從血餘到血湖與血盆的研究=A Study on the Blood Taboo of Female Menstrual Blood and Partum Blood and the Salvation in Religion: From Female Bodily Pollution to Lake of Blood and Blood Basin
The understanding of menstrual blood and partum blood is unclean and ominous by the public who believe that menstrual blood and partum blood would invade the gods and bring bad luck. The traditional views of various nationalities in the world for female menstrual blood and partum blood are mainly “taboo” and “filthy”, especially in Chinese Han society. The reasons of the original concept of fountain of life is evolved to social national taboo are important. Moreover, it is important for me, as a female, to deeply realize the historical significance behind this taboo and the social status of female in the trend of the times. In the concept of layperson’s community, the world is polluted by the menstrual blood and partum blood, resulting in offending gods, which is maned unclean sins. The punishment of unclean sins in the religious belief of layperson is to be imprisoned and suffered in the pool of blood basin after death. In order to prevent the mother suffering from punishment in pool of blood basin or hell of lake of blood, the filial children will hold the performance of “hitting blood basin” in the funeral ceremony to let the descendants of the deceased mother to undertake the unclean sins and confess to the gods to get the forgiveness. Furthermore, by holding the performance, the filial children repay the deceased mother’s nurturing grace and pray for gods to let the deceased mother can go to the Western Paradise. In the extents of religious funeral ceremonies, hitting blood basin not only has the function of resting the deceased in peace and comforting the family, but also contains the features of education. It is to rescue the deceased in the performing forms of “salvation” and “confession”, to give bless for filial relatives in the family and to promote traditional Chinese ethics, such as “filial piety”, “tidal piety”, and “being good” in the features of education. Filial piety is always be advocated in Chinese culture. After the idea of filial piety is filled into the funeral ceremony, the meanings of the performance of hitting blood basin are closely related to the concepts of “rescue mother” and “save the deceased mother”, which leads it to be more popular. Now, because of the advancement in medicine and health, the public do not have the belief in that the menstrual blood and partum blood mean unclean without questioning. Whether the performance of hitting blood basin means the concerns of the female’s social role and is important in the aspect of mentality for modern women or not, the funeral ceremonies have the implied functions of promoting filial piety and grief treatment. The author hopes that this thesis can explain the correlations of the female blood taboo and the blood basin and lake of blood in Buddhism and Daoist and the developments of the concepts.
