What are the traditional rituals of religion?

About the Rituals of Sacrifice

Concern for the Human World, Follow the Customs

Chinese culture has a long history, and traditional Chinese religion is also long and far-reaching. In the activities of traditional Chinese religions, the core content is sacrifices, which came into being with the creation of the concept of gods and spirits. It is the hope of people that the various gods and spirits will be conducive to the survival and development of their clans when they dictate their own movements, and thus they dedicate the best gifts to the gods and spirits with a view to realizing this wish, and the custom of sacrifices is formed in the course of time. In essence, the ritual activity is the ancient people between man and man to seek reward relationship between man and God and the activities generated. Therefore, the concrete manifestation of sacrifices is to pray or pay homage to the gods with gifts. Sacrifice in the Chinese mind occupies a very important position, so there are "the country's major events, only the rituals and Hundred Days," said, and as the five scriptures of the important things, "where the way of governance, no hurry in the rituals, the rituals of the five scriptures, no more important than the sacrifices" (1), so all of the heaven and earth and everything, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rain, wind, thunder and clouds, the mountains and rivers and the five rituals, the four spirits of the ghosts and so on are the object of people's sacrifices. These religious sacrificial practices have been passed down for a long time as a kind of culture, a kind of popular psychology, and in the Buddhist monastic life is also permeated with such mundane customs.

The sacrificial activities of monasteries were not recorded in the early Buddhist texts, and even when Zen Master Baizhang Huaihai formulated the Baizhang Qing Rules in the Tang Dynasty, there was no mention of sacrificial activities or sacrificial rites. The only record of sacrificial activities in the temple's regulations is the Royal Edicts of Zen Master Shi Dehui's "Royal Edicts of Baizhang Qing Rulings". In the Royal Edicts of Baizhang Qing Rule, the activities related to rituals are the blessing, the national jubilee (the jubilee of the emperor and the empress), the prayers, the Dharma jubilee, the Baizhang jubilee, and the jubilee of all the ancestors of each temple in the past generations. Since then, the temple will be the Chinese traditional sacrificial activities and their own Buddhist activities are interlinked, not only every year in the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, the anniversary of the big dojo, held with Buddhist characteristics of the sacrificial rituals, but also the Chinese traditional rituals are often held in the long-term impact of the sacrificial stove activities, also included in the activities of the temple, and thus formed its own unique sacrificial customs.

We have already explained above that the ritual activities of monasteries are very frequent, therefore, it is impossible to describe them one by one. Here, we only choose to describe the ancestor sacrifice and the stove sacrifice which are closely related to the Chinese traditional ritual activities, so that we can understand how Buddhism absorbed the Chinese traditional culture and gradually became an organic part of the Chinese traditional culture through these two ritual activities.

The Stove Festival

The stove is an artifact made of earth or stone that can be used to burn fire for food and drink, and it is still commonly used in the countryside today. The nature of the stove is similar to the fire pit of the ethnic minorities, according to which it can be assumed that the predecessor of the stove god is the fire pit god of the primitive people, and the stove god is the transformation of the fire god. According to archaeological and folklore materials, this belief originated in the matrilineal clan stage. After the concept of fire god arose, then produced the corresponding sacrificial rituals, as early as in the "Zhouli", there is "the son of heaven to sacrifice five sacrifices," recorded. Sacrificing the god of society was one of them. The Book of the Later Han Dynasty - Yin Zhi biography: Yin Zifang for people to filial piety, waxing morning cooking, suddenly saw the stove God in the flesh, Zifang worship again, with the yellow sheep in the family gift. From then on, he became very rich. The descendants of the Yin family have been using the yellow sheep to worship the stove on Lunar New Year's Day for generations. The reason why human beings honor the God of Stove so much is because people believe that the fire in the stove is God's plenipotentiary supervision on earth, is the main household god, it is not only in charge of food and drink, and dominate the family's life and death. Moreover, the god of the stove is the closest to the life of the members of the whole family, and is aware of the words and deeds of men, women, children and the elderly, and it can directly return to the sky to report to God on the good and evil on earth, and in the Western Han Dynasty, there was a legend that "the god of the stove returns to the sky on the obscure day, and the white man sins"(2). After the Wei and Jin dynasties, and during the Tang and Song dynasties, it was rumored that the God of the Vesta would go to heaven at night or on selected days to report sins, and many folklore legends evolved. It is because of the belief that the God of the Stove determines the fate of the rich and the poor of a family, remembers good and bad deeds, and reports them to heaven, so it is necessary to be respectful when offering sacrifices to the Stove, and many taboos have arisen as a result. Such as the stove can not chant and laugh, obscene language, and can not burn unclean firewood, can not use the stove fire burning incense, etc., in Dunhuang Boh two six six one back of the "miscellaneous slightly to get a copy of the sub" volume, more clearly pointed out that the taboo is bad, good luck, the text reads:

