How to write the tablet of the family god?

How to write the tablet of the family god

In the long history of cultural inheritance, China has formed a rich and colorful national folk culture. This cultural form was first manifested in the tablets of family gods of thousands of families, especially in rural areas, which is also commonly known as "burning incense".

Due to several large migration flows in history, the clan line of their surnames is very complicated. In addition, most local people in our country advocate the custom of worshipping ancestors at home temples. Therefore, after the Hakkas moved to various places, some prominent families and extended families set up family shrines and ancestral shrines one after another, and even some ordinary people and poor families attached great importance to the form of family sacrifices. When building houses, they almost pay attention to the form of family sacrifice. The left and right rooms are called rooms, and the city people call them bedrooms. There is a incense niche on the back eaves of the welcoming door of the mourning hall.

First, the components of the family god memorial tablet

The memorial tablet of the family god consists of five parts: hall number, shrine, church couplet, shrine and newspaper.

The first part is the "hall number". Surnames of different origins were given to surnamed tang, so that their surnames were branded with history. Hall number refers to the title of a branch of a surname. After a certain surname and a certain branch became famous families, many housing branches and factions were often split up due to continuous reproduction, development and migration. In order to distinguish them, these branches and factions have their own names, which are called "hall numbers" or "room numbers".

There are also a few people who write the word "XX Hall" as "XX Division" and the word "Tang" as "Division".

For those families who have no genealogy and whose names have been lost for various reasons, the text content of the doorplate is changed to "Fulu Xiangzhen" and "Zuliudefang".

The second part is "God's Position", which is the center and main body of the family god memorial tablet and occupies the central position of the family god memorial tablet. No matter what family name, family branch or faction name, the text content of "god position" is unified. Connect vertically with a piece of semi-red or positive red paper. In the middle, write the six characters of "the relationship between heaven and earth" from top to bottom with a brush, and write the gods on the left and right sides.

In the third part, the family culture closely related to the number of Tang Dynasty also has "Tang Lian". The contents of some church couplets mostly reflect the worship of ancestors, inherit the style of ancestors, and honor the family. Common ones are "ancestors are far away, and Sun Zhiyi has been worshipping for a long time"; "Zu Li Yong helped the family business to prosper, and Guangzong always took care of his descendants"; "Baoding is auspicious and fragrant, and the silver platform reports good news and candles give birth to flowers"; "Rizhao incense burner produces purple smoke, and night oil lamps open colorful flowers"; "Shide long flowers hang down, and the sound of home always vibrates the piano hall"; "After all, the clothes are all Zude, and the court in Gui Lan is full of spring"; "Sacrifice ancestors to pray for Fulu, maintain discipline and economy" and so on. All surnames can be common.

In addition, there are some Tang couplets, whose contents reflect the historical origin of surnames. The moral articles and literary martial arts of family celebrities can only be used for specific surnames, which is very characteristic and cultural connotation.

The fourth part is the "notice", which is attached to the right side of the family god memorial tablet, aligned with the upper end of the "hall number" and is an auxiliary part of the family god memorial tablet. Newspaper content: "I am very happy to report that the people of China and the national advertisement allow a family to be healthy and prosperous, and the good people of Nantong Peking University meet with the nobles to welcome Samsung's four seasons and make a fortune."

The fifth part is the "shrine", which is located at the lower end of the "shrine" and couplets. The top of the shrine was originally used to place shrines and ancestral tablets.

Second, the meaning of God's position.

The main body of the tablet is the deity of "heaven, earth, monarch, relatives and teachers", which is influenced by Confucian moral and ethical concepts. China's folk beliefs have formed a belief and worship sequence of "heaven, earth, monarch and teachers".

1. The "sky" here mainly refers to material and objective nature, such as the alternation of the sun and the moon, the replacement of the stars, the rotation of the four seasons, light, air, clouds, thunder and lightning, frost and dew and other natural phenomena. Worship of Heaven Emperor is an important part of Chinese folk beliefs.

2. "Ground" refers to the surface of the earth relative to the sky. Land is the foundation of human beings and everything. The worship of the earth is mainly manifested in the worship of mountains and rivers.

3. "Jun" is a general term for rulers who owned land at all levels in ancient times. Later, in some places, a few people changed the word "Jun" to "Guo", but they didn't know the specific meaning of "Jun", so they did whatever they wanted and invented it subjectively, but they didn't know why, so they changed it at will and lost the original meaning of "Jun".

