The temple official is humble but the incense is very strong. What is the origin of the land god we often see?

The land god, formerly known as the country god, is a powerful god, and there are only a handful in the divine world. He provided land for people to grow food, so he was worshipped by people.

Sacrifice to the country was recorded as early as in the Book of Songs. "The Book of Rites, Suburb Sacrifice" says: "Society is the way of God, so everything is carried in the old place, and the sky hangs like an elephant. Borrowing money from the earth and taking the law of heaven is to respect the heavens and the earth. " Why sacrifice to social gods? In the "Filial Piety to Help the Gods", it is even more clear: "Social workers are the general gods of the five realms.

The land is vast and can't be worshipped all over the world, so the fief is a country, and the sacrifice is rewarded. "Sacrificing to heaven and country (land) are the two most important and grand sacrificial activities in ancient times, which shows that the status of country gods is serious. After entering the feudal society, the social gods who used to worship nature gradually became personalized and socialized, and their status continued to decline.

The social god is like an official who is frustrated in his official career and is demoted step by step. Although the national social gods worshipped by the emperor kept offering sacrifices, they lost the participation of the people and existed in name only. And those small social gods (commonly known as land gods) all over the corner have acted as local protection gods, and the incense is quite prosperous.

After the prevalence of the belief in the city god in the Tang Dynasty, the land god's jurisdiction was even smaller and he became a subordinate of the city god. By the Ming Dynasty, the land gods had spread all over every village in China. There are many names such as Qiaotou Land, Stigma Land, Kitchen Land, Tiantou Land and Mountain God Land. Where there is land, there is a land god.

Although the land god is not a big official, he does a lot of things. All local weddings, funerals, happy events, natural disasters and man-made disasters are involved, and the land god seems to be a kind old man and close to people, so people like to confide in him and pray to him.

Therefore, the influence of the land god is still great, because his background is not small, and other small gods respect him very much, so the incense is also very prosperous.