Why did Tomb-Sweeping Day worship his ancestors and sweep the grave?

Tomb-Sweeping Day is an ancient festival of the Chinese nation. It is not only a solemn festival to pay homage to ancestors, but also a happy festival for people to get close to nature, have an outing and enjoy the fun of spring.

Tomb-Sweeping Day, with both natural and humanistic connotations, is not only one of the "24 solar terms", but also a traditional festival for ancestor worship. "Twenty-four solar terms" is the product of ancient farming civilization, which not only plays a guiding role in agricultural production, but also affects ancient people's food, clothing, housing and transportation, and even cultural concepts.

The "Twenty-four solar terms" were originally determined by the rotation direction of bucket handle, the Big Dipper, which rotates circularly and is closely related to the twenty-four solar terms. In different seasons and at different times, the Big Dipper will point in different directions, which has become the basis for ancient people to judge the changes of seasons and solar terms, that is, the so-called "bucket handle refers to the east, and the world is spring; Guide to barrel handle, it's summer in the world; Bucket handle refers to the west, and the world is autumn; Bucket handle refers to the north, and the world is winter. ".

Tomb-Sweeping Day is the most solemn festival for ancestor worship of the Chinese nation, and it belongs to a traditional cultural festival for ancestor worship. Tomb-Sweeping Day embodies the national spirit, inherits the sacrificial culture of Chinese civilization, and expresses people's moral feelings of respecting and honoring their ancestors.

Grave-sweeping is "grave-sweeping sacrifice", which is called "respecting time" for ancestors. Spring and Autumn Festival has existed since ancient times. Tomb-Sweeping Day has a long history, which originated from ancient ancestral beliefs and spring sacrifices. According to the research results of modern anthropology and archaeology, the two most primitive beliefs of human beings are the belief in heaven and earth and the belief in ancestors.

The establishment of the ancient branch calendar provided decisive conditions for the formation of festivals. Ancestor belief and sacrificial culture were important factors in the formation of ancestral worship custom in Qingming Festival. According to archaeological excavations, a 10,000-year-old tomb was found at the Qingtang site in Yingde, Guangdong Province, which is the earliest tomb in China, indicating that ancient ancestors had a clear sense of burial behavior and customs thousands of years ago.