In ancient times, what qualifications did the princes have to sacrifice?

Sacrifice is to pay tribute to the gods through a fixed ceremony, and to offer rich sacrifices, asking the gods to help people realize their wishes that are difficult to achieve by manpower. The object of sacrifice is the gods. Sacrifice is essentially to please and buy off the gods. The appearance of sacrifice is related to the mystery and fear of nature in early human life. Wind, rain, thunder and lightning, the moon, stars, rocks, trees, birds and animals are all considered to be dominated by gods, and the concept of "animism" comes into being. Humans are grateful to the gods, but they are also in awe of them. However, ancient ancestors believed that people had souls after death and could communicate with the living in their dreams, causing troubles to the living and making them sick or miserable. This fear of the gods is an important reason for the sacrifice. In the era of the Yellow Emperor in the ancient legend of China, people already had the concept of soul and ghosts and gods, and large-scale sacrificial activities also came into being.

oblation

Since people pray to the gods, they should sacrifice the best things to win their favor. In order to please different gods, there are also various sacrifices, mainly food, jade, human sacrifices and so on. The ancients also had different ways to deal with rich sacrifices, such as burning, pouring, burying, sinking, hanging and throwing, which were used to worship gods such as heaven, earth, mountains and water. Human sacrifice is human sacrifice. Man is God's most popular sacrifice. Human sacrifice has become the highest form of sacrifice in primitive religious sacrifice activities. In the early days, there was no fixed place for offering sacrifices, and sacrifices could be made anytime and anywhere. Later, it was gradually standardized, with fixed places, mainly flat land and altars, as well as flat pits, temples and graves.

Paying attention to reverence and piety is one of the characteristics of China's traditional sacrificial culture. In the face of the gods, we must be respectful from the heart. When you offer sacrifices to gods, you must believe in the existence of gods. If you don't believe in the existence of gods, you can't communicate with them, so sacrifice is meaningless. So the principles of sacrifice are "respect" and "sincerity". "Ijiji Ninth Five-Year Plan" said that "it is better to sacrifice cattle in the east than in the west". The reason lies in the sincere attitude of sacrifice, not in the richness of sacrifice. Ordinary people should be sincere and respectful in offering sacrifices, and emperors and generals should be more sincere and respectful. Paying attention to reverence and piety, the sacrificial ceremony led to the concepts of "emphasizing quality" and "ignoring" and "not sparing" Sacrificing "noble quality" means advocating simplicity in the place of sacrifice and the instruments used. Sacrifice advocates the use of light wine and clear water, coarse cloth, straw mats and bamboo mats: the soup used for sacrifice is not used as seasoning, and the GUI used for sacrifice is not carved; The suburban sacrifice place only cleans the ground, and there is no building: Tian Zi suburban sacrifice takes a car without paint. All these reflect the idea of sacrificing "quality". Sacrifice "does not count" and "does not spare" mean that the number of sacrifices should be moderate, not too frequent and not too rare. Too frequent sacrifices will make people feel bored and disrespectful; Too little sacrifice will make people feel neglected and forgotten. Only by "not counting" and "not being sparse" can we maintain deep feelings during the sacrifice.

Worship heaven

The idea of animism has formed polytheism, and people's sacrificial objects have also increased. In ancient times, the objects and contents of the sacrifices of various tribes were not unified. The three basic elements in China's ancient cosmology are heaven, earth and man, so many gods can be divided into gods, ghosts and earthly gods.

In the eyes of the ancients, heaven is the creator and father of all things in the world. It controls the life and death of everything, even the replacement of dynasties in the world. People are afraid of it, so they naturally worship it and sacrifice it. For thousands of years, emperors and generals, as well as the poor, have believed in, respected and worshipped heaven. They sacrificed to God in various ways and prayed for his protection. Sacrifice to heaven has existed since the king of Zhou Dynasty, who was called the "son of heaven", so it is necessary to make a grand sacrifice to heaven. Sacrificing to heaven is a suburban sacrifice. The merits of heaven are supreme, and the worship of heaven is also the most grand. Only by highlighting the word "respect" in offering sacrifices to heaven can the son of heaven be qualified to offer sacrifices to heaven. By offering sacrifices to heaven, the king's authority will also be strengthened. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the worship of heaven and kingship formed a trend of "the integration of politics and religion".

Sacrificing to heaven is the first gift of the country and the privilege of the royal family. Therefore, offering sacrifices to heaven has become a necessary political ceremony. Whether it is the founding fathers, those who inherited ZTE, or those who lost their country in danger, emperors of past dynasties dare not forget to sacrifice to heaven. During the Qin and Han dynasties, the rituals of offering sacrifices to heaven were more formal, mainly including Zen and suburban worship. By the Tang and Song Dynasties, the worship of heaven had completely become a necessary ceremony in political ethics, and even foreign kings would adopt the old customs formulated by the Han Dynasty. As a minority, the Yuan Dynasty ruled the Central Plains. In addition to worshipping the Mongolian people's own "longevity day", the rulers also followed the old system to worship the sky. Sacrificing to heaven in the Ming Dynasty is also very ceremonial. During Yongle, the Temple of Heaven was specially built in the southern suburbs of Beijing, and the ceremony was complicated. In addition to national sacrifices, the sacrifices in Qing dynasty also followed the sacrificial ceremonies of Han nationality. When the emperor ascended the throne, conferred the title of prince, conferred the title of queen, went to war, and held major festivals, he would go to the Temple of Heaven to worship heaven.

