When did the Spring Festival in China begin?

As for the historical origin of the Spring Festival, there are many legends about the origin of the Spring Festival because of the lack of ancient documents (Qin Shihuang burned books) and the existing documents did not clearly describe the origin of the Spring Festival. Among them, there are several representative statements. The Spring Festival originated from La Worship's theory in ancient times, from the theory of emperor dating, from the theory of witchcraft ceremony, from the theory of ghost festival, from the theory of harvest sacrifice in ancient times, and from the theory of tribal alliance leaders (it is said that the title of "son of heaven" originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but it was only popular in the Han Dynasty)

According to textual research, the origin of traditional festivals is related to ancient primitive beliefs, sacrifices, calendars and other humanistic and natural cultural contents. Most of the traditional festivals in ancient times were formed in the activities of the ancients who chose auspicious day sacrifices to thank the gods of heaven and earth and the ancestors for their kindness. The early festival culture reflects the ancient people's humanistic spirit of advocating nature and the unity of man and nature. A series of sacrificial activities contain profound cultural connotations of etiquette, music and civilization. In the development and evolution of history, some festivals have been adjusted in date, and most traditional festivals have been replaced by a legend, which has become the collateral of "origin".

According to textual research, the origin of the Spring Festival is closely related to calendar, phenology and sacrificial activities. In ancient times, after a year of farming, the ancients held sacrificial activities at the beginning of the new year to repay the kindness of ancestors and gods and pray for a bumper harvest. The Spring Festival evolved from the sacrificial activities at the beginning of the year. Although the situation of ancient sacrificial ceremonies is obscure, we can still find some ancient customs from later sacrificial ceremonies. For example, some places in Lingnan still follow the custom of paying New Year greetings at the beginning of the year (the first day of the first month). The formation of folk customs in the Spring Festival is a process of long-term accumulation and cohesion of national or national history and culture.

The concept of "Nian" comes from the ancient calendar, and both "Pangu Wang Biao" and "San Tong Ming Hui" have the following words: "The Emperor of Heaven began to assign names to determine the position of the year". The ancients determined the starting point and ending point of the four-season cycle according to the operation law of heaven and earth, and "year" became the floorboard of the four seasons in a year. The earth goes around the sun once, which is called a year in the calendar, and it goes on and on, never ending.

People set the beginning of a year according to the different seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Since ancient times, people have emphasized the significance of the beginning of a year as the beginning of a year. The Great Biography of Shangshu said: "The first day of the first month is the year, the month and the day of the year, so it is called the Three Dynasties, also known as the Three Beginnings." It means that the first day of the first month is the beginning of a year, the beginning of January and the beginning of a day. The beginning of a year is called the beginning of a year (New Year, Spring Festival), commonly known as "Chinese New Year" or "Chinese New Year".

Extended data:

The original intention of the two concepts of Spring Festival and New Year comes from agriculture. In ancient times, people called the growth cycle of the valley "year". Hebe: "in the year, the grain is ripe." . During the Xia and Shang Dynasties, the Xia calendar came into being, with the full and short moon as the month, and a year was divided into twelve months. Every month, the day when the moon can't be seen is the new moon, and the first day of the first month is called the beginning of a year, also known as the year. The title of the year began in the Zhou Dynasty and was officially set in the Western Han Dynasty, which continues to this day.

However, in ancient times, the first day of the first month was called "New Year's Day". Until the victory of the Revolution of 1911 in modern China, in order to conform to the farming season and facilitate statistics, the Nanjing Provisional Government stipulated that the people should use the summer calendar, and the institutions, factories, mines, schools and organizations should adopt the solar calendar, with the Gregorian calendar 1 month 1 day as New Year's Day and the first month of the lunar calendar 1 day as the Spring Festival. ?

1949 On September 27th, New China was founded. At the first plenary session of the China People's Political Consultative Conference, the international use of the Gregorian calendar era was adopted, and the Gregorian calendar 1 month 1 day was designated as New Year's Day, commonly known as the Gregorian calendar year. The first day of the first lunar month is usually around beginning of spring, so the first day of the first lunar month is designated as the Spring Festival, commonly known as the Lunar New Year.

In the traditional sense, the Spring Festival refers to the La Worship sacrificial ceremony from the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month or the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month to the 15th day of the first lunar month, with New Year's Eve and the first day of the first lunar month as the climax. During the Spring Festival, a traditional festival, the Han nationality and most ethnic minorities in China will hold various celebrations. Most of these activities are mainly about offering sacrifices to gods and buddhas, paying homage to ancestors, saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, and praying for the new. The forms of activities are rich and colorful, with strong national characteristics.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia-Spring Festival