The stove when the house, people lose fire, fierce.

Therefore, the bed at the stove is unfavorable to people's children and grandchildren.

Wells and stoves are equivalent, so that the number of people have a mouth, unfavorable.

The stove and the skylight and, people burn to death unfavorable.

Bathing a child in front of a stove is unfavorable.

Where the stove brick earth, do not be next to people, people's home depletion;

It is appropriate to be outside the house of the propylene and ding ground, such as away from the house, the share of gray.

Where the stove residual mud, where the stove in the ash, with how much to go,

Don't go out in front of the house, people's home is unfavorable.

The spring day to take the rich family ground in the soil coated stove, people rich.

This custom of Zaoshen faith has continued to this day, and in a fixed date (from the Song Dynasty has been basically determined) or Lunar New Year's Day 24th, or 23rd held Zaoshen activities.

For this traditional Chinese custom with religious overtones, perhaps out of homogeneity (the same religion), perhaps to attract the public, to seek development in China, or for any other reason, Buddhism also absorbed the practice of Zaosai as one of the rituals of the monastery.

Buddhism's sacrificial rites and customs began in the Yuan Dynasty. Regarding the origin of the temple's Zao Shen, there is an almost mythological legend in the Buddhist Da. According to "Henan Province," said the Yuan Dynasty to Zheng (1341 -- 1368) the early years, Shaolin Temple, a walker, puffy head, barefoot bareback trickster, often carrying a fire stick in the hand, in the kitchen to do chores, dutiful, very hardworking. Because of the low status, no one in the temple even know his name and legal name. To Zheng ten years (1350), Liu Futong and other leaders of the Red Turbans suddenly besieged the Shaolin Temple, due to the suddenness of the incident, the temple monks do not know what to do, in this critical moment, this dry burning chores walker handheld burning stick, rushed out of the door, the body suddenly grows dozens of zhang tall, standing on top of the mountain peaks, screaming, "I am the King of the tightly knit king," the Red Turbans see this situation in fear, fleeing everywhere, the Shaolin Temple was saved from the great disaster, but the resident walker was also immediately after the fire, and then the temple, and the temple, the temple was not in the hands of the Red Turbans. The Shaolin Temple was saved from the disaster, but the monk also fell to the ground and died. Only then did the Shaolin monks realize that this walker was the incarnation of King Tathagata. In order to commemorate this walker's work to protect the temple, the Shaolin monks in the temple for his statue, for the kitchen, and let him sit on the seat of the gamelan, dedicated to him as "supervise the fasting messenger", so that he became the temple's stove god, specializing in food. After this legend spread, the world's temples have followed suit, generally in the temple molded "supervise the fasting messenger" statue, annual sacrifice, thus forming the Buddhist temple of the custom of sacrificing stove.

The temple sacrifices to the God of the stove time is also the same as the folk, scheduled for the twenty-fourth day of the waxing moon, which is probably in order to harmonize with the folk it. However, there are differences between the monks and the laymen, and the folk festival is usually held in the evening, while the festival in Buddhist monasteries is held in the morning. This is because the Buddhist religious rules have "do not eat after noon" of the clear rules, "supervise the fasting messenger" is one of the gods, the gods can only eat in the morning, so the festival can only be carried out in the morning. However, this was only the situation when Buddhism first started to sacrifice stoves, the folk custom of sacrificing stoves at night had a far-reaching influence, and the Buddhist custom of sacrificing stoves in the daytime was ultimately weak and had to be assimilated into the folk custom and was held at night instead. In this way, so that later many monks in the monastery, only know that there is a stove God, but do not know the "supervision of fasting messenger", and even mistakenly take the folk stove God as the temple stove God, can be said to be the counting of the ancestors, ashamed of the ancestors.

