纸上祠堂：祖先祭祀的民间传统

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 明清时期，祭祖是相当普遍的礼制实践，许多世家大族设有祠堂。然而对于不设祠堂的宗族而言，供奉纸上祠堂就成为了一种常见形式。据《肥乡县志》记载，“士大夫不尽立祠堂，奉神主于寝室，民间多画祖宗昭穆图供奉”；另据《风城县志》，“汉人供宗谱，宽可三四尺……按次开写先人名氏，男女夭亡者悉列入”。由于纸上祠堂难以保存，现今存世者多制作于清代，早期源流演变已难以详细考证。从分布范围来看，主要集中在山东、山西、河南、河北等地。各地尺寸大小不等，规格较大者高可达两米有余。纸上祠堂的造型设计，从以下典型案例中可以窥见一斑。

豫北滑县的祖宗轴（图①）由下至上依次绘有祠堂山门、庭院以及拜殿。祠堂呈白墙灰瓦，山门上涂黑漆，为三间式。正门下设台基，配有相向而望的石狮一对，其屋脊上雕脊兽，屋檐下挂蝙蝠，寓意吉祥。门洞上方为庭院，其中绘有数量可观的牌位，上书祖先名讳。牌位区分左右排列整齐，向内侧倾斜呈镜像对称。庭院靠近偏门处画有松树两棵，另有鹿鹤各一对，牌位、松树、鹿和鹤皆沿祠堂中轴线呈对称分布。最靠内部的拜殿建筑物为重檐悬山式，正面可见四根黑漆立柱，屋脊上雕有繁复的脊兽，檐枋饰有彩绘，装饰华丽。

另一种典型的纸上祠堂形式是山东潍坊的家堂（图②）。画面主要部分仍然为白墙灰瓦的祠堂，祠堂山门上悬“先祠”匾额，其后为称作“追远堂”的中厅，内设牌位、香案。中厅旁开两扇小门，由此得以进入二进天井，至于拜殿前。拜殿内有男女祖先二人，正面朝向观者，两位祖先中间的牌位上写着“始祖之位”，其后的山水屏风依稀可见。图中宗族后世子孙姿态各异，有骑于马上者，也有拱手作揖者，多三两成群彼此呼应，朝向祠堂门聚拢。后世子孙环绕祠堂门的排列，以及所有人恭敬的姿态皆有助于凸显图中祠堂建筑物的庄重感。

由以上描述可见，纸上祠堂建构了一个始于祠堂山门外，终结于拜殿，充斥着丰富细节的虚拟空间。作为先人象征的牌位与祖先影像都被纳入祠堂建筑的空间结构中，按照现实祭祖仪式时的布局得到呈现。那么，纸上祠堂又是如何发挥礼仪功能的呢？为了回答这个问题，我们可以首先回溯至西周的宗庙。《礼记·王制》记载：天子七庙，三昭三穆，与大（太）祖之庙而七。诸侯五庙，二昭二穆，与大祖之庙而五。大夫三庙，一昭一穆，与大祖之庙而三。士一庙。庶人祭于寝。

从中可见，宗庙建筑形式与宗法制度结合在一起，其特点是对世系的强调。宗庙遵循严格的排列顺序，始祖居中，始祖以下第一世居左，称“昭”；第二世居右，称“穆”。以下凡三世、五世、七世等奇数后代皆为“昭”，四世、六世、八世等偶数后代皆为“穆”。昭穆次序，百世不乱。区分昭穆的传统在后世得到了长期延续。至于宋代，在宗族复兴的理想下，周代的宗法再度被启用，宋儒试图借用经典中的宗法原则与祭祀礼仪设计祠堂祭礼，以重建和维持宗族。

作为一个物质性的实体，祠堂所提供的建筑空间本身就具有设定礼仪程序的作用——从祠堂门进入、沿中轴线穿过庭院、最终达于内殿前。始祖通常被祭祀于祠堂深处的内殿，而近祖则被祭祀于外部的享堂，愈靠近外围辈分愈低，因此祭拜者从祠堂门向内殿行进的过程，正是回归氏族初始的过程。祖先在祠堂中的位置，正如学者巫鸿多次指出的，隐含着从现时向遥远过去进行回溯的编年顺序，这个顺序帮助确定礼仪程序，而这个礼仪程序又使人们重温历史记忆，赋予自己的历史一个确定的结构。《礼记》中不下十次地强调宗庙礼仪是引导人们“不忘其初”，“返其所自身”，因此在仪式过程中祭拜者的行进路线不可打破，否则将无法达到仪式的效果。

