What is the background of the land lord? In Pingxiang, Jiangxi Province, the Lunar New Year celebrations are mainly held to pay homage to the land God. One man pretended to be the God of the earth, swaying his head and tail, and praised himself: “the God of the earth, the God of the earth, the earth was originally a man in heaven.” This sentence expresses the “family background” of the land God. The following China story net Xiaobian will bring you a detailed introduction. Let’s have a look!
The predecessor of the land God was the Social God. Unlike the land God, who was so humble, God was one of the most important gods in the divine world. Social deities originated from people’s worship of the land in ancient times. The land provides a place for human activities, and all things growing on the land provide rich food for human beings, so human beings appreciate it and worship it. The sacrifice to social gods was recorded in the bookofsongs.
According to the book of rites, jiaote animal, “society is the way of God and the earth. The earth carries all things. The sky hangs down its image, takes wealth from the earth, and takes Dharma from the sky. It respects the heaven and loves the earth.” Why should we sacrifice to social gods? The deed of filial piety and economic aid to God makes it more clear: “the society is the chief god of the five lands. The land is vast and cannot be respected all over the world. Therefore, the earth is sealed for the society and enshrined to repay the merit.” Sacrificing heaven and sacrificing Society (earth) are the two most important and ceremonious sacrificial activities in ancient times. It can be seen that the status of social gods is not trivial.
After entering the feudal society, the social gods originally worshiped by nature gradually became personified and socialized, and the status of social gods continued to fall. Social deities are like a frustrated official, demoted step by step. Although the national social gods dedicated by the emperor were consecrated constantly, they lost the participation of the people and lived in name only. Instead, the small community gods (commonly known as the land gods) who spread all over the corner played the role of local protection gods, and the incense was quite popular. After the City God belief prevailed in the Tang Dynasty, the jurisdiction of the land God was narrower and became a subordinate of the City God.
By the Ming Dynasty, land gods had spread all over every village in the country, and even “there were land shrines in warehouses and pastures” (Shuidong Diary). There were many kinds of land, such as bridgehead land, railhead land, stove land, Tiantou land, mountain god land… Land gods existed wherever there was land.
— dominating the country and walking sideways (horizontal endorsement)
This is a couplet written in the earth temple in an old book. This wonderful couplet vividly outlines the “divine personality” and characteristics of the land God. If it is connected with another couplet “rice wine and Baijiu, the roosters and hens always need to be fat – even if they are brought in”, it vividly shows that the land God has a low status and does not have high requirements for offerings, but it is the “God” who “dominates the country” after all, and should not be slighted. It can not be offended like the Baochang and Jiachang in the world, So there was another wonderful couplet saying, “don’t laugh at my old age and incompetence. Make a wish and try it. Even if you are rich and good, don’t burn incense!”
Therefore, whenever Chinese people hold important sacrificial activities to pray for blessings and disasters, they should set up a land God on the altar table and invite the land God to be present. For example, in the activities of the “Buddha” (praying for the protection of the gods, wishing the five grains and six livestock to flourish, and the family to be safe) in Haiyan and Haining, Zhejiang, it is necessary to invite the cloud immortal official emissary of the middle world to invite the three lands: the land of the Dragon sky, the land of the bridge God, the land of the carry on, the land of the shop, the land of the residence, the land of the mountain god, the land of the local village, the land of the land in front of the fence.
When you go out to work, you also have to sacrifice the land for peace. For example, when the mushroom farmers in Longquan, Zhejiang Province go to the mushroom planting mountain, they should burn incense and candles to the local local local temple, offer a knife of meat, kneel down and worship, and implore the gods to bless the visitors from other places to be safe and have a bumper mushroom harvest; Charcoal farmers in Jinyun Mountain Area of Zhejiang Province, when burning charcoal in the deep mountains, before going to bed, they should burn a stick of incense in front of the house set up for the mountain god land not far from the charcoal shop. Please go back to the shop to sleep after crossing the mountain god land. The land God was in charge of the land, so in the old days, the land must be sacrificed before the earth was started, and his consent must be obtained.
For example, people in Fenghua, Zhejiang believe that the land Bodhisattva is in charge of the peace of the territory under his jurisdiction, but if people do not say hello in advance and give him a certain reward, they will ignore it and let ghosts fool around. Therefore, people must sacrifice the land before engaging in land related projects. The sacrificial method is “prepare five bowls of vegetarian dishes (tofu, taro, green vegetables, radish, bamboo shoots, etc.), a pair of Candle Incense, and two cups of yellow rice wine. Place these offerings in the middle of the ground, and then the owner kowtows and wishes:” the land Bodhisattva, people want to build pig stables and cattle stables here. Please help move them, and bless my family to raise pigs like cattle and cattle like horses. ” Only after the sacrifice can the ground be broken.
“Every village has its own drum, and every village has its own land.”
Although the God of the earth is not a big official, he does a lot of things. All weddings and funerals, natural and man-made disasters, crowing and dog stealing within the jurisdiction must be involved. Moreover, the land God looks like a kind old man and is close to people. Therefore, people like to confide in him and pray to him.
As stated in “jishuo Quanzhen”: “today’s land shrine has been worshipped several times in cities, towns and cities. Its statues are either like an old man with a crane hair and a chicken skin, or like a Wufu with a dark beard and a red face… But they are all called the land father-in-law. They can pray for good times, or pray for rain, offer incense, burn paper and silk, and worship one after another. They must respect and be sincere.” Therefore, small earth temples are often full of incense. This is because Chinese people believe that “it is better to be in charge of the county officials than to be in charge of the county officials”, “if the land does not let go, the dogs dare not bite the chicken”, “there is not much native produce, and one thing is born and one thing is cultivated; the place is not large, and several families live and bless each other.”
In old times, in some places, the first thing to give birth to a child was to bring wine to the earth temple to “register”. The first thing for a dead person is to go to the earth temple to “report the funeral”, because the dead ghost should be sent to the City God’s house by the earth God. For example, Volume III of the second volume of Hu Pu’an’s annals of Chinese customs records records that “when mortals first die, their families will use reed mats and straw to surround the land ancestral hall, which is called the shop hall. After the shop hall, their families will prepare a bowl of rice and two dishes for lunch and dinner, and send them to the ghost house next to the ancestral hall, which will last for three days or two days.”
Obviously, it means that people have just died, and ghosts stay in the ancestral hall, and family members still need to send meals. Land is also in charge of marriage affairs among people. The land in Tianxianpei contributed to Dong Yong’s marriage with the seven fairies. In some areas, the eight characters of the birthdays of both men and women are pasted under the incense table of the earth temple to judge whether their lives are compatible. As for the plague, tiger and wolf in the village, pray for the land to eliminate the disaster; In the old rural areas, theft, litigation, and praying for land guidance and justice were often held. Disclaimer: the above content originates from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author. Please inform us if your original copyright is infringed, and we will delete the relevant content as soon as possible.