How to write the tablet of the family god?

How to write the tablet of the family god

In the long history of cultural inheritance, China has formed a rich and colorful national and folk culture. This cultural form was initially manifested in the tablets of family gods in thousands of households, especially in rural areas, which is also commonly known as "incense".

Due to several large migration flows in history, their surname genealogy is very complicated. In addition, most local people in our country advocate the custom of worshipping ancestors at home temples. Therefore, after the Hakkas moved to different places, some prominent families and extended families set up family ancestral temple and ancestral temples, and even some ordinary people and poor families attached great importance to the form of family sacrifices. When building houses, they almost pay attention to the form of family sacrifice. The left and right rooms are called rooms, and the city people call them bedrooms. There is an incense shrine on the back eaves of the welcome door in the hall.

First, the components of the family god memorial tablet

The memorial tablet of the family god consists of five parts: hall number, shrine, church couplet, shrine and newspaper.

The first part is the "hall number". Surnames from different backgrounds are named surnamed tang in order to brand their surnames with history. Hall number refers to the title of a surname and a branch. After a certain surname and a certain branch become a noble family, due to continuous reproduction, development and migration, many housing branches and factions are often separated. In order to distinguish each other, these housing branches and housing factions have their own names, called "hall number" or "room number"

There are also a few people who write the word "XX Hall" as "XX Junior Brother", and the word "Tang" is only written as "Junior Brother".

For those families who have no genealogy and lost their names for various reasons, the written content of the hall number is changed to "Fulu is true" and "Zuliudefang".

The second part is "God's Position", which is the center and main body of the family god memorial tablet and occupies the center of the family god memorial tablet. No matter what family name, family branch or faction name, the text content of "god position" is unified. Connect vertically with a piece of semi-red or positive red paper. In the middle, write down the six characters of "the relationship between heaven and earth" with a brush from top to bottom, and write down the gods left and right.

The third part, the family culture closely related to the number of Tang Dynasty is "Tang Lian". Most of the contents of some church couplets reflect the worship of ancestors, the inheritance of ancestral style and the glory of the family. Common ones are "the origin of generations is far away, and Sun Zhiyi worships for a long time"; "Zu Li Yong helps the family to prosper, and Guangzong always shines on his descendants"; "Baoding is auspicious and fragrant, the silver platform reports good news, and candles give birth to flowers"; "Rizhao incense burner produces purple smoke, and night oil lamps open colorful flowers"; "Shide long flowers hang down, and the sound of home will always shake the piano hall"; "After all, clothes are all ancestors, and Gui Lan is full of spring"; "Worship the ancestors and pray for blessings, and safeguard the law and discipline economy". All surnames can be common.

In addition, there are some Tang couplets, which reflect the historical origin of surnames. The moral articles and literary martial arts of family celebrities can only be used for a specific surname, which is very distinctive and cultural.

The fourth part is the "notice", which is attached to the right side of the family god memorial tablet, aligned with the upper end of the "hall number" and is an auxiliary part of the family god memorial tablet. Newspaper content: "I am glad to report that the people of China and the country AD ~ ~ have made a family healthy and prosperous, and the good people of Nantong Peking University met the nobles and welcomed Samsung to make a fortune in the four seasons."

The fifth part is the "shrine", which is located at the lower end of the "shrine" and the couplet. The top of the shrine was originally used to place shrines and ancestral tablets.

Second, the significance of God's position.

The main body of the tablet of family gods is the deity of "heaven, earth, monarch, relatives and teachers". Influenced by Confucian moral and ethical concepts, Chinese folk beliefs have formed a belief and worship sequence of "heaven, earth, monarch and teachers".

1. The "sky" here mainly refers to physical and objective nature, such as the alternation of the sun and the moon, the alternation of the stars, the rotation of the four seasons, light, air, clouds, thunder and lightning, frost and dew and other natural phenomena. Worship of Heaven Emperor is an important part of Chinese folk beliefs.

2. "Earth" refers to the surface of the earth relative to the sky. Land is the foundation of human beings and everything. The worship of the earth is mainly manifested in the worship of mountains and rivers.

3. "Jun" is the general name of the rulers who owned land at all levels in ancient times. Later, in some places, a few people changed the word "Jun" into the word "Guo", but they didn't know the specific meaning of "Jun", so they did whatever they wanted and made it up subjectively, but for some reason, they changed it arbitrarily and lost the original meaning of "Jun".

