Concept
Ancestor worship
Overview
Ancestor worship is a form of veneration of the dead based on love and respect for one's ancestors. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living. Some groups venerate their direct, familial ancestors and others ancient ones. Other religious groups, consider veneration of the dead to be idolatry and a sin.
In European, Asian, Oceanian, African and Afro-diasporic cultures, the goal of ancestor veneration is to ensure the ancestors' continued well-being and positive disposition towards the living, and sometimes to ask for special favours or assistance. The social or non-religious function of ancestor veneration is to cultivate kinship values, such as filial piety, family loyalty, and continuity of the family lineage. Ancestor veneration occurs in societies with every degree of social, political, and technological complexity, and it remains an important component of some religious practices in modern times.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Ancestor worship is discussed.
As we have seen, the original totem--that is, the tribal totem--is the animal species in general; the last form of totem is the protective animal, which is an individual animal. Ancestor worship, on the other hand, begins with the adoration of humanly conceived benefactors and prominent tribesmen. It ends with a worship in which the individual ancestor gives way to the general idea of ancestor, in whom the family…
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
This, no doubt, is more true of women than of men, but it is more true of men than most moderns are inclined to suppose. It is taken for granted in almost all literature before the present age. Hecuba cares more for her children than for Priam; MacDuff cares more for his children than for his wife. In the Old Testament both men and women are passionately concerned to leave descendants; in China and Japan this…
Bertrand Russell, The conquest of happiness
states what it is; names the idea
Progress towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount of guilt consciousness. Granted that we have gradually started…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals The Complete Works, Volume Thirteen, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
Even these have their temples: Confucius alone having no less than 1,650 dedicated to him. This therefore accounts for the great number of small temples found throughout the Empire. With this hero-worship too, is associated the private worship offered up by every respectable family on the tombs of their ancestors.--Now besides this worship of Nature and of heroes, which is universal, there are three other prevailing…
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
Traditional Chinese education was, in some respects, very similar to that of Athens in its best days. Athenian boys were made to learn Homer by heart from beginning to end; Chinese boys were made to learn the Confucian classics with similar thoroughness. Athenians were taught a kind of reverence for the gods which consisted in outward observances, and placed no barrier in the way of free intellectual speculation…
Bertrand Russell, Education and the good life
names the idea
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- Belief
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- Stanford University Press
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- Light
- Veneration
- Loyalty
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- Madagascar
- Ancestor veneration in China
- Anattā
- Philippines
- Brahmin
- Religion
- Kinship
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- Pali Canon
- Sutra
- Sin
Place in the tradition
Part of Chinese philosophy.