再由建筑转至平面，我们似乎可以认为，纸上祠堂的全正面构图中隐含着一种为观者设定的观看模式。当观者的目光沿着既定路线行进时，将会依次看见现实祠堂祭祖时所应当在眼前出现的景象，相反，不应当被看见的部分则被略去。通过目光移动，观者得以实现对祠堂祭拜过程的模拟，以此尽“报本反始之心，尊祖敬宗之意”。以山东潍坊的家堂为例，首先，观者与祠堂门外的后世子孙共享同一条视平线，目光望向祠堂门。而由门洞中进入后，则会发现自己处于一座庭院中，接着继续前行，穿过进入内殿的小门，便能够到达以画像作为象征的始祖跟前。至此，观者“报本反始”的目光之旅就结束了，图中并没有画出祠堂“寝”的部分、后部庭院或外围围墙，这些空间在现实祭祖仪式中不应当踏入，也无需被看见，因此便隐匿了。

值得注意的是，图中逝去祖先的姓名被按照昭穆之世的顺序，排列于纸上祠堂中画出的牌位里，与现实祠堂祭祖时宗族成员的排列方式相仿。其中，二、四、六、八世为昭，居左；三、五、七、九世为穆，居右。宗族女性成员列于其配偶身边，也在图中占有一席之地，不过皆有姓而无名。在灵魂依附于牌位的逻辑下，当纸上祠堂于除夕或中元节被悬挂展开时，祖先能够通过牌位中自己的名字找到相应位置并依附其上，以左昭右穆的方式与参与祭祀的子孙归属于同一序列之中。当参与祭祀者站立在纸上祠堂前，面对排列有序的祖先时，便得以将自身纳入宗族谱系之中，明确自身在其中的位置。

伴随着需求的增大，部分纸上祠堂以拥有更高复制性的木刻版画形式进行生产。与手绘祠堂相比，木刻版画中祠堂时常以变形的方式得到呈现。在潍坊木刻家堂中，祠堂山门、变形后的梁柱与帷帐、拜殿屋檐相互连接形成封闭结构，使祠堂轮廓成为包围先人牌位的边框。在一些更为廉价的码子（图③）中，以祠堂下设牌位为形象的“家堂”自身成为一尊神，与土地、娘娘、喜神等民间众神并列，祖先被概念化乃至丧失包括名讳在内的所有个性。祭祀完毕后，依俗将码子焚烧，神便能以纸张为马，回到天界。

从对纸上祠堂的讨论中可以看出，一方面国家礼制下渗至基层社会，另一方面地方艺术形式仍保有强大的生命力，二者相结合，共同形塑了祖先祭祀的民间传统。

（作者单位：牛津大学东方学系）

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来源：文汇报

                   The ancestral temple on paper: the folk tradition of ancestor sacrifice

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, ancestor worship was a very common practice of ritual system, and many families had ancestral temples. However, for the clans without ancestral shrine, the worship of the ancestral shrine on paper has become a common form. According to "Feixiang county" records, "the literati as the shrine, serve God in a dormitory, the folk painting fathers Zhaomu map worship"; according to "Fengcheng county", "Han for genealogy, width of three or four feet...... According to the writing of how the dead ancestors, men and women are included in the". The paper on the ancestral hall is difficult to save, nowadays, were made during the Qing Dynasty, the early evolution has been difficult to detailed research. From the range of distribution, it is mainly concentrated in Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places. The sizes of different sizes and sizes are more than two meters high. Design the ancestral hall of the paper, the typical case can be seen from the following.

Huaxian Yubei ancestors (Figure 1 axis) followed by the bottom painted temple gate, courtyard and worship. The ancestral hall is white walls and gray tiles, black paint on the gate, for type three. Front Gate under the platform, with the hope to a pair of stone lions carved on the roof of the ridge beasts, bat hung under the eaves, auspicious. It is above the courtyard, which painted a considerable number of tablets, the book names of ancestors. In order to distinguish between left and right tablets, medial tilted mirror symmetry. The courtyard near a pine tree at the door painted two, and each of the crane deer, deer, pine, Hehe tablets are symmetrically distributed along the axis is in the ancestral hall. The internal worship hall building eaves hanging hill, visible adaxially black paint four columns, carved on the roof of the complicated ridge beasts, architrave decorated with ornate painted.

Another typical form of paper ancestral temple is the family hall in Weifang, Shandong (Figure 2). The main part of the screen is the ancestral hall of the white walls and grey tiles, the ancestral temple gate hanging on "first temple" plaque, followed by called "chasing hall" in the hall, equipped with tablets, xiangan. In the hall next door open two, which can be entered into the temple to worship the two patio. There are two men and women worship ancestors, facing the viewer, in the middle of the two ancestors reads "ancestor tablets", followed by a faintly visible landscape screen. The descendants of clan after different attitude in the picture, there is on horseback, also hand over Zuoyi, Duosanliang groups echo each other, toward the temple door gather. The arrangement of the descendants of the later generations around the ancestral hall and the respectful gesture of all people help to highlight the solemn sense of the buildings in the ancestral temples.

