Why do people need to enter the ancestral hall after death

Why do people need to enter the ancestral hall after death

Why do people need to enter the ancestral hall after death, "ancestral hall" is also known as "ancestral hall", is enshrined in the ancestral spirit tablets, rituals, the implementation of the family rules, marriage, burial, marriage and longevity, handling of descendants, discussing important matters within the clan and other important events. The important affairs of the clan and other important events within the clan place. So why do you want to enter the ancestral hall after death?

Why do people need to enter the ancestral hall after death1

The ancestral hall represents a family. When you are alive, you are in the ancestral shrine. It means that there is a place for you in the family. After death into the ancestral shrine is also equivalent to the inclusion of you in the family so that the descendants know you as a person. The rulers of the Chinese dynasties also paid considerable attention to this issue, only that education at that time was not as popular as it is now, so that every national can have the right to education. In contrast, the ancients paid more attention to the family, they set up ancestral halls and practiced family rules, so there is a saying that "one man wins, the chicken and the dog".

Feng Shui Knowledge in Ancestral Halls

Ancestral halls are the family temples of a clan, which are used to enshrine the spirits of ancestors, pray for blessings, perpetuate the lineage of the ancestors, and reproduce future generations. It is also a place for clansmen to meet and discuss important events. In recent years, many places have rebuilt their ancestral halls. Now it seems that this is part of the Chinese culture, is the inheritance of the clan culture, has its positive social significance. Ancestral shrine Feng Shui how, related to a place, the rise and fall of a clan, must not be taken lightly.

The fundamental goal of feng shui is harmony, the balance of yin and yang. In the 1920s, the Western landscape design, planning, architecture and a set of theories before the introduction of China, China's which city, which countryside, which famous building is not built under the guidance of Feng Shui ideas? "Feng Shui" was first seen in the Jin Dynasty, Guo Pu's "Funeral Book": "Burial, multiply the angry also, the gas multiplied by the wind is dispersed, boundaries of the water is stopped, the ancients gathered so that not scattered, line so that there is a stop, so it is called feng shui, feng shui of the law, water for the first, hidden wind second."

This is the earliest definition of feng shui. The art of Feng Shui is also known as the art of geomancy, the core of which is that people live or buried in the environment of the choice and change of the laws of the universe to deal with, in order to achieve the purpose of good luck and avoid bad luck. Feng Shui also has a yang house and yin house points.

The core idea of Feng Shui is the harmony between man and nature, the early Feng Shui is mainly concerned with the location of palaces, houses, villages, cemeteries, the seat to the construction of methods and principles, the original intention is to choose the right place for a study. The history of feng shui is quite old. In ancient times, feng shui was prevalent in the Chinese cultural circle, and it was a very important factor in clothing, food, housing and transportation. It was later developed to search for funerary terrain.

In layman's terms, a place with good feng shui is a place to live, symbolizing the prosperity of the people who live there, and the hope of making future generations rich and famous. Strictly speaking, it is the geographic location or environment that meets the principles and standards of feng shui "rich" and "noble" (the so-called "good feng shui").

Feng Shui, also known as "geomancy" in ancient times. In ancient Chinese literature, "kan" is the heavenly way, the high place, and "mikoshi" is the earthly way, the low place. "Geomancy" refers to the study of the heavenly way, between the earth, especially between the topography of the high and low.

The history of feng shui is quite long, in ancient times, feng shui prevailed in the Chinese cultural circle, and was a very important factor in clothing, food, housing and transportation. There are many documents related to feng shui have been preserved. From the literature, it can be seen that Feng Shui was used in ancient times for the location of towns and villages, as well as for the construction of palaces, and later on for finding the terrain for funerals.

Functions of Ancestral Halls

Ancestral halls have the functions of uniting the clans, offering sacrifices, linking and collecting clans, promoting culture and education, and cultural functions (public welfare).

1. In the Ancestral Hall, clansmen gather and deliberate, drink water and think of the source, remember the performance of their ancestors, praise the kindness of their ancestors, think of their ancestors in a good wine, and the concept of reverence for their ancestors is further strengthened.