Sacrificially

At the earliest time, there was no difference between the land god and the country god. From Qin and Han Dynasties to Tang and Song Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, land worship and heaven worship were carried out at the same time, which became the worship of rural areas. Three days before the sacrifice, the emperor fasted in advance. On the day of the sacrifice, all the gods were placed on the altar, and then according to the requirements of the etiquette officer, the procedures of welcoming the gods, burning firewood, offering jade and silk, entering the altar, offering gifts, watching meteors and offering jade and silk were carried out. The shrine is a kind of social sacrifice. Sacrificing the land highlights the word "pro", and people can sacrifice the land. La Worship is a festival held at the end of each year to sacrifice everything. La Worship's objects include gods related to agriculture, even gods urging agriculture, voles preying on crops, cats and tigers of wild boar, and gods of dams and ditches. Besides the land god, the more important land god people worship is the country, which is the symbol of the land. Society is connected with millet with a long grain of rice, which is called the country, representing the whole agriculture, and agriculture is related to the rise and fall of dynasties, so the country has become synonymous with state power. It has also been handed down as an important sacrificial object of the dynasty. Later, due to the introduction of Buddhism and the rise of Taoism, the official social sacrifice only left an external form, while the folk country evolved into a city god and a land god.

There are many gods on the earth, and there are many people to sacrifice. Some gods do not occupy a particularly important position in people's minds, but they are closely related to people's daily life and production, so people will also make some sacrifices. Mountains, valleys and hills not only offer sacrifices to land gods and countries, but also provide people with the materials they need for survival, which are all contributions to mankind. People also offer sacrifices to earth gods such as mountain gods (Shan Gui), water gods, stone gods and fire gods.

offer sacrifices to ancestors

In primitive society, the concept of ghosts. After a long period of oral rendering, ancestors seem to have a mysterious power. They can monitor the behavior of their children and grandchildren and protect or punish them. Children and grandchildren are also convinced that ancestors can bless and bless themselves through sacrificial ceremonies and sacrifices. Therefore, as one of the three major ceremonies in ancient times, ancestor worship activities, together with worship to heaven and sacrifice society, have a foundation.

During the Yin and Shang Dynasties, people worshipped many ghosts and gods, but the worship of ancestors was particularly prominent. Oracle Bone Inscriptions unearthed from the Yin Ruins in Anyang shows that since Shang Jia, Yin people have frequently and intricately sacrificed their ancestors. The ancestor worship activities of the Yin people are very cruel, and it is not uncommon to behead, bury alive, or even chop them into paste, burn them and dismember them. Ancestor worship activities were customized in the Zhou Dynasty, which also set a good example for later generations and lasted for thousands of years. In the Book of Songs, there are most poems to worship ancestors, while in the poems to worship ancestors, there are more poems to worship Wen and Wang. In the early days, in addition to reburial and human sacrifice, food, wine, jade and silk were also offered regularly, and later it developed into burning paper money for ancestors to consume. Sacrifice also gave the wandering souls of ancestors a home. As far as ancestors are concerned, because they influence and even dominate everything in the world, if children have important activities or disasters, they should pray for the blessing of their ancestors. At the same time, the reverence for the deceased elders also makes people regularly offer food and clothing to their ancestors. So it was passed down from generation to generation and became a habit.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, the connotation of ancestor worship changed, and the reverence and blessing for ancestors turned into the ethical concept of "paying tribute to yearning". During the Qin and Han dynasties, ancestor worship and social sacrifice became the sustenance of ordinary people's lives and hearts in civilian society. Social sacrifice has played a role in condensing social functions. In every family, ancestor worship has become an indispensable behavior throughout the year. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Buddhist thought was integrated into the traditional culture of China, and also into the idea of ancestor worship, forming the face of the times after the integration of Confucianism and Buddhism. Since then, it has gone through Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. After thousands of years of evolution and changes, ancestor worship in ancient China has merged into a tradition, which has been passed down from generation to generation. Although there are occasional additions and deletions, its mainstream trend has just taken shape. In most areas of modern China, ancestor worship became the most important of all kinds of sacrifices. For thousands of years, sacrifices to other gods have been indifferent or extinct, or merged into Buddhism and Taoism, but sacrifices to ancestors have lasted for thousands of years.

Sacrifice to sages

For the sacrifices to gods in the world, in addition to ancestors, there are also sacrifices to sages, such as the Yellow Emperor, Emperor Yan, Confucius and Guan Gong. In addition, there were industry gods in all walks of life in ancient times, and there were sacrifices of industry gods. For example, learning fortune-telling first worships Guiguzi, and carpenters, cement workers, masons, painters and many other industries worship Lu Ban. There are also family gods handed down by people, such as door gods, kitchen gods and well gods.

Sacrificing to the Yellow Emperor is an integral part of China's traditional sacrificial culture. When the Yellow Emperor collapsed, people naturally sacrificed to the Yellow Emperor according to traditional customs. According to Ma Su's reference to bamboo annals and natural history, after the death of the Yellow Emperor, his courtiers left a few pieces of his clothes to build a temple for sacrifice. The worship of the Yellow Emperor, which began in prehistoric times, did not disappear with the changes of historical times, but was included in the imperial temple of the central government as one of the Huang San. After prehistoric times, three generations, the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period and the whole feudal dynasty, the Huangdi Mausoleum, one of the imperial tombs, was sacrificed and continues to this day.