Yandi Memorial Ceremony
01 · Historical Records
In the thirtieth year of Qianlong of the Qing dynasty (1765), the Shennong Temple was rebuilt; around 1931, and again before the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was repaired twice more. The chief officiants all wore court dress and gathered at the altar site. From the 1980s onward, popular activities of sacrifice to the Yan Emperor quietly arose.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Yan Emperor is the great progenitor of the Chinese nation; Baoji in Shaanxi is the homeland of the Yan Emperor and also the birthplace of the Jiang Yan culture. According to popular legend, Yan Emperor sacrifice activities in the Baoji area can be traced back to the time of the Yellow Emperor. About five thousand years ago, the Yan Emperor died on Tianta Mountain in Baoji after mistakenly tasting huoyanzi, commonly known as 'duanchangcao' (gut-breaking herb). On hearing the news, the Yellow Emperor hastened from the Ji River, a tributary of the Wei River, to Tianta Mountain to offer sacrifice in mourning. The site of the Incense-Burning Platform still remains on Tianta Mountain today; it is said to be the place where the Yellow Emperor sacrificed to the Yan Emperor. In the third year of Duke Ling of Qin (422 BCE), the people of Qin built upper and lower Tiansi on Wushan, sacrificing to the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor respectively, which set the precedent for official sacrifice to the Yan Emperor in China. During the Western Han, Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu of Han, called himself the 'Son of the Red Emperor' and established Tiansi to sacrifice to the Yan Emperor; this custom lasted until the time of Emperor Wu of Han. Besides this temple, there is also a Shennong Temple on Shenwu Road in Jintai District, also known as the 'Temple of the First Farmer' and the 'Altar of the First Farmer'. The Baoji County Gazetteer (Administrative Establishments), reconstructed in the Qianlong era, records: 'The Ministry fixes the date each year; beforehand, abstinence is observed for three days.' The Baoji Yan Emperor ceremony is a direct expression of the Chinese nation's virtue of honoring ancestors, and also an important means of strengthening national cohesion and cultural identity.
The incense platform at Tiantai
The incense platform on Tiantai is said to be where the Yellow Emperor came to mourn, and visitors still climb to light incense there.
Two temples at Wushan for the two emperors
Temples built at Wushan in the fourth century BCE to enshrine the Yan and Huang emperors separately began official state worship of the Yan Emperor.
Three days of fasting before the rite
The county gazetteer records that the ministry fixed the date and required three days of fasting beforehand, disciplining the body before the altar.
The folk shrine of the First Farmer
A second shrine in the city, called the Shrine of the First Farmer, pulls the Yan Emperor from legend back into the work of the field.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Baoji's sacrificial sites fall into two places: Tianta Mountain is where, according to legend, the Yan Emperor passed away and left the Incense-Burning Platform; the Tiansi on Wushan in the Weibin District area is where, from the Qin and Han onward, officials sacrificed separately to the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor. One belongs to popular legend on the mountain; the other to the official-sacrificial line in the capital's outskirts. The two lines each continue while echoing one another. Another Shennong Temple stands on Shenwu Road in Jintai District, commonly called the Temple of the First Farmer or the Altar of the First Farmer, in the same city as the Tiansi on Wushan; the sacrifices to the farming progenitor in western Guanzhong were not concentrated at a single point but dispersed among several mutually echoing temples.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yandiling Memorial Ceremony · Yandi Memorial Ceremony.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The record in the Baoji County Gazetteer (Administrative Establishments), reconstructed in the Qianlong era, that the Ministry issued the sacrificial date each year and a three-day abstinence was observed beforehand shows that local sacrifice in imperial times followed a strict timetable; the popular worship that quietly arose from the 1980s, by contrast, was mostly casual incense offerings before the temple. The two rhythms of official and popular sacrifice coexist in the same temple: official sacrifice attends to issued dates and abstinence, popular sacrifice to spontaneity and the fulfillment of vows. Both treat the Yan Emperor as the First Farmer directly connected to the farming seasons, and thus both received long-standing support in the irrigation and farming context of western Guanzhong.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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