What are the origins and customs of Tomb-Sweeping Day?

Qingming is one of the 24 solar terms in China. Because the 24 solar terms objectively reflect the changes of temperature, rainfall and phenology throughout the year, ancient working people used them to arrange agricultural activities. Huainanzi? Astronomical training says: "On the 15th day after the vernal equinox, the bucket refers to B, and the Qingming wind is coming." According to the centenarian question, "everything grows clean and bright at this time." So it's called Qingming. "As soon as Qingming arrives, the temperature rises and the rainfall increases, which is a good time for spring ploughing and spring planting. Therefore, there is an agricultural proverb that "before and after Qingming, point melons and plant beans" and "planting trees is not as good as Qingming". It can be seen that this solar term is closely related to agricultural production.

First of all, Tomb-Sweeping Day's sacrificial activities. Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the three major Halloween festivals in China (the other two Halloween festivals are July 15 and 10/0/day). "Ghost Festival" is a festival to mourn the dead, as opposed to a festival to worship gods and land gods. The participants in Tomb-Sweeping Day are all the people, from princes and ministers to ordinary people, to pay homage to the dead souls of their ancestors on this festival.

Second, the object of sacrifice. As a Ghost Festival, Tomb-Sweeping Day mainly worships ancestors and deceased relatives, expressing the worshippers' filial piety and feelings of missing the deceased. Tomb-Sweeping Day belongs to Ghost Festival, but it is usually not named Ghost Festival, because it mainly worships good ghosts, family ghosts, or the dead souls of loved ones, and focuses on expressing filial piety and affection. In the other two Halloween festivals, even evil spirits and wild ghosts sacrifice together, and the key point is to appease ghosts and prevent them from doing anything. But we can't generalize. There are differences in different places.

Third, the purpose of sweeping graves. It is to comfort our ancestors, so we should worship devoutly. Just like meeting relatives and friends among the dead, it is not good to meet with nostalgia and intimacy, unless it is sincere respect, and sweeping the grave is also the best way to pray for the blessing of ancestors. When sweeping the grave, prepare flowers, incense, candles, brooms, buckets, fruits, etc. Clean up the soil in front of the cemetery and clean up the tombstones.

After the whole cemetery is cleaned, we will pay homage, light candles, burn incense, offer fruit and flowers. Let everyone have a meal with the gods after paying homage to all the articles. The rest of the items must be taken home, not left in the cemetery, so as not to cause health problems such as decay and moth-eaten. After worshipping the incense, we will cross our hands to show that the immortal and my heart are one, to comfort the immortal to die at an early date, and to thank future generations for their peace. Request to protect the happiness of future generations.

Tomb-Sweeping Day, also known as the outing festival, according to the solar calendar, between April 4th and 6th every year, it is the season of beautiful spring and lush vegetation, and it is also a good time for people to have a spring outing (called outing in ancient times), so the ancients had the custom of going for an outing in Qingming and carrying out a series of sports activities.