Can I sweep the grave before the vernal equinox?

It is possible to sweep graves at the vernal equinox. Many places have the custom of sweeping graves at the vernal equinox, which is called the Spring Festival.

At the vernal equinox in February, people began to pay homage to their ancestors, also known as the Spring Festival. Before sweeping the grave, a grand ancestor worship ceremony should be held in the ancestral hall, pigs and sheep should be slaughtered, drummers should be invited to play, and the ritual students should read the eulogy and quote three praises.

At the beginning of the spring equinox grave sweeping, the first thing is to sweep the graves of ancestors and distant ancestors. The whole family and the whole village have to be dispatched on a large scale, and the team often reaches hundreds or even thousands. After the ancestral graves of Kaiji and Yuanzu were swept, they were divided into rooms to sweep the graves of ancestors in each room, and finally each family swept the graves privately.

In most Hakka areas, ancestor worship and grave sweeping in spring begin at the vernal equinox or earlier, and must end in Tomb-Sweeping Day at the latest.

The ancients chose to sweep graves at the vernal equinox, in order to be angry with Tomb-Sweeping Day. First of all, it is to dehumidify and make the environment for burying ancestors more comfortable. The second is to dredge the drainage before the rainy season to prevent the grave from being flooded due to accumulated water in summer.