About the life and death of the shoe owner, the cause of death, good and evil, etc. The fortune teller can explain it by the orientation of the shoes.

label

From this, we can draw a conclusion that there are too many reasons why people who commit suicide should put their shoes away before they die. The first reason is to facilitate the yamen to investigate the case, not to add doubts and troubles to their relatives after death, and not to add unnecessary workload to others because of their reckless death. The second reason is to expect yamen to commit suicide, so that they have the right to be buried in ancestral graves and their souls can be buried. The third point is that if a stranger wants to perform divination and his shoes are still there, he will not delay the execution of this sacred ceremony.

From these points, we can clearly understand why the ancients left their shoes on the shore and then threw themselves into the river, whether for others or praying for the fallen leaves to return to their roots, which made us awe. However, what we admire most is that they chose to throw themselves into the river. In the ancient explanation, suicide by drowning is the most dignified way to commit suicide, but it also maintains dignity. The persistence of the ancients also gave us a warning. However, life is precious. In modern society, death no longer has clear ambitions. What people need is to live their lives seriously, which is enough.