On the day of the festival, the monastery in the monks after the morning porridge, the guest will hang up the evening "sacrificial stove" card, fasting hall of the incense and lantern division to the stove god in front of the place of the set up of incense, organize a variety of offerings. In the evening, when the time for the festival arrives, the priest will sound the drum three times and call all the monks into the lounge to hold the festival. The abbot flicked incense to worship, and Vina recited sutras. After chanting the sutra, the supervisor begins to make offerings, which include fruits, vegetarian food, etc. In addition, incense and tea are also offered. After the offerings, Venerable came to the stove god statue before the incense three times, wishing the stove god more blessings, the other monks will perform the ritual of inquiry, the whole stove worship activities will be completed.

In the temple's sacrificial stove activities, we find an interesting phenomenon: originally the temple's sacrificial stove custom is due to the Chinese folk customs of the stove, that is to say, is the folk customs affect the Buddhist rituals, at the same time, some of the practices of the Buddhist sacrificial stove rituals and in turn affect the folk, the most typical than for the offering of sacrifices to the changes. According to the rules of Chinese Buddhism, monks can not eat meat (3), therefore, the supply of all vegetarian food. However, before the Ming Dynasty, the folk sacrificial stove all meat, which can be illustrated from the Song Dynasty poet Fan Chengda's "sacrificial stove words", the poem said:

Ancient rumors of Lunar New Year's Eve,

Zaojun towards the sky want to talk about things.

The clouds, the wind and the horses stayed behind,

and there were cups and plates in the house.

The pig's head is cooked, the fish is fresh,

and the bean paste is sweet and fluffy.

Men should offer their daughters a drink,

and sprinkle wine and burn money to make Zaojun happy.

Don't listen to the struggle of the maidservants,

and don't be angry at the cats and dogs that touch you.

Send you to the gate of heaven with a full stomach,

and don't repeat the words of the long ladle and the short ladle.

Begging for a share of the profits.

Here, the author uses witty language to depict the Song dynasty custom of sacrificing to the stove in a vivid and exquisite manner. But the rotting pig's head, fresh double fish and fine wine that appear in this poem are all meat dishes that the monks in the temple must refuse in order to observe the purity rules. However, the vegetarian custom of the temple's Zaojun, and come to influence the folk, so that the offerings from the meat food all changed to vegetarian food, such as the Ming Liu Dong, "Imperial Beijing Scenery and Scenic Spectacle," said: "December 24, to sugar cakes, corn cake, jujube, millet, corn, walnuts, sand beans to Zaojun. Here there is no longer the pork, fresh fish, and fine wine that appeared in the Song Dynasty Zaojun Festival. Until modern times and even today, most of the folk festival stove with vegetarian offerings, such as Beijing folk festival stove, "only with the southern sugar, Guandong sugar, sugar cakes and fresh water and grass beans only" (4), tianjin area festival stove "water supply sugar cakes, sugar melons, sticky cakes, walnuts and other products, and prepare grass, cool water, said to feed zaokun's horse" (5). The Chinese national customs record of Henan than the source of the custom of the stove is also the same, the text says:

Old lunar month 23, commonly referred to as the festival of the small year, is the night of the villages and households, no not to sacrifice to the God of the stove, the name of the sacrificial stove. Sacrifice show incense five, yellow table three, a pair of small wax, two pieces of burnt cake, called stove fire burn. A piece of tooth syrup (maltose), called stove sugar. A rooster, called Zao Ma, taro grass a little, five kinds of grain, a pot of water, called horse grass, used to feed Zao Ma. Pre-bought a new god of the stove, posted inches, also known as Zao Ma. A stick on the forehead of the God of the stove, meaning to welcome the God of the stove back to the Palace of the horse, at dawn on New Year's Day (the first day of the first month) when the fire. The other one, that is, on the same day with the incense table incineration, meaning to send the god of the community ascension of the horse. .................. After the sacrifice of the evening senate, eat tofu soup is indispensable, and eat sacrifices to the gods when the stove fire burns, so that the New Year's Day.

