Yellow Emperor Memorial Ceremony
01 · Historical Records
Official and popular worship ran in parallel as early as the Spring and Autumn period: one line was the ritual system of imperial envoys sent to offer sacrifices; the other was the spontaneous ritual by which local villagers repaid their origins to the ancestor. The former is what the Zuo Zhuan records; the latter survives in the folk rhyme about worshipping Xuanyuan on the third day of the third month. The two sacrificial sites each settled one of these lines. The Xuanyuan Guyuan Shrine (Shrine of the Xuanyuan Homeland) stands beside Xuanyuan Hill just north of the city gate; the Xuanyuan Temple sits atop Fenghou Peak of Jucui Mountain in the southwest. The one near the city walls was convenient for scholars to call at the shrine; the one perched on a mountain summit was convenient for mountain villagers to burn incense. The incense smoke that burned at the mountain's foot from the first through the sixth day of the third lunar month is the yearly trace left by this lineage.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xinzheng City in Henan Province is the place where Xuanyuan, the Yellow Emperor, the cultural ancestor of the Chinese people, was born and founded his capital. Five thousand years ago, Xinzheng was the state of Youxiong. According to written records, on the ninth day of the second lunar month the Yellow Emperor was born on Xuanyuan Hill (today, just north of downtown Xinzheng). Later, on the third day of the third lunar month, he established the state and its capital in Youxiong, initiating Chinese civilization. The Xinzheng Yellow Emperor ancestor-worship ceremony has, from ancient times to the present, generally been held at two fixed sites: one is the Xuanyuan Guyuan Shrine beside Xuanyuan Hill north of downtown Xinzheng; the other is the Xuanyuan Temple atop Fenghou Peak of Jucui Mountain southwest of downtown Xinzheng. The ceremony combines official and popular worship. Official worship is the state's sacrifice to the Yellow Emperor; the earliest records of it are found in the Zuo Zhuan, and it continued unbroken through successive dynasties from the Zhou to the Qing. Among the people the saying 'on the third day of the third month, worship Xuanyuan' circulated. According to the recollections of elders below Jucui Mountain, from the first to the sixth day of the third lunar month each year, incense burned most vigorously on the mountain for ancestor worship, while at the foot of the mountain a lively and grand temple fair was held at the same time. The Xinzheng Yellow Emperor ancestor-worship ceremony helps strengthen the sense of national identity among the descendants of Huaxia, reinforces the centripetal force and cohesion of the nation, displays before the world the Chinese national spirit of hard struggle and unceasing self-improvement, and further promotes the building of a harmonious society in contemporary China.
The folk day of the third day of the third month
Since the Spring and Autumn period, local people have gathered at the shrine on the third day of the third lunar month without interruption.
Two seats of worship
One shrine stands by Xuanyuan Hill in the north of town, another at the summit of Juzi Mountain in the southwest, dividing official from folk worship.
A rite unbroken since the Spring and Autumn
From the Spring and Autumn period onward the founding anniversary has been kept on the same date and at the same place for some three millennia.
Incense from the first to the sixth
From the first to the sixth day of the third month incense burns on the summit while the temple fair fills the slope below.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
To commemorate the Yellow Emperor's achievements, officials and commoners of antiquity built the Xuanyuan Guyuan Shrine beside Xuanyuan Hill, and erected the Xuanyuan Temple atop Fenghou Peak of Jucui Mountain (today's Shizu Mountain), where the Yellow Emperor had established his accomplishments. From the Spring and Autumn period onward, on the third day of the third lunar month each year, local officials and residents held grand annual ancestor-worship celebrations at the Xuanyuan Temple and the Xuanyuan Guyuan Shrine to mark the anniversary of the Yellow Emperor's founding of the state and capital. This ancestor-worship custom has continued to this day without interruption.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Huangdiling Memorial Ceremony · Yellow Emperor Memorial Ceremony.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Official worship was presided over by the official authorities of each dynasty, and its ritual specifications changed from dynasty to dynasty. Popular worship, by contrast, was always organized by the villagers below the mountain; at the height of the incense burning, the front and back of the mountain were busy at once, with crowds and vendors pouring in along with the temple fair. The two modes of sacrifice share the same progenitor theme: one at the shrine, one on the mountain; one official, one popular. They place the state ritual system and village sentiment in separate settings, then bring them together on the same mountain on the third day of the third month.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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