Zhu Di's original temple name was "Taizong", and his temple name "Chengzu" was posthumously given by Emperor Jiajing more than a hundred years later. The reason why Taizong was changed from his posthumous title to Chengzu was actually because Emperor Jiajing used Zhu Di to subdue his ministers for his own benefit during the Great Etiquette Controversy.
The rules for naming temple names of emperors in ancient times
First of all, it must be explained that a certain ancestor or a certain sect refers to the temple name of the emperor, not the posthumous title. The posthumous title refers to the successor emperor after the death of the emperor. It is an evaluation of the life of the late emperor, and the temple name is the title given by the emperor after his death when he entered the ancestral temple to receive sacrifices and offerings from future generations.
For example, Zhu Di, his posthumous name is "Wen", his full name is "Qitian Hongdao Gaoming Zhaoyun Shengwu Shenggong Chunren Zhixiaowen Emperor"; the temple name is "Taizong", which was later changed to "Chengzu".
After the death of the emperor, he had to go to the temple to receive offerings from his descendants. The temple name was born earlier than the posthumous title, and it was perfected in the Shang Dynasty. There are rules for naming temple names. Generally, those who founded the temple are called "Tai", those who have made great achievements are called "Gao", those who have offered sacrifices for generations are called "Shi", and those who revive the temple are called "Zhong".
In some cases, the first monarch who founded the country was called "Zong", and all subsequent generations were called "Zong". There are two periods that are relatively chaotic, one is the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the other is the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Especially in the Qing Dynasty, there were three "ancestors".
Zhu Di’s temple name, Taizong, actually implies a concept: defining him and Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang as founders is tantamount to obliterating the existence of Zhu Yunwen in disguise.
University Questions in the Change from "Zong" to "Zong"
So, why did Zhu Di upgrade from "Zong" to "Zong"?
This change originated from the "Great Etiquette Dispute" during the reign of Emperor Shizong Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty. During the Great Etiquette Dispute, Jiajing redefined the rules of temple sacrifices and defined Zhu Di as the "eternal ancestor". , and upgraded his temple title from Taizong to Chengzu.
What is "eternal destruction"?? "Eternity" is the ancient system of stacking and destroying ancestral temples. As time went by, more and more emperors died, and more and more ancestral temples were built to offer sacrifices. No matter how hard-wearing the emperor's knees were, they could not withstand the torment. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the system of overlapping ancestral temples was born, that is, the ancestor temples that were too old were demolished, and the spiritual tablets were incorporated into the Ancestral Temple for worship. The destroyed ancestral temples are collectively called "祧 Temple".
But temples cannot be one-size-fits-all. For example, the first emperor could not be worshiped due to his special status. Generally speaking, in addition to the ancestor emperor, there are also some emperors with special contributions and special status who cannot be exalted, which is the so-called "eternal eternity".