In most cases, the ancestral graves are in it runs in the family in the north, that is, parents, grandparents, grandparents! Southerners generally have ancestral temples, and the big families of famous families will go to the ancestral temples to worship their ancestors on holidays, but there are only three generations of grave-sweeping sacrifices!
But everyone must believe that filial piety is the best choice to get a blessing, especially on the memorial day of their deceased relatives, go to their graves to burn incense and paper and worship their ancestors. Their ancestors will silently bless you and let you save the day and live a good life safely!
There is no definite answer to the question that ancestral graves can be guarded from generation to generation. The key is to see how many talents and cultures have been produced in this family. Why do you say that? Now we should understand the significance of ancestor worship. That is the cultural heritage of China.
Where is the traditional culture of China? In schools, ancestral halls and main halls. The school teaches people to read and understand, the ancestral hall teaches people to respect the ancestors of heaven, and the main hall teaches people to be filial.
The school culture has flourished so far, and the idea of learning to be excellent is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
The basic function of ancestral temple is to offer sacrifices to ancestors. By offering sacrifices to ancestors, the whole family members are linked by the continuation of the blood relationship with the same surname, forming the cohesion and affinity within the clan. The ancestral temple represents the unity and mutual assistance of a family. We can cooperate in development. Help each other.
Nave is no stranger to rural people. Every household has a nave, commonly known as "the first house" or "nave" (because nave is located in the middle of the house). There will be a word "Xiang" on the main wall, with the words "Heaven and Earth, Country and Teacher" written on it. Many naves will have a pair of couplets, "A column of incense is for ancestral worship. Teach your children and grandchildren to do business, study and farm. " Horizontal approval: Zufang.
These are all about worshipping heaven and earth, respecting ancestors, respecting teachers and attaching importance to teaching, and telling everyone to have awe and gods. Every year, Tomb-Sweeping Day's parents and grandparents will take their children to visit the grave. That is to say, what is passed down from generation to generation by ancestors? In many places, the last ancestor of dozens of generations will worship all the year round.
So it depends on the culture of a family, when deciding to worship. Decide how many generations the grave can wait.
Ordinary people will be between three and four generations.
Father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-grandfather usually go up. If there is no genealogy or ancestral hall at home and the older generation takes the lead in management, I believe many people can't even remember their names, let alone know where the graves are. You can ask those young people around you now if you don't believe me. How many of them can easily name his great-grandfather? I'm afraid many people can't even say his grandfather's name, let alone his great-grandfather's.
In fact, tracing back to the source is conducive to the closeness and unity between a family and a nation. For example, in our family, an ancestor worship ceremony is held in the ancestral hall every year, and descendants from afar will come back to participate. The older generation took the younger generation to the distant mountains to seek roots and worship, which increased the sense of identity and belonging of future generations. In fact, this has virtually increased social unity and stability, and living at home is not a good thing.
My ancestral grave can now find my grandfather's generation, that is, my grandfather's generation.
Our family is also a generation of farmers. It is well documented that our ancestors never had a big official or a big landlord, so the graves are all in our own land.
Our village is also a big village here, with more than 3000 people. Most villagers share the same surname, and a few other surnames are adopted. Generally speaking, it is a family.
According to word of mouth and village records of the old people, about the middle of Qing Dynasty, three ancestors moved here from Xinzheng.
Because everyone has been farmers for generations, there is no ancestral hall or grave, and they are all sold by one family. They are all looking for open space in the fields to settle their ancestors.
The people buried in our village are basically in the wheat fields in the east, so when the old man dies, we all say that he went to the fields to "see the wheat".
Our family is no exception. Our ancestors were buried in the wheat field.
Of course, I didn't know who my ancestors were because I was young and didn't take part in things like burning paper on the grave.
After the demolition in 2005, there was a collective cemetery in our village, and all ancestors were buried in the collective cemetery.
When I was in Tomb-Sweeping Day this year, my grandparents and brothers' descendants wanted to recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors, and our family held a grand sacrifice ceremony.
As the men behind us, we need to go to all our ancestors to burn paper and report this. I didn't know how many generations of ancestors our family had sacrificed.
The highest backup is Grandpa Gao, my grandfather's grandfather. The grave that went up again was not found during the demolition, or there was no grave during the war, and it was gone.
From my great-grandfather's point of view, great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, father and I happen to be five generations.
It also corresponds to what the ancients said, "The gentleman was beheaded in the fifth."
Ordinary people, it is good to sacrifice five generations. After all, I haven't even met my great-grandfather, let alone feelings and family ties.
There are generally four generations, namely, great-grandfather, great-grandmother, grandparents and elderly parents. As for ancestral graves over four generations, there must be special circumstances. For example, I am Huang XXI, but our big family pays homage to our thirteenth ancestor Huang every winter, because we have descendants of the thirteenth ancestor here. When someone dies, each family of these descendants will send a person to work for the deceased and bid farewell. The seventh ancestor of Huang is the ancestor of Daoyun Huang, because the seventh ancestor Gong founded the Daoyun School of Huang in our local area. Therefore, the descendants of Daoyun send representatives to pay homage to Gong Zu, the seventh ancestor of Huang's family, one or two days before Tomb-Sweeping Day every year. However, Xia Gong of the Yellow River has been in the south for generations, so he is called the ancestor of Huang's family in the south. Every year, near the solstice of winter, thousands of descendants of Jiangxia Li Guo go to worship the grave of Jiangxia Gongzu in Lianhua Mountain, Chenghai. As for ordinary ancestors, we only worship for about four generations, because we can't worship all ancestors and guard the graves. If so, we won't have time to work and make a living. It is unrealistic to worship the tomb every day.