From the above description, the ancestral temple on paper builds a virtual space that begins at the gate of the ancestral temple and ends in the temple of worship, full of details. As a symbol of the ancestors and ancestral tablet images are included in the spatial structure of ancestral temple, the memorial ceremony in accordance with the reality of the layout are presented. Then, how does the paper ancestral hall play the function of etiquette? In order to answer this question, we can first go back to the Western Zhou Dynasty temple. "The book of Rites" records: the seven king temple, three Zhao three mu, and large (too) the ancestral temple of the seven. The five Temple of the princes, the two Zhao two mu, and the grand ancestor temple and five. The three Temple of the doctor, a Zhao Yi Mu, and the great ancestor temple and three. The temple of the scholar. Festival in the common people sleep.

From this, the ancestral temple architecture form and patriarchal clan system together, which is characterized by emphasis on lineage. They follow a strict order, following the first world ancestor ancestor centered, left, called "Zhao"; the second right, "he said". The odd number of descendants such as the third, fifth and seventh generations are all "Zhao", and the fourth, sixth, eighth and other generations are all "Mu". Order date, BES chaos. The traditional distinction in the later date has been a long-term continuation. As for the Song Dynasty, in the revival of clan ideal, Zhou Dai clan were re opened, the song Confucian patriarchal principles and sacrificial rites designed to borrow in the ancestral cult classic, to rebuild and maintain clan.

As a material entity, the ancestral hall provided by the architectural space itself has set the role of a program, enter etiquette -- from the ancestral temple along the axis across the courtyard and finally to the house. Father is usually in the depths of the ancestral sacrifice, and sacrifice to the progenitor is more close to the periphery of the memorial hall, seniority is lower, so the process of worship from the ancestral temple to the road, it is the initial return of the clan. The position of ancestors in ancestral temple, as the scholar Wu Hung pointed out repeatedly, hidden back in chronological order from the distant past, this sequence helps determine the etiquette program, and this program also makes people etiquette to relive the history of memory, given their history a definite structure. "The book of Rites" in no less than ten times that temple etiquette is to guide people "do not forget the beginning", "return to their own, so worship during the ceremony of the route can not be broken, otherwise it will not achieve the effect of the ceremony.

The building to the plane, we seem to think, the full paper ancestral implies a positive composition for the viewer to set the viewing mode. When the viewer's eyes go along the established route, they will see the reality of the ancestral hall in front of their eyes. On the contrary, the part that should not be seen is omitted. Through the eyes, the viewer can realize simulation of the process of ancestral worship, as "quote this the beginning of the heart, ancestor worship". Shandong Weifang home hall as an example, first of all, the audience and the ancestral temple outside the descendants share the same horizon, look to the temple door. And into the doorway, you will find yourself in a courtyard, then move through into the door, then can arrive to portrait as the symbol of the father in front of. At this point, the audience "quote this the beginning" sight tour was over, the figure does not draw the ancestral temple "bedroom" part, the rear courtyard or peripheral wall, the space should not be entered in the real worship ceremony, there is no need to be seen, so they hide.

It is worth noting that in passing the names of their ancestors were in accordance with the date in the world order, arranged in the paper in the ancestral hall painted tablets, worship and reality when the ancestral arrangement of similar clan members. Among them, two, four, six and eighth are in the left; three, five, seven and nine are moose and live on the right. The female members of the patriarchal clan have a place in the map, but they have a name and no name. In the tablet on the soul of the logic, when the paper is suspended on New Year's Eve or ancestral Ghost Festival unfolded, ancestors to his name in the tablet through to find the corresponding position and its dependence on the left, right way and Zhao Mu children belonging to worship in the same sequence. When the participants in the sacrificial ritual stood on the front of the paper shrine, facing the ordered ancestors, they were able to incorporate themselves into the genealogy and identify their position in it.

With the increase of demand, some of the ancestral temples are produced in the form of more replicative woodcut prints. Compared with the hand-painted ancestral temples, the ancestral temples in woodcut prints are often presented in a form of deformation. In Weifang, wood home hall, ancestral temple gate, after the deformation of beam column and drapery, worship hall connected to form a closed roof structure, the ancestral temples become surrounded by ancestors along border contour. In some of the more cheap size (Figure 3), the ancestral tablets under the image of "home church" itself as a God, in parallel with the land, God, goddess and other folk gods, ancestors were conceptualized and lost all names, including personality. The ritual is completed, in accordance with the customs code will be burned, God can take the paper as the horse back to heaven.

From the discussion of the ancestral hall on the paper, we can see that on the one hand, the infiltration of the national ritual system to the grass-roots society, on the other hand, the local art form still has strong vitality, and the two combinations form the folk tradition of ancestor worship.

(the author: Department of Orientalism, University of Oxford)