Can you burn incense for the living?

Burning incense for the living has existed since ancient times, such as longevity tablets and shrines.

Immortal tablet, with the name of the benefactor written on it, for the benefactor to pray for longevity.

The seventh time in A Dream of Red Mansions: "I am getting better and better, and I will make you a birthday monument. I will burn incense and kowtow every day to bless you with a long life. " Also stored as a "longevity card".

The seventh time in the Scholars: "Isn't this Master Zhou's longevity card?"

Sage? In the old days, it refers to the ancestral temple built for the living. Ancestral temples are different from ordinary temples. It is used to commemorate the living, while ordinary temples are used to commemorate the dead.

During the Western Han Dynasty, between Yan and Qi, a society was established, named Luan Commune; Shi Qing, like Qi State, is a temple for standing stones. This is the beginning of the establishment of the shrine. ?

In the Tang Dynasty, there were certain restrictions on current officials to erect monuments or memorials. It has been said in the Law of the Tang Dynasty that those who send someone to erect a monument or a memorial hall for virtue and government without authorization will be punished as "those who have no political traces in official positions will only erect a monument for one year". The Record of the Day called the Tang Dynasty "a rare monument of the day".

In the Ming Dynasty, tengxian people built a ancestral temple to commemorate the incorruptibility of Zhao Bangqing, who was about to go to Yanjing as an official.

During the Xi period of the Ming Dynasty, Wei Zhongxian, the eunuch who had the power to castrate Li Si and supervise the writing, took control of state affairs and ruled the world without authorization. Many flatterers or people who are afraid of their arrogance have set up shrines for him. In May of the seventh year of the Apocalypse (1627), imperial academy wrote to Lu Wanling, saying that Wei Zhongxian could be compared with Confucius, because "Confucius wrote Spring and Autumn Annals and Zhong Xian wrote Yaodian. Confucius overthrew Shao Zhengmao and Zhong Xian overthrew Lin Dong. In April of the seventh year of the Apocalypse, Yuan Chonghuan and Yan Mingtai, ministers of the Ministry of War, performed a performance, praising Wei Zhongxian's merits and calling for building a shrine for Wei Zhongxian in Ningyuan and Qiantun. Later, Wei Zhongxian gave birth to a number of temples, and the cost of each temple ranged from hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands, and stripping people's wealth, encroaching on public funds and cutting down trees was not counted. When Huang Yuntai built the shrine to greet the statue, he made "five obeisances and three kowtows" and "led the civil and military officials down the stairs, bowing and kowtowing as before". Gu once lamented: "In this generation, there are officials and temples, but they have ruined their image and changed their owners in a few days." .