The above offerings for the stove, there is no meat, the development of the stove, the evolution of customs and from meat to vegetarian customs change, typical and specific reflect the interaction of the temple rituals and folk customs, complement each other, each in its place. This is a very meaningful phenomenon for the study of folk culture.

Ancestor Sacrifice

Ancestor sacrifice is a kind of ritual arising from ancestor worship. Ancestor worship is a development of ghost worship and a form of ghost worship. Ancestor worship is different from the general worship of ghosts and gods in that it has a long-term fixed object of worship and a blood relationship with the worshipper. People honor the spirits of their ancestors and hold regular sacrifices, believing that the spirits of their ancestors will bless their children and grandchildren and give them happiness. Later on, people used this folk belief to maintain the patriarchal system, therefore, ancestor worship was especially emphasized in ancient China. From the Shang and Zhou Dynasty onwards, funerals and sacrifices became an important ritual system. Funerals were emphasized, so as to do all the mourning; sacrifices were emphasized, so as to pay homage. Ancestor worship in ancient China was held in the clan temples, and there were detailed and strict regulations on the utensils used in the rituals, the furnishings, the costumes of the priests, the ceremonial ceremonies, and the procedures of the rituals, depending on the status and rank of the officiating priests and the names of the rituals. Ancestor worship became an ethical means to maintain the order of rule and moral relations, and its purpose was to increase the cohesion of the whole society, which was called "repaying the origin and reversing the beginning, and returning the people's virtue to the original". As a result, ancestor worship and the resulting system of clan temples became the center of Chinese ethical culture.

Buddhism, as a foreign religion, has gradually accepted and adopted the traditional Chinese custom of ancestor worship in the course of China's long-term historical development, forming the characteristics of ancestor worship in Buddhist temples. However, the ancestors worshipped in Buddhism are different from those in the secular world in that they are not ancestors of the same family name who are directly related to the monks who participate in the rituals, but their own ancestors.

Buddhist Zen monasteries, most of them have an ancestor hall. In the Ancestor Hall there are statues of the ancestors of each sect. In the various sects of Chinese Buddhism, each sect honors an ancestor as the founding ancestor of the sect. Such as the Tiantai Sect by Long Shu as the ancestor, Zen Sect by Dharma as the ancestor, the Ruling Sect by Tan Wude as the ancestor, Jizang for the Three Doctrines of the ancestor, Xuanzang for the Ci'en Sect of the ancestor, Huayan complete memorial Dushun as the first ancestor, etc., because of the different sects of the ancestor, and therefore, each sect is only their own sect of the ancestor of the rituals, rather than the universal all sacrifice. Buddhist temple's ancestor hall is generally located in the Buddha Hall or Dharma Hall (Lecture Hall, for the preaching of the Dharma conversion precepts of the meeting place) of the west, the ancestor is generally three, one is the founder of the sect, one is the founding of the sect of the construction of the great merits of the monks, such as Zen Master Huaihai, and so on, and one is the establishment of the temple. Today we see the general Buddhist temple of the ancestral hall, to Dharma, Huineng for the ancestor of the Zen sect, Mazu create forest, hundred abbot set up clear rules, so more Dharma ancestral statue in the middle of the Huineng or Mazu for the left, hundred abbot position right, three statues and sit.

The Zen garden rituals in the ancestral hall. The day of Dharma worship is set on the fifth day of the tenth month every year. This is because it is said that this day for the anniversary of the Dharma Master, according to legend, the Dharma Master from India to China to preach the law, in Nanjing to see the South Dynasty Emperor Wu, Liang Wu Di is a strong believer in Buddhism, after the throne, a large number of construction of Buddhist temples, molded statues of the Buddha, writing sutras and degree of monks out of the family. He said to Dharma in a very conceited manner, "How much merit do I have in doing all these things? Dharma said, "No merit." Hearing this, Emperor Wu of Liang was very unconvinced and asked, "Why is there no merit? Dharma said, "What you have done is just accumulating blessings, and you can be born in heaven in the future, but you can't be liberated from it, so it is not real merit and virtue. Emperor Wu of Liang was very unhappy to hear this and immediately put down his face. Dharma see words do not meet, then fold the reed into a boat, crossing the river north, came to the Northern Wei Dynasty area, and later, and to the Songshan Shaolin Temple, where the face of the wall for nine years, sitting silently in meditation, practicing meditation, the people called "wall view of the Poramen". At that time, Buddhism was flourishing in Wei, and the temples were prosperous, but all of them lost to Dharma. Some people were so jealous that they tried to kill Dharma by putting poison in his food. The first five times were all recognized by Dharma, but in the sixth time, Dharma had already found his successor, so he took the food peacefully, and passed away. The date of Dharma's murder is said to be the fifth day of the tenth month in the second year of the Daitong reign of Emperor Wen of the Western Wei Dynasty (536), and thus Buddhism has designated this day as the Dharma Jubilee (6).

