I remember when I was a child, every year on the twenty-third day of the lunar month, the family would prepare a tribute stove.
However, with the acceleration of the pace of life, some traditional customs are gradually fading out of our lives, but I believe that many families still follow the tradition of sacrificial stoves. After all, Chinese believe in the creed of "the people take food as the sky" and regard "eating" as the top priority of survival, so the stove prince has always been in an irreplaceable position in the hearts of the people.
In some portraits, the image shown by the King of the Stove is the appearance of a black-faced old man with a full heavenly court and a blessed face. In fact, the original image of the stove king is not so, through the literature can be seen that the earliest belief in the god of vesta in our country is "first cooking" (that is, the first person to cook on the fire), and its image is a dying old woman. However, the image of Vesta changed over time.
According to the Zhuangzi annotated by Sima Biao of the Western Jin Dynasty, the king of The Stove at that time was "like a beautiful woman and wearing a red robe", and was a standard beautiful man. In the Tang Dynasty, the image of the King of The Stove was still a beautiful man. The "Unitary Yang Miscellaneous Tricks" clearly states: "Vesta God's name Kui. Like a beautiful woman, also surnamed Zhang List, the word Guo. Lady Zi Qing, there are six daughters are named Cha qia. ”
However, with the passage of time, the god vesta was gradually identified as a husband and wife, and his image became an old man with a blessed face.
The early belief in the "Vesta God" was relatively pure, and since it was the Vesta God, the nature he commanded was the diet of the human world. However, during the Han Dynasty, the responsibility of vesta gradually shifted from "si palm diet" to "si palm fate". The reason for such a change is that it can be traced back to the flourishing alchemist culture in the Western Han Dynasty.
Most of the emperors in the middle and late Western Han Dynasty were obsessed with immortality, so they often hired a large number of deceitful alchemists into the palace. In order to seduce the king, these alchemists pieced together traditional myths and concocted one set after another of strange and chaotic gods. The alchemists of the Han Wudi period claimed that the sacrificial stove could achieve the effect of turning decay into magic (alchemy, alchemy), which even emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty was convinced of.
The "Records of History" details the whole process of Emperor Wu of Han being fooled by the Fangshi.
At that time, there was an alchemist named Li Shaojun, and it was rumored that this person "saw the ancestral stove, the valley road, but the old fang, and was respected." In order to cultivate the truth, Emperor Wu of Han invited Li Shaojun into the imperial palace and asked him for advice on cultivation methods. Li Shaojun said foolishly: "The ancestral stove can make the object decay into magic, and refine the dansha into gold." As long as you fill the diet with these refined gold, you can achieve the effect of prolonging life. After adding Shouyuan, he had the opportunity to meet the immortals living in Penglai and ask them for advice on the method of immortality, and the Yellow Emperor became the Heavenly Emperor in this way. ”
For this set of statements, clear-eyed people know at a glance that it is pure nonsense, but Liu Che is convinced of this. In the days that followed, "then the Son of Heaven began to worship the stove, and sent the alchemist into the sea to ask for the genus of Penglai'an, and the dansha medicines were turned into gold." The most ridiculous thing is that later Li Shaojun himself fell ill and died, and Liu Che still insisted on the sacrifice stove year after year, believing that he could find the mystery of immortality.
With this background as a foreshadowing, the development of the sacrificial stove by the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty has become unrecognizable.
Shiren firmly believed that "vesta gods return to heaven obscurely, and white people sin", and the stove prince became a existence that ordinary people did not dare to invade. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, this statement continued to be exaggerated, "often with the moon obscure day to the heavens, white people guilty, the big one to seize the discipline, the three hundred days; the small one to calculate, count one hundred days", what does this mean? That is to say, if someone offends the Stove King and is sued by the Stove King to the heavenly court, the life expectancy of the lesser offender will be reduced by one hundred days, and the life expectancy of the more serious offender will be reduced by three hundred days. For a time, the Emperor of The Stove actually became a magistrate who could change his life, which made people shudder.
For this statement, Ge Hong, the most famous cultivator at that time, also half-believed it, and in "Baopuzi", Ge Hong said: I have not been able to judge the existence of this matter. Even his old man could not judge whether this statement was true or false. The common people all felt that the stove prince was like a broken mouth that liked to chew his wife's tongue, and was a great god sent by the Heavenly Emperor to the human world to perform the duty of "supervision", and no matter what the common people did, they would be beaten up by him. This kind of thinking naturally pushed the King of The Stove to the high position of "head of the family", and everyone tried every means to please the inspector sent by heaven to monitor him.
The custom of offering stoves can be traced back to the "Yandi worship" of human beings, which is the commemoration of the inventor of the flame and "first cooking". However, this legitimate commemoration has been distorted over time into the worship of the "informer", which is really laughable. For this point, there are also ancient people who have a clear understanding.
The Tang Dynasty poet Tortoise Meng once wrote an article entitled "Explanation of the Ancestral Stove", which bluntly said: "Those who know that their gods dwell in the human world to serve small and small and make accusations, and they also know that the stove ghosts record people's deeds in time, and they are white in the sky, and when they are worshipped to pray for blessings, this is the ear of the alchemist when emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty." Yeah! Walk the way of a gentleman, the dark room is not deceived, the house leaks are not worthy, although the age is not the same, the stove it blames me? Gou is the way of the villain, the patent is to decorate deception, the worship of adultery and the tree is not, although one year old and a hundred ancestors, the stove is selfish?"