3. The style of "pro" is "pro", in which "pro" is a general term for ancestors. Ancestor worship is a deeply influenced folk belief in ancient China. The ancestral hall of the royal family enshrines the memorial tablets of the royal ancestors, and the ancestral hall of the noble family and the memorial tablets of the common people's gods also enshrine the memorial tablets of their ancestors.

4. Teachers write "teacher" in a complicated way, especially those who impart knowledge and technology, such as teachers, commonly known as masters and masters. Confucius was the most sacred teacher of ancient intellectuals in China. In the long feudal society of China, Confucianism, which evolved from Confucius, was the dominant theory. Therefore, when the rulers of past dynasties offered sacrifices to heaven, earth, sun, moon and ancestors, they also added a very grand ceremony-offering sacrifices to the Confucius. Confucius became the representative and symbol of "teacher".

Three, the writing requirements and format specification of the family god memorial tablet

The tablet of the family god is the most sacred in people's minds, so writing is a very serious and grand thing with very strict requirements and format specifications. You can't be sloppy if you don't write. If you know how to write, you should carefully write the tablet of the family god.

Those who want to write incense must look forward to a lucky day, buy a new brush, ink, red paper and prepare a incense table. He must invite people with the best and most respected calligraphy in dozens of miles in Fiona Fang, Fiona Fang to his home. After entertaining guests, he will set up the incense table, and Mr. Wang Can will only start writing after washing his hands. According to established customs and rules, Mr. Wang Can writes Spring Festival couplets and wedding couplets. Free, but you have to pay for writing incense. How much is decided by Mr. Wang, and there is no need to bargain at home.

The writing requirement of "Tang Hao" must be regular script, and running script and cursive script are not allowed. Read and write horizontally from right to left. "Hall number" must be recorded according to the family tree, and it is not allowed to be named at will. "Hall number" must be written in black on a red background or yellow on a black background, and white, blue, green and other colors are not allowed. The size of the paper or plaque is two feet four inches wide and four feet five inches long.

The writing requirements of "Divine Position" are more specific, standardized and strict, with five taboos and five prohibitions. These five taboos are:

Writing "Tian" requires "no pressure" and it is forbidden to connect two horizontal lines; Writing "land" requires "the land is not separated", and it is forbidden to separate the soil; When writing "Jun", it is required to seal the taboo "Jun doesn't keep his mouth shut" and rewrite it as "Lord" or "country" at will to avoid ambiguity; To write "pro", we must write "pro" in the traditional way and ask "pro not to close his eyes"; When writing "teacher", we should keep the teacher in the original position, that is, write the word "teacher" in a vertical direction. These five taboos are taboo and care on the one hand, and aesthetic requirements from the perspective of calligraphy on the other.

Five requirements and five no's: writing in regular script, not using cursive characters or other fonts; Brush ink moderately, without dripping, splashing, flowing or spraying, to ensure neat handwriting; The strokes should be round and full, and no fuzz or bifurcation is allowed; After writing the inscription, carefully lay it flat in a quiet and clean place and dry it naturally in the shade. Don't use it to stick, wipe the ink left on the words or bake with fire, so as not to damage the words paper. When sticking to the wall after drying, glue or paste should be applied around the paper, and it should not be fully applied to prevent the paper from wrinkling and discoloring after drying.

The specifications of the "altar" are the same as the hall number, that is, a piece of semi-red paper is longer vertically, and the width of a piece of paper, written vertically from top to bottom, must be red paper and black characters.

The basic requirements for the writing of "Tanglian" are black characters on a red background or yellow characters on a red background, and the font is smaller than the six characters of "Shenwei". Fonts can be opened, grass can be copied, seals can be sealed, and songs can be sealed, but deformed variants such as children's bodies cannot be used to prevent them from being serious and solemn. The contents of couplets have been introduced before, and may not be written as Spring Festival couplets or other contents; The church couplets are posted on both sides of the throne, with the upper part on the right and the lower part on the left, aligned with the upper end of the throne. If you want to paste more than two couplets, or correspond to the two sides of the shrine, the content and font of the couplets are different. It is forbidden to stick a couplet aside.

Newspapers are also written in red paper from top to bottom. Paper width 1/4, 1/5, 1/6 are vertically folded on a piece of red paper, which can be renewed every year. What is important is that it is longer every year. Set incense in the first year, and don't write too long in the newspaper, leaving room for the future until the last newspaper sticks the wall to the ground. The upper end of the sticker shall not exceed the upper edge of the hall plaque. After the paper is posted on the right wall of the incense stick, it is decided whether to update it according to the damage of the "incense" paper. If it is intact, tear up the old newspaper note that was covered in the past and start writing newspaper strips again.