Personally, I think there are only three generations (great-grandfather). Only those with good economic conditions and prominent family background have the energy to trace back to their own ancestor-sai-jo. If a family member with a surname is concentrated in the local area, the ancestral graves of his ancestors are also relatively concentrated. Relatively centralized and easy to manage. The so-called management is to cultivate the soil. Therefore, such a surname can keep its ancestral grave for more than twenty generations, that is, about five or six hundred years. The dynasty was probably in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
The above situation is limited to surnames who have lived in this county for hundreds of years. Some surnames always migrate because of natural disasters and wars, and it is difficult to keep their ancestral graves when they leave their homes.
Hakka people in Huizhou, Guangdong Province keep the custom of pot burial. This custom should only exist in Hakkas. Central Plains people (Henan, Anhui and other provinces) will not have it.
Hakka's ancestral home is in Shaanxi, Gansu, along the Yellow River and through Henan. So Henan is its birthplace. In the process of migration, Hakkas put the bones of near Liao in clay pots, carried them with them and buried them in their settled places. I estimate that they can only carry the bones of two generations of ancestors, and it is good for the refugees to be safe and not abandoned along the way. The war was in chaos.
Compared with foreigners, the advantage of China people is that their clan has a long history. As long as you like, you can worship the Yellow Emperor in Tomb-Sweeping Day every year. The development history of many big surnames is well documented. This is unique to China's cultural circle and unique.
To be clear, it is the existence of genealogy and Zuying. The genealogy records in detail which ancestor, when he was born, when he died, where he was buried and in what direction. If future generations can't find out which generation Zuying is, it is clear at a glance to open the genealogy.
Modern minority women's rights are arrogant. The marriage was threatened, and the surname was changed. Li was stiff. I don't know if you change like this, the children will not be able to enter the ancestral hall and the genealogy. A bunch of ghosts. I can't afford to guard his ancestral grave.
Tomb-Sweeping Day is the tradition of worshipping ancestors of all ethnic groups in China. Anyone who goes to pay homage to their ancestors should know that Tomb-Sweeping Day, the older generation of their ancestral graves, will lead the whole family, old and young, when he is alive. Those who can go to the grave will visit the grave, add soil to the ancestral grave, and worship the ancestors from generation to generation, depending on regional differences. If there are wars all the year round, there may not be many complete ancestral graves, and only future generations can see the graves that can be seen. Everything we know when we went to the grave in our hometown, there were eight or nine generations who went to the grave.
How many generations can ancestral graves last? Throughout the country, especially in rural areas, there are no village-level cemeteries in most rural areas, and graves in rural areas are not managed, which belong to scattered burial and mass burial. In this case, if the original burial ground is requisitioned by the state or the land is leveled, the safety of the grave cannot be guaranteed. Every village here has its own cemetery, and the cemetery cemetery was bought on the mountain. The cemetery is relatively large, and hundreds of years of graves can't be buried in the cemetery. All the villagers' ancestral graves were moved to the cemetery. Rural cemeteries like this can be guarded from generation to generation.
Let's take a look at the family style of each family. First of all, you can't be lazy. You can find any reason for being lazy.
My family has been sweeping graves until the Qianlong period, and my grandfather's grandfather is still going up. I can't help it Every year, my grandfather takes away men who can almost go home. There is no special reason not to go back. It takes a whole day, even two days, to sweep the grave.
Almost three generations, four at most.
This is my own conclusion through observation and thinking. Take your family as an example to illustrate. Our family goes to worship ancestors every Spring Festival, and usually goes to the cemetery. Then there is the grave of my grandparents I often go to. Great-grandfather and grandfather's grave are together, and great-grandmother's grave is in another place, so both of them dislike being too far away and often don't go. Adults will say, "Great-grandfather and her son's grave are here, and Great-grandmother must be here often."
Annual vernal equinox. A dozen families in our family will go to worship their ancestors together. Then some families don't know the exact location of their ancestors' graves at all, so they have to worship in the fields. Of course, there is a reason for this. First, the deceased who worshipped had no children, and his younger brother led us to worship; Secondly, I heard that when the land was changed, because the land became someone else's, the family was asked to level the cemetery and plant crops.
So, I often think. Even if there are descendants, they will retain three or four generations. Think about it from another angle, and you will understand. Only when people communicate with each other can there be feelings and even family ties. After three or four generations, future generations have never seen the appearance of the dead, and many future generations may not even have seen photos! Then it is reasonable not to keep the ancestral graves. Of course, the ancient emperors, except the graves of some celebrities. Moreover, when people die, their bodies will eventually rot. And it will slowly decompose into water, inorganic salts and carbon dioxide. It can also be said that the ultimate destination of human beings is to return to nature. In fact, a long time ago, Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi had the same view.