Rituals for the Qingming Festival

The Qingming Festival is one of the three major festivals of worship in China (the other two are July 15 and October 1). It is a festival to honor the memory of the deceased, as opposed to festivals to honor the gods of heaven and earth.

The participants in the Qingming Festival are all the people, from the kings and ministers to the common people, all of them are required to pay homage to the souls of the deceased in this festival. From the Tang Dynasty onwards, the court gave officials a vacation to facilitate their return to their hometowns to visit their graves. According to the song "dream sorghum record" records: every Qingming Festival, ? Officials and the general public go out to the countryside to visit the tombs, in order to do their best to honor the memory of the time. Participants in the tomb sweepers are not limited to men and women and the number of people, often out of the family. In this way, before and after the Qingming Festival, tomb-sweeping activities often become the whole community personally involved in the matter, a few days in the countryside between the crowd endless, the scale is very prosperous.

The object of sacrifice.

The festival of Qingming is mainly dedicated to ancestors and deceased relatives, expressing the filial piety of the worshippers and their remembrance of the dead. Qingming Festival belongs to the ghost festival and is usually not named the name of the ghost festival, because it is mainly sacrificed to the good ghosts, family ghosts, or close to the soul of the deceased, focusing on the expression of filial piety thought of the feelings of kinship. The other two Ghost Festivals are also dedicated to evil spirits and wild ghosts, with the emphasis on appeasing the ghosts and preventing them from haunting. However, it is not possible to generalize. Some places also have the Qingming Festival sacrifices to other ghosts and gods of the practice. Shanghai's old custom in the Qingming Festival will be held on the altar ceremony dedicated to the sacrifice of the ghosts, sacrifices those hungry ghosts, ghosts and lonely souls, to prevent them from becoming evil spirits. This kind of altar is called the sacrificial platform. In old Shanghai, there is also the practice of welcoming the god of the city on the day before the Qingming Festival. On the day of Ching Ming Festival, the god of the city to sit in a large sedan chair to patrol the sacrificial platform, in order to provide relief to appease the lonely ghosts, the scene is very grand and lively.

The time of sacrifice. Qingming festival before and after the Qingming Festival, varying from place to place. In the old days, Beijing people sweep the graves not on the day of Ching Ming, but in the near Ching Ming? single day? was performed. Only the monks would sweep the graves on Qingming day. The Lishui area of Zhejiang Province, on the other hand, sweeps graves within the scope of the first three days and the last four days of the Qingming Festival, known as ? the first three and the last four days? In Shandong, in the old days, most areas swept the graves on the day of Qingming, a few areas, such as Zhucheng, swept the graves on the day of Cold Food, and some places swept the graves within the first four days of Qingming; nowadays, they usually go to sweep the graves on the day of Qingming. Jinnan people, on the other hand, divide the time of tomb-sweeping into two times. Once, a few days before Ching Ming, each family goes to sweep the graves separately. The second time is on the day of Ching Ming, a village with the same surname of each family sent representatives, with the cemetery to worship **** the same ancestors. Shanghai people's tomb-sweeping time is different for new and old graves. For those who have recently passed away and have not done the rituals for overcoming the dead after 79 days, they should ask monks and Taoists to recite sutras and do the rituals or Taoist ceremonies on the day of Qingming Festival. If it is an old grave and has done puja or dojo, sweeping the grave is not necessarily on the day of Ching Ming, can be relaxed before and after, but can not go beyond the scope of the first seven days after eight days, commonly known as:? Before seven after eight, the netherworld vacation. Means too early or too late will be out of order.

The place of worship. Qingming festival according to the different places of worship can be divided into tomb sacrifice, ancestral hall sacrifice. Wealthy families more than repair ancestral hall for the Hall Festival, the Royal Family is to establish their own ancestral shrine, such as the Qing Dynasty, the ancestral shrine of the Ming Dynasty, called the Imperial ancestral temple, is now the east of Tiananmen Square, the Palace of Culture of the Working People. Nowadays, there are only a few memorial halls, such as the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall, Lincoln Memorial Hall. Folkloric ceremonies are mostly grave ceremonies. The special feature of Qingming Festival is the tomb festival. Qingming Tomb Sacrifice is known as Tomb Sweeping.

Ways or items of worship. The way or project of the Qingming festival varies from place to place, and the common practice consists of two parts: one is to refurbish the grave, is to hang and burn paper money. The second is the hall offering offerings, held a ceremony.

Sweeping the tomb first repair the grave. The practice is mainly to remove weeds, cultivate new soil. This kind of behavior on the one hand can express the worshiper's filial piety and care for the deceased, on the other hand, in the ancient belief, the ancestors' graves and the future generations of the rise and fall of fortune and misfortune have a great relationship, so the cultivation of the grave is a memorial content can not be ignored. The Qing Tongli explains grave repair as? Sweeping the tomb? The origin of the name: "Tomb Sweeping". The year, the cold food and frost festival, worship sweeping Xieng Khouang tombs, the period of plain clothes at the tomb, with wine and food and scythes cut grass and trees of the tool, Zhou Xie Feng tree, cut off the thorns and grasses, so called sweeping the tomb.

In the past, due to the influence of the cold food ban on fire, paper money is not burned, but hung in the cemetery on a small tree, bamboo poles, or with stones, bumps on the side of the grave. Song Zhuang Jiyu "chicken ribs chapter" volume on: ? When you go to the grave on a cold day, you don't set up any incense. Paper money is hung on the grave tree. Those who go to their hometowns and villages climb up the hill to look at the graves and offer sacrifices. They would then split the paper in the air and call it "breaking money". In this way, all the graves that have been swept have paper streamers floating, constituting a unique landscape before and after the Qingming Festival. There is no paper money, generally is the lack of heirs of the lonely graves. Later, generally no longer pay attention to the ban on fire, the paper money burned. In the old days, the main form of ancestor worship at Qingming in Beijing was? Burning baggage. The so-called? The so-called "baggage". The so-called "baggage" was used by the worshippers as a gift to be sent to the "netherworld" from the Yangzi world. The so-called baggage was used by the worshippers as a mailbox to be sent to the netherworld. The parcel is used as a mailbox to send a message from the world of the living to the world of the dead. In the old days, the so-called "kamaboko" was sold at the Nanpaper store. Wrapping skin? which is a large pocket made of white paper. There were two styles of these pockets: one was patterned, with the Sanskrit translation of the Mantra for the Future Life printed on a woodblock, and a rosette in the center, with the name of the deceased written on it, such as "The late Mr. Zhang Fu-jun, the late Mr. Yunshan". The late Mr. Zhang Fujun, the oldest man in Yunshan? The words. Another is a plain wrapping skin, not printed any pattern, the center only stick a blue sticker, write the name of the deceased. The package contains a variety of money. Offerings are mainly food, varieties vary from place to place, are the local people think and according to the worshipper's financial ability to get out of the delicious food, or seasonal specialties.