3.pro-complex writing style "Pro", in which "Pro" is a generic term for ancestors. Ancestor worship is a deeply influenced folk belief in ancient China. The ancestral temple of the emperor's family enshrines the memorial tablet of the royal ancestors, and the ancestral temple of the noble family and the memorial tablet of the civilian family god also enshrines the memorial tablet of their ancestors.

It is very complicated for teachers to write "teacher", which refers to those who impart knowledge and technology, such as teachers, commonly known as teachers and masters. Confucius was the most sacred teacher of ancient intellectuals in China. In the long feudal society of China, Confucianism, which evolved from Confucius, was the dominant theory. Therefore, the rulers of past dynasties offered sacrifices to the ancestors of heaven, earth, sun and moon, and at the same time added a very solemn ceremony-offering sacrifices to Confucius. Confucius became the representative and symbol of "teacher".

Three, the writing requirements and format specification of the family god memorial tablet

The tablet of the family god is the most sacred in people's minds, so writing is a very serious and solemn matter with very strict requirements and format specifications. You can't be sloppy if you don't write. If you know how to write, you should carefully write the tablet of the family god.

Anyone who wants to write incense must first look forward to auspicious days, buy new brushes, ink and red paper, and prepare incense tables. He must invite the people with the best and most respected calligraphy in Fiona Fang and Fiona Fang to his home. After the reception, he will set up the incense table, and Mr. Wang Can will only start writing after washing his hands. According to the established habits and rules, Mr. Wang Can writes Spring Festival couplets, wedding couplets and so on. It's free, but you have to pay for writing incense. How much is decided by Mr. Wang, and family members don't need to bargain.

The writing requirement of "Tang Hao" must be regular script, running script and cursive script are not allowed. Read and write horizontally from right to left. "Hall number" must be recorded according to the family tree, and it is not allowed to be named at will. "Hall number" must be written in black on a red background or yellow on a black background, and white, blue, green and other colors are not allowed. The size of the paper or plaque is 2 feet 4 inches wide and 4 feet 5 inches long.

The writing requirements of Divine Position are more specific, standardized and strict, with five taboos and five prohibitions. The five taboos are:

Writing "Tian" requires "no pressure" and it is forbidden to connect two horizontal lines; Writing "land" requires that "land does not leave" and taboo soil are also separated; When writing "Jun", it is required to seal the taboo of "Jun doesn't keep his mouth shut" and rewrite it as "Lord" or "country" at will to avoid ambiguity; To write "pro", we must write "pro" in the traditional way and ask "pro not to close his eyes"; To write "teacher", we should keep the teacher in the original position, that is, write the word "teacher" in a vertical direction. These five taboos are taboo and concern on the one hand, and aesthetic requirements from the perspective of calligraphy on the other.

Five requirements and five no's: write in regular script, and do not use lines, cursive characters or other fonts; Use ink moderately, without dripping, splashing, flowing or spraying, to ensure neat handwriting; The strokes should be round and full, and no fuzz or bifurcation is allowed; After writing the inscription, carefully lay it flat in a quiet and clean place and dry it naturally in the shade. Don't use it to paste, wipe the remaining ink on the word or bake it with fire to avoid damaging the word paper. When sticking to the wall after drying, glue or paste should be applied to the width around the paper, not too full to prevent the paper from wrinkling and discoloration after drying.

The specifications of the "altar" are the same as the hall number, that is, a piece of semi-red paper is vertically connected to be long, and the width of a piece of paper, written vertically from top to bottom, must be red paper and black characters.

The basic requirements for the writing of "Tanglian" are black characters on a red background or yellow characters on a red background, and the font should be smaller than the six characters of "Shenwei". Fonts can be opened, grass can be copied, seals can be sealed, and songs can be sealed, but deformed variants such as children's bodies cannot be used to prevent them from being serious and solemn. The contents of couplets have been introduced before, and may not be written as Spring Festival couplets or other contents; The church couplets are posted on both sides of the throne, with the upper part on the right and the lower part on the left, aligned with the upper end of the throne. If you want to paste two or more couplets, they still correspond to both sides of the shrine, and the contents and fonts of the couplets are different. It is forbidden to put a couplet aside.

"Newspaper" is also written on red paper from top to bottom. The paper width is 1/4, 1/5 and 1/6. It is new every year, and it is important to get older every year. In the first year of setting incense sticks, newspapers should not write too long, so leave room for the future until the last newspaper sticks the wall to the ground. The upper end of the sticker shall not exceed the upper edge of the hall plaque. After the paper is posted on the wall on the right side of the incense stick, it is decided whether to update it according to the damage of the incense paper. If it's intact, tear up the old newspaper strips covered in the past and start writing newspaper strips again.