Since Dharma's death anniversary was on the fifth day of the tenth month, the day before the anniversary, that is, on the fourth day of the tenth month, the Zhiqi would put up a notice board in the Lenten Hall, which reads, "Tomorrow is the auspicious occasion of the silence of the old Dharma ancestor, it is the evening and tomorrow morning after the lessons, when you hear the sound of the bell, you will all go to the Ancestor Hall to worship the Ancestor, and make offerings before noon." The day of the Dharma ritual is the busiest day of the year for the master of the Ancestral Master Hall. Before the beginning of the festival, the master of the ancestral hall should set up a sacrificial feast in the middle of the ancestral hall, offer incense burners, water bottles, incense cases, place meditation chairs, whisks, racks, and vestments in the upper room, and set up chairs, sutra cases, incense, candles, and sutra scrolls in the lower room, etc., all of which should be prepared on the first day of the festival, and at the end of the evening classes on that day, the head of the clock struck the big bell, and the dazzling sound of the bell sounded three times in a row, and then all the monks gathered in the ancestral hall, and the first thing that happened was that the abbot offered incense, bowed, and made tea offerings to the ancestor. First, the abbot offered incense, salute, and tea to the ancestor, then the monks made three prostrations to the ancestor and followed the Venerable Venerable Venerable's recitation and made a return to the ancestor. Thus the first ancestor worship is over. The second ancestor worship in the evening after the bell rings, the main content is to the ancestor of the hall chanting and do the deed, the whole temple monks and servants to the Dharma statue in front of the worship. The third ancestor worship was held the next day after the morning service, i.e., on October 5, the bell was rung three times again, and the monks gathered in the Ancestor Hall again. First, the abbot offered incense, soup, porridge, and tea, and the venerable monk repeated the chanting of "Naima Shankhyungai Bodhisattva Mahasamadhi" three times, which was echoed by the monks for three times. The monks then chant the Lankavatara Sutra, followed by the Mantra of Changing Food, over and over again, for a total of ****14 times. After this, the Manna Mantra and the Universal Offering Mantra are also chanted three times each. Finally by the Venerable Dharma ancestor founded this great performance to the whole temple monks recounted once, the whole temple monks after listening to the Venerable Venerable recounted, the feeling of reverence arose, and then to the ancestor of the three obeisance, the whole ancestor worship ceremony that is the end of the ceremony. To the second year of October 4th, 5th, and so on.

In addition to the sacrifice of Dharma, the Zen Center will have to Baizhang Huaihai Zen Master sacrifice. This is mainly because of Huaihai Zen Master separate Zen school, and the development of Zen Buddhism's first clear rules -- "Zen door rules and regulations", that is, later known as the "hundred abbot clear rules". This is also the first systematization of the rules of the Han Chinese monasteries. The anniversary of Zen Master Huaihai's death is the 19th day of the first month, so the Zen monastery set up a festival for him on this day every year to commemorate the memory of Zen Master Huaihai. The rituals of the festival are also like those for the Dharma Master. After all, the status is not the same, therefore, the specifications of Huaihai Zen Master's sacrifice are inferior to that of Dharma Ancestor, and the sutra recited by the monks during the sacrifice is also different. As for the sacrifice of the temple founding ancestor, the specifications are inferior to Huaihai Zen Master, the merit of his founding of the temple is no longer recounted by the Venerable Venerable Venerable Venerable. From this point of view, although the Buddhist ancestor worship ceremony is relatively simple, just burning incense, kneeling, tea, chanting, etc., but which reflects the hierarchical difference is also very obvious, this is probably the world of hierarchical concepts in the Buddha's door to reflect it, but this is contrary to the Buddha's claim that the equality of all living beings?