遗产有生命,其理于传承.无论汉语还是西文,遗产都有延续和传递的意思.西文之遗产(heritage)与继嗣(heritance)同根.汉语中“遗”有“遗留”的意思,而“产”与“生”同义,强调“生生不息”.今日之遗产事业,边界范畴骤然扩大,赋予遗产更加多元的生命现象和更为多种的生命样态,从山西介休后土庙的生成衍化可以看出遗产的形态、形式、符号、意味、价值、展示、阐释等多种“再生产”方式,大大超越了人们既往对遗产的认知.
Heritage has a life, and its logic is in the ways of inheritance. Whether in the Chinese or Western languages, heritage has meanings of continuity and passing down. In Western languages, heritage and heritance have a same root. In Chinese, the first character "yi" of heritage (yichan) has a meaning of to "remain" , while the second character "than" is synonymous to "produce" or "generate", which is an emphasis on "endless life". The meanings and categories of herit- age are suddenly expanding today, giving heritage a more diverse of phenomena and more variety of lifestyles. From the process of generating, producing and developing of the styles of Jiexiu Houtu Temple we can see that the reproduction of heritage in styles, forms, symbols, meanings, values, exhibition and interpretation is far beyond our knowledge of heritage in the past.