Chapter 41 Section 3 Jongmyo Festival

The ancient ancestral temple, also known as the Taimiao, is a temple where emperors worship their ancestors.The emperors of all dynasties believed that the monarchy was granted by the gods and inherited from the ancestors, so they regarded the family and the country as one, and regarded the ancestral temple as a symbol of the country.When the king builds a palace, he must first build an ancestral temple in front of him according to the system of Zuo Zong Youshe.Even in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this system was still followed.The Working People's Cultural Palace on the left in front of the Forbidden City in Beijing is the Taimiao in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.If there is a major event in the country, it must be reported to the ancestral temple to show respect.When the emperor ascends the throne, he must first hold a ceremony in the ancestral temple to worship the ancestors, meet the ministers, and receive the seal.

There were many sacrificial activities in ancestral temples in the pre-Qin period.There is a "Moon Sacrifice" held on the first day of each month, which is also called "Jianxin" because it uses fresh grains or seasonal food to worship ancestors; there is a "Four Seasons Sacrifice" divided into spring, summer, autumn and winter. , the offerings are three animals and millet, etc., also called "time enjoyment"; there are also "颷 (xia) sacrifice" and "禘 (di emperor) sacrifice" held every three and five years.Both the Biji and the Yuji are great sacrifices to worship all the ancestors and gods in the ancestral temple. Only the ancestral temples of the emperor and princes have the right to hold such grand sacrifices.These sacrificial activities have a whole set of cumbersome rituals, and generally a "phase" who is proficient in etiquette is responsible for the praise and master of ceremonies.The prime minister is the best minister. Among them, the ministers and officials who are in charge of the ceremony are called the prime minister, and those who are in charge of the ceremony are called the minor minister.After the Han Dynasty, although the above-mentioned ancestral temple sacrifices changed in terms of the specific time, content of offerings, and number of gods, etc., the important names and basic etiquette of the ancestral temple sacrifices such as Jianxin, Shixiang, Biji and Shuji have always been followed.

In addition to the emperor's ancestral temple, according to the etiquette system of the Zhou Dynasty, family temples can also be set up to worship ancestors, and most officials of later generations also have family temples.Family temple sacrifices are not as grand as Taimiao sacrifices, even the number of sacrifices is sometimes limited.For example, it is recorded in "Manuscripts of Qing History · Li Zhi", the Qing Dynasty stipulated that officials of the third rank and above could offer sacrifices to the family temple at four seasons; for the fourth rank to the seventh rank, there were two sacrifices in spring and autumn; for the eighth and ninth ranks, only one sacrifice in spring.However, the family temples of bureaucrats and dignitaries are also very complicated every Spring and Autumn Festival.For example, according to "Bao's Family Genealogy Rituals", in the Qing Dynasty, the Bao's clan in Macheng, Hubei stipulated that the family temple sacrifice should start with the orderly establishment and placement of the family temple. There are as many as 93 procedures for drinking wine, reading blessings, making offerings, etc., until the ceremony is over and the class is dismissed.