(East and West Questions) Short Commentary: A New Form of Sacrificial Sweeping, "Civilized Fashion" or "Deviating from Ancient Teachings"?
China News Agency, Beijing, April 5th, question: New form of sacrificial sweeping, "civilized fashion" or "deviation from ancient teachings"?
Author Han Yu
It's also the Ching Ming Festival, a time to reminisce about old people.
In the past few years, the advocacy of changing customs and the hidden danger of repeated epidemics have led to the emergence of new forms of sacrifice sweeping: whenever civilized sacrifice sweeping is proposed in various parts of China at this time, cloud sacrifices and sacrifice sacrifices are used more and more widely; , flower burial and other methods continue to promote.
Is such a trend "civilized fashion" or "deviation from ancient teachings"?
It may return to the cultural roots of the Qingming Festival and the historical context of the Chinese funeral system.
Data map: On the Qingming Festival on April 5, the Lanzhou funeral home and its five cemeteries suspend the on-site sacrifice sweeping to guide residents to worship online, and at the same time provide the service of "sacrificial sweeping".
Photo courtesy of Lanzhou Funeral Home
The relationship between Qingming and sacrifice is generated by historical evolution.
The word "Qingming" first appeared as a seasonal symbol in "Huainanzi·Tianxun". "On the fifteenth day after the spring equinox, Dou refers to B, it is Qingming", which has nothing to do with mourning and sacrifice.
According to the "Old Tang Book", there was no time for the early folk sacrifices, and Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty stipulated that the time to go to the tomb was the Cold Food Festival.
The Qingming Festival really became an ancestor worship festival, which was already in the Song Dynasty.
The Song Dynasty carried out the integration and reform of festivals and customs, merging the cold food and Qingming of similar time, and integrating the folk customs such as the ancient Shangsi Festival "Zaosi", which formed the basic structure of the cultural connotation and social customs of the Qingming Festival that is well-known today.
Closely connected with the cultural evolution of Qingming Festival is the development of the funeral system.
The traditional mainstream burial in China is earth burial, but archaeological evidence shows that cremation was also used in the Neolithic period, and it was also popular among the Di and Qiang people in the pre-Qin period. Later, it was banned for the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties because it violated the Confucian funeral rites.
In consideration of land conservation and ecology, cremation has been widely implemented under the modern cemetery system, and it is the mainstream today.
There are many changes in the inheritance of sacrificial rituals.
Gu Yanwu said in the "Rizhilu" that "Qin Xingxirong, the ritual of the ancestral temple was unknown, and the sleeping hall was especially raised beside the tomb."
In the view of scribes, sacrifices should pay attention to the spirits of the ancestors, followed by the remains, and the tomb sacrifices are the reverse of importance.
But no matter how criticized tomb offerings are, they are repeatedly banned among the people, because common people build tombs in wasteland hills, where rain washes, beasts trample on, and weeds grow, which may destroy the ancestral cemetery. The origin of tomb sweeping.
Therefore, the "Cold Food Tomb Sacrifice" stipulated in the Tang Dynasty not only standardized the sacrifice time, but also changed according to the trend, and recognized the legitimacy of the "Tomb Sacrifice".
Data map: Citizens sweep graves in the cemetery.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo
A local proverb says "Qingming is like a new year", and it is said that "people are originally ancestors, so they are worthy of God".
Chinese people take funeral rituals seriously and solemnly, no matter what the form is, whether it is earth burial or cremation or even tree burial and flower burial, clan cemetery to family tomb to modern cemetery or even online altars, ancestral temple sacrifices or incense or flower sacrifices in front of tombs or even online sacrifices, be careful. The root of the end, the pursuit of distance, the repayment of gratitude, and the pursuit of morality have never changed.
The specific form changes may be criticized or even resisted for a while, but reasonable changes will always become the mainstream and form a new historical precipitation.
This is how festivals are passed down and updated from generation to generation.
Data map: Citizens light up their hearts for their deceased relatives.
Photo by Feng Zhen
Looking around the world, festivals to commemorate the deceased take many forms.
For example, on All Soul's Day, which has a strong Catholic color in the United States, people pray for the sublimation of the souls of the dead; for example, in Russia's "Ladonica Festival" (Радоница), it is not allowed to cry at the graves of relatives, but for the deceased. Rest in peace and comfort in another world; another example is Mexico's "Day of the Dead" (El Día de los Muertos), which is world-famous for films such as "Dream Travel", inheriting the unique culture of the Aztec civilization, and they believe that every year this When the dead will go home, the living must let the dead be happy and happy during the festival, and then they will be blessed and blessed, so the grand carnival celebration has become a holiday fashion.
This is because when people think about their ancestors, they have a lot of gratitude, "suffocated in the middle and vented out", so there is sadness and joy, or singing or crying.
Qingming Festival culture has its own unique features.
Han Qide, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once said that the Chinese did not form a religious belief, but formed a common national belief of "respecting the heaven and the ancestors".
"There is no Christian heaven, and there is no Buddhist reincarnation. There is a factual determination of the continuity of the body's genes and cultural genes, and the immortality obtained in such a continuity." Be grateful to ancestors and be responsible to future generations. In the eternal connection, the meaning of life is firmly confirmed; the community of people with this belief is supported and continued.
Cold food or Qingming, earth burial or flower burial, offering incense or offering flowers, it is the form that is constantly changing, but the cultural core that is consistent.
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