WORLD HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Ancestor worship is a religious practice based on the belief that deceased family members have a continued existence, that the spirits of deceased ancestors will look after the family, take an interest in the affairs of the world, and possess the ability to influence the fortune of the living.

Detailed explanation-2: -The term ancestor worship, coined in 1885 by the British philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer, refers to a ritualized invocation of dead kin. It is based on the belief that the spirits of the dead have the power to influence the affairs of the living.

Detailed explanation-3: -Ancestor worship refers to rituals designed to commemorate and venerate the spirits of one’s deceased forebears. While it is often associated with the Confucian notion of filial piety, ancestor worship crosses the boundaries of religious traditions, geographical regions, and socioeconomic groups.

Detailed explanation-4: -Some may visit the graves of their parents or other ancestors, leave flowers and pray to them in order to honor and remember them, while also asking their ancestors to continue to look after them.

Detailed explanation-5: -Ancestor worship starts with the father and mother, and includes grandfather, grandmother, great-grandfather. and great-grandmother back to as many generations as one can remember, with reverence paid to both paternal and maternal ancestors.

Detailed explanation-6: -The ancestors, or the living-dead, are believed to be disembodied spirits of people who lived upright lives here on earth, died ‘good’ and natural death, that is at ripe old age, and received the acknowledged funerary rites. They could be men or women.