2, the ancestral hall school. In the old days, most of the ancestral hall is the school. Such as the early liberation, my town Zitang Qiantang Bao's ancestral hall had run the school, the side house is also known as the "room under the book".

3, in the old days, the ancestral hall have ancestral property, there are sacrificial field, righteousness field, Confucian capital field, etc., also known as the "public field". The income of the righteous field is used for the relief of the widowers, widows, orphans, orphans and other poor people and desert relief and repair of ancestral halls and temples, bridges and pavements, and other public services such as amortization or donations. The Confucian Capital Field is dedicated to the development of education and the financing of the clan's participation in the imperial examinations. If the clan's children go out to take the exams, they will be provided with travel expenses, and if they pass the exams, the ancestral halls (all the males) will finance their education. The sacrificial field is used to organize the cost of ancestor worship ceremony, etc.

4. In the old days, the clan management daily management, repair genealogy is also an important task of clan management.

As Dr. Sun Yat-sen on genealogy: "Genealogy" describes the Chinese people from the unity of the clan, extended to the national unity of the nation, which is the Chinese people only have good traditional concepts, should be utilized." "The relationship between the Chinese nationals and the state structure, first the family then pushed to the clan, and then the state."

Ancestral Halls: A Material Carrier of Rituals and Communication with Deceased Ancestors

In ancient times, whether it was the royal aristocracy or the common people, the closest relationship with the family and the clan, which was similar to that of a religious building, was the "Ancestral Halls". "Ancestral halls" originally referred to a kind of ancestor worship in the spring, the season when everything is revitalized.

At the same time, it is also the season when animals begin to mate and reproduce, so it is not difficult to understand why the "shrine" was held in the spring. It's easy to understand why: on the one hand, to bring food to the dead ancestors, on the other hand, to be able to get the blessing of the ancestors, and to pass on the family name. That's why, in general, there are not many offerings at the shrine, but the rituals are very long.

The place of worship can be an open space or the interior of a building. Because of the lack of a symbolic object of sacrifice, it is necessary to artificially create an object of sacrifice, which is what Kong Yingda said, "the ancestral temple has a master and a corpse. In the sacrifice, "Lord" is the owner of the ancestral temple, the ancient "Lord" is usually made of wood, so it will be called "God Lord", "Wood Lord" and so on. "

This is the first time I've ever seen a shrine in my life, and I've never seen one in my life.

Ancestral halls can be divided into several types:

1. Worshipping the real god: In the Han Dynasty's "The Book of Yue Jie Shu - De Xu Wai Biography", there is a story of King Goujian, the king of Yue, who finally defeated the Wu Kingdom in one go by tasting the gall with his salary for ten years, and cleansed himself of the national humiliation, but he didn't dare to forget the history, and in order to thank the blessing of the gods, he built shrines in many places.

2, "Memorial Hall" - built for the ancestors of the shrine: "Han Shu - Methodist Biography - Wen Weng" recorded that Wen Weng is a scholar, proficient in Confucianism, at the end of Emperor Jingdi as the governor of Shu County, founded a number of schools, to the time of Emperor Wuzhi of Shu County to run schools around the wind, the local school became a trend, and the school was not only the first time, but also the second time. By the time of Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, it became a trend to set up schools all over Shu County, and the local culture was greatly improved. In order to commemorate the merits of Wen Weng, so the officials and the people have set up a shrine for Wen Weng, in order to commemorate him.

3. The last type is the patriarchal ancestral hall, as we know it. Ancestral halls evolved from the patriarchal system and were the equivalent of "temples" in ancient times.

Nowadays, people often say "ancestral hall" often refers to the last type of "ancestral hall", which is actually a product of the expansion of the patriarchal system in the folk, popularization.

