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Why is Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival? The origin of the custom of Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Fes

Why is Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival? The origin of the custom of Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival

4hw.com.cn: Qingming Festival is one of the traditional festivals in China. There are many excellent poems about Qingming Festival written by ancient poets. The most famous one is Du Mu's Qingming: during the Qingming Festival, there are many rains, and passers-by want to break their souls. When we talk about tomb sweeping, we must first think of tomb sweeping. Why is there a custom of tomb sweeping? Let's have a look.

Why is Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival?

'it rained one after another during the Qingming Festival, and passers-by wanted to break their souls. Different from other solar terms, Qingming is also an important traditional folk festival in China, a day for ancestor worship and tomb sweeping. The origin of the Qingming Festival, it is said, began with the ceremony of "Tomb sacrifice" of the ancient emperors and generals. Later, the folk also followed suit. On this day, it became a fixed custom of the Chinese nation.

According to legend, there was a custom of offering sacrifices to tombs by altar in the pre-Qin period, and later gradually evolved into the worship in front of tombs. 'cold food tomb sacrifice' was formed in the northern and Southern Dynasties. According to the book of the old Tang Dynasty, the book of pilgrimage to the tombs on the cold food festival has no text, but in modern times, it has become a common custom for a long time. Every cold food festival, there are all kinds of pilgrimages. In view of this custom for a long time, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty issued an imperial edict in the 20th year of the first year of the new year: 'the family of scholars and commoners should be allowed to go to the tomb and be incorporated into the five rites, which will always be the regular style. 'the tomb sacrifice of cold food was then determined as a national ritual, which was also the reason for Tomb Sweeping on the Qingming Festival.

Because the cold food festival is a few days before the Qingming Dynasty, the ancients often extended the activities of the cold food festival to the Qingming Dynasty. As time goes by, the combination of the two festivals forms the custom of tomb sweeping in the Qingming Dynasty. Up to now, the date of going to the tomb is not very strict. The time before and after the Qingming Dynasty is OK.

Why is Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival? Tomb Sweeping comes from cold food festival. There were two festivals in ancient Chinese history. One was Qingming Festival, which was one of the 24 solar terms. It was mainly used to guide farming and to visit tombs and remember relatives. Since Qingming Festival and cold food festival are only separated by one or two days, the two solar terms were combined into one.

The legend of Tomb Sweeping on Qingming Festival

According to folklore, there are two sources of cold food tomb sweeping. First of all, Zhuge Liang was popular in governing Shu in the Three Kingdoms period, but after his death, the court did not build a temple for him, so the people worshiped on the field road during the cold food period. After that, the imperial court made improper arrangements for self-examination and formally attached sacrifices to Zhuge Liang in the ancestral temple (Liu Bei), but the custom of cold food and wild sacrifice has been formed, and evolved into the tomb of each person to visit the ancestors; another said that the custom of cold food and cold food Festival were formed in the spring and Autumn period at the same time, all because of the commemoration of the hermit jiezitui.

It is also believed that cold food and tomb sweeping originated from the custom of sacrificing Gao Qi to ancestors at the spring equinox. In the primitive society where people only recognize their mother and don't recognize their father, Gao Mu is their ancestor. To worship Gao is to worship ancestors. And the original Festival period of cold food festival is in the second half of February, which is consistent with the ancient time when worshipping Gao, so the Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty set cold food as the ancestor worship Festival. Later generations, cold food festival was reduced to the last three or two days, or directly combined with Qingming Festival, so cold food tomb sweeping became Qingming tomb sweeping.

As for the custom of Tomb Sweeping on the Qingming Festival, there is also a story about Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Zhu Yuanzhang was poor when he was young. His parents died in a plague. He and his brother buried their parents and became monks in Huangjue temple. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang joined the peasant uprising army at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and conquered the East and the west to become the emperor. But the remains of his parents became a heart attack. It turned out that there were many more tombs on the hillside where his parents were buried. Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't identify which tomb belonged to his parents, so he was often unhappy.

A eunuch from his hometown guessed the emperor's mind and offered a clever plan. Zhu Yuanzhang was so happy that he ordered the people to sacrifice to their ancestors and visit their tombs on the Qingming Festival. In the dark, however, he secretly sent a bodyguard to spy out. He found that there was only one grave on the hillside where his parents were buried. There was no one to sweep the grave. So Zhu Yuanzhang realized his wish and buried his parents with his bones removed. Maybe the revival of Qingming Festival is related to Zhu Yuanzhang.

The usual procedure of tomb sweeping in the Qing Dynasty

There are different ways or items of sacrifice in Qing and Ming Dynasties. There are two parts of common practices: one is to renovate the tomb, the other is to hang and burn paper money and offer sacrifices.

According to the custom, the order of sacrifice is to sweep the tomb first, that is, to clean the cemetery.

The second is sacrifice. This process is very important. One is to express sadness. The other is to feel with the ancestors. Because the mountains have spirit but no lord, the ancestors have God but no spirit. Feeling with the ancestors can better get the spirit of the mountains and rivers. This is Fengshui.

During tomb sweeping, people bring wine, fruit, paper money and other articles to the cemetery, offer food for sacrifice in front of their relatives' tombs, burn the paper money, plant new soil for the tomb, repair the tomb, fold a few green new branches and insert them in the tomb, and press some paper money on it for others to see, know that there are descendants in the tomb, and then kowtow and worship. After that, we can gather around for dinner and drink; we can also fly kites, even compete with each other, and carry out relevant activities. Women and children also need to fold some willow branches nearby and wear the removed steamed food supplies with wickers. Some of them weave wickers into baskets and put them on their heads, which means that "if you don't wear willows in Qingming, you will become a yellow dog in the next life".

Therefore, the general procedure of tomb sweeping in the Qing Dynasty is: to amend the cemetery -- to incense -- to meat -- to toast -- to sacrifice -- to send off with guns.