This statement is amazing to read, and the angle of tortoise meng's view of the problem is indeed unique! If the stove king is wise, then even if the gentleman does not worship him, the stove king will not falsely accuse him to the heavenly court; even if the villain has to sacrifice the stove every day, the stove king will not spare him! So, if the stove prince has selfish intentions and is not just, how can it be good?
Tortoise Meng's answer was as follows: "The sky is supreme, the stove is down, the emperor is dignified, and the ghost is the ghost." If you can deceive and tell it, you are unfaithful. Listen to it, it is not clear also. The lower is unfaithful, the upper is unknown, and can it be the Emperor of Heaven? This sentence not only applies to the Stove King, but also works in other faiths.
Unfortunately, this "Explanation of the Ancestral Stove", which is like a sobering and constant word, did not cause much of a sensation at that time.
The change in the belief of vesta directly affected the ritual of offering the stove.
Generally speaking, there is a big difference between "folk sacrifices" and "official sacrifices". The vesta god of early society was the "first cooker", that is, the old woman mentioned above. Therefore, women can also participate in the main sacrifice in the process of "civil sacrifice", and will not be restricted by patriarchal thinking. The method of sacrifice is also relatively simple, using bottles and clay pots to hold food and wine, and placing them on the stove to worship religiously. As for the "official sacrifice", it is much more complicated, usually there will be a special place of worship on the outskirts of the capital, and the monarch will lead the civil and military officials to jointly hold the ceremony, which is both solemn and solemn.
During the Han and Tang Dynasties, that is, after the god of vesta became a "whistleblower", the process of sacrificing stove became more cumbersome. From the Heavenly Son to the peddlers and pawns, everyone did not dare to be sloppy in the process of sacrificing the stove, and this trend continued until the Qing Dynasty. During the Yongzheng period, in order to save the expenses of the national treasury, the Yongzheng Emperor set the time of the sacrifice stove on the twenty-third day of the waxing moon, which was merged with the time of worship of various gods. After the Qing Dynasty, there was no distinction between officials and the people, and the common people were more than the 23rd day of the Waxing Moon.
When modern people sacrifice stoves, some areas still retain the custom of "female non-sacrifice stoves", and the causes of this custom are twofold:
First, after the Song Dynasty, Cheng Zhu Lixue prevailed, and women lost part of the right to sacrifice;
Second, at the end of the Han Dynasty, the god Vesta has changed from "first stove" to beautiful man Zhang Dan, and women are no longer suitable for the main sacrifice.
Therefore, in the "Beiping Customs and Customs", there will be a record of "the residents of The Capital Division are still customary, the women are forbidden to be the main priests, there is no man in the family, or the neighbors are welcome".
Putting aside the superstitious details, there are many interesting little links in the process of sacrificing the stove. Folk generally believe that the stove king (stove god) belongs to the eastern kitchen division, and the elderly will receive incense from each household to ensure the safety of each household. In addition, there is also the authority of "examining the good and evil of a family and playing a family's merits".
At the end of each year, The Emperor will truthfully report the merits and deeds of each household to the Heavenly Court, and let the Heavenly Court reward or punish them. Just like mentioned above, in order to prevent the king of the stove from making a small report to the Heavenly Palace, let the old man say a few kind words in front of the heavenly emperor, people often pay respect to the stove, and even engage in some "small actions".
The most common "little action" is to prepare some wine and maltose in the offering.
The "Ancient and Modern Book Integration" records: "All the people to the Chinese New Year's Eve, ask the monks to read the scriptures, prepare wine and fruit to send the gods, paste the stove horse on the stove, and smear the lees on the stove door, which is called 'drunken Si Ming'", which means that the stove king and his old man like to drink, as long as some lees are smeared on the stove, they can make the stove king drink a drunken tincture. The King of the Stove was drunk, and he was naturally confused when he spoke, unable to make a small report to the Heavenly Court, so that he could keep the family safe.
It is said that maltose can also effectively seal the mouth of the king of the stove, achieving the purpose of "the king of the stove seals the mouth, and there is no disaster in all seasons". There is a cloud in the "Beiping Customs and Customs": "In addition to the ancestral stove, the northern and southern customs do not use sugar, and add glutinous rice dumplings, both large and small households, and the cloud sticks to the stove god's mouth, then it is not as evil as the Jade Emperor's preface." "Whether it is glutinous rice dumplings or maltose, there is a characteristic - sticky teeth. The common people felt that by letting the Stove Emperor eat these sweets, they would be able to paste the Mouth of the Stove King, so that the old man could not speak in front of the Heavenly Emperor.
In addition to preparing offerings, ordinary people often chant words when offering sacrifices to the stove, such as "Heaven says good things, the netherworld descends auspiciously" or "Good things are said for me, and evil things are hidden for me". To this day, some old people still abide by the taboos about the stove king, such as not crying and singing to the stove, or not using the stove to light incense candles, cooking food with peach wood, and so on.
Of course, we live in a society that follows the scientific concept of development, and we must not be superstitious about these illusory gods and monsters. For modern people, the sacrificial stove is more like a folk culture than a superstitious act of praying for the protection of the gods.
Resources:
[Etiquette and Notation", "The Complete Book of Honoring The Stove", "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks", "Ancient and Modern Book Integration"】