China has a very early history of ancestral halls, which appeared in the Han Dynasty, but the real large-scale development and use of the late Ming Dynasty and the early Qing Dynasty. The emergence of ancestral halls meant the gradual collapse of the traditional ritual system and the formation of a new patriarchal system. Ancestral hall is equivalent to the ancient clan temples, "pro pro so as to honor the ancestor, honor the ancestor so as to honor the clan, honor the clan so as to collect the clan, after the people of the people of its remembrance of it! The latter is still the idea of it!"

So, the role of the ancestral hall is also very clear: to identify the relationship between affinity, respect for ancestors, contact with the same clan feelings, unity within the family, in fact, this has always been China's patriarchal system of the features and purposes, and this feature and purpose in modern times is still widely spread, just the size of the ancient times than to be a lot smaller.

Why do people go to the shrine when they die?3

What is the role of the shrine?

In the TV series, we often see some of these scenes, a group of elders gathered in front of the ancestral ancestral hall, discussing important things, and the place where they are is usually the ancestral hall, so what is the role of the ancestral hall? What is the role of the ancestral hall? This video introduces the role of the ancestral hall.

Ancestral halls are Confucian, places where ancestors or sages are worshipped. There are many uses for the ancestral hall, in addition to worshiping ancestors, catching up with the grandchildren of each house when they have to deal with affairs such as marriage, funeral, birthday, joy, etc. It is worth noting that, sometimes, the relatives of the family in order to discuss the important affairs of the family, but also often in the ancestral hall.

In the Confucian ethics of ancient China, the concept of family is quite deep, and often a village, living in one family or several families of one surname, most of them built their own family temples to worship their ancestors. Shrines are often found not only in China but also in Japan.

The name of shrine, which first appeared in the Han Dynasty, generally refers to the family temple, as a shrine. Ancestral halls are also divided into clan, branch and family ancestral halls. At that time, ancestral halls were built in tombs. Zhu Xi, an outstanding rationalist of the Southern Song Dynasty, made the "Family Rites" and started to establish the system of ancestral halls, and from then on, he called the family temple an ancestral hall. At that time, the construction of ancestral halls was limited by rank, and folk were not allowed to set up ancestral halls. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty (1522 - 1566 AD), the people were allowed to set up temples. Later, only those who had been emperors or marquis could be called family temples, and the rest were called ancestral temples.

Ancestral halls, in addition to enshrining and worshipping ancestors, also have a variety of uses. It is also the place where the patriarch exercises his power, and where the clansmen are educated and dealt with for violating the rules of the clan, or even expelled from the ancestral hall, so it can be said to be the moral court of the feudal era. The ancestral hall, too, could be used as a social place for the clan.

Some ancestral halls, attached to the school, where the children of the clan went to school. Because of this, the ancestral hall building, generally larger and better quality than residential houses, the more powerful and wealthy families, their ancestral hall, often the more elaborate. Tall halls, exquisite carvings, and superior materials have become a symbol of the family's honor and glory.

Ancestral halls, most of them have hall names. The name of the hall is written by the clansmen or the calligraphy masters of other surnames and made into a golden plaque, which is hung high in the main hall; next to it, there are plaques of the origin of the family name, the honor of the clansmen, the chastity of the women, and so on, and the elaborate ones are equipped with a pair of couplings. If it is the emperor's royal seal, it can be made into a plaque.

The specifications and number of plaques in the shrine are the capital for the clan to show off. In some ancestral halls, there are flagstones in front of the halls, which indicate that the clan members have won the honor. Generally speaking, there is one ancestral hall for one surname, and the rules of the clan were very strict in the old days, not to mention the outsiders, that is, the women or underage children of the clan were not allowed to enter without authorization in normal times, or else they would be heavily punished.

After the liberation, especially the movement of the 60s, the northern region of the ancestral hall, basically were pushed down, smashed, or transformed into office space. Ancestral rows, including some hidden in which the family tree, etc., basically was burned and destroyed. Nowadays, it is difficult to see ancestral halls in the north, and those who do not know why or what they are used for abound. The south, such as Fujian, Guangdong, Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Hunan, etc., more emphasis on traditional areas, there are more ancestral halls, to be preserved.