The origin, significance and customs of Lantern Festival.

During the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Ming Di advocated Buddhism. According to legend, on the fifteenth day of the first month, the monks watched the relics and lit lamps to worship Buddha, so they ordered the lanterns to be lit in palaces and temples that night, so that all the gentry and ordinary people could hang lanterns, thus forming the Lantern Festival. Later, this Buddhist ceremonial festival gradually formed a grand folk festival. This festival has experienced the development process from the court to the people, and from the Central Plains to the whole country.

Meaning:

Lantern Festival provides an opportunity for unmarried men and women in feudal traditional society to get to know each other. Young girls in traditional society are not allowed to go out for free activities, but they can go out to play together on holidays. Lantern Festival lanterns are just an opportunity to make friends, and unmarried men and women can also find their own partners by the way.

Custom:

In addition to visiting the lantern market, people in the past dynasties also had customs such as welcoming children to visit Ce Shen, crossing the bridge and touching nails to walk away from all diseases, and playing games such as Taiping Drum, Yangko, stilts, dragon dance and lion dance. At the same time, we should also eat some festive foods: in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, we ate bean porridge or rice porridge boiled with meat and animal oil during the Lantern Festival; In the Tang dynasty, we ate a kind of pasta called "Miancocoon" and baked cakes. In the Song Dynasty, a spoon made of salty black bean soup and mung bean powder appeared, and "Zi Yuan" appeared. From then on, we ate Yuanxiao in the north and south of the Lantern Festival.

Introduction:

Lantern Festival, also known as Shangyuan Festival, Xiaoyuanyuan Festival, Yuanxi Festival or Lantern Festival, is the first important festival after the Spring Festival and one of the traditional festivals in China and overseas Chinese. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar. The ancients called the night "dawn", so the fifteenth day of the first full moon in a year is called the Lantern Festival. In the ancient customs of China, Shangyuan Festival (Lantern Festival), Zhongyuan Festival (Orchid Festival) and Xiayuan Festival (Water Joint) are collectively called Sanyuan Festival. Lantern Festival began in the Qin Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty ordered the fifteenth day of the first month to be designated as the Lantern Festival.

Evolution and development:

In the Tang Dynasty, when the national strength was unprecedented, the Lantern Festival was very prosperous. Whether in the capital or in towns and villages, lanterns are hung everywhere, and people also make huge lanterns, trees and poles. The city is full of fire trees and silver flowers, which is very lively.

In the Song Dynasty, apart from the carnival of "women wandering the streets and lanes, men and women can't tell the difference", there was also a sharing of benefits between officials, and the king and the people celebrated the Lantern Festival together. Even if there is terror, prison institutions will use lights and images to interpret prisoners' stories or display prison equipment. The Lantern Festival has developed into the most lively secular carnival in the Song Dynasty, and it is more colorful. Lantern Festival lasts for five days, and the styles of lanterns are complex and diverse. Visiting the lantern market is a very pleasant thing. The poet Xin Qiji wrote: "Thousands of trees are in the east wind night in bloom, and the stars are like rain." What he said was that there were countless lanterns and fireworks like rain on the Lantern Festival in the Song Dynasty. At that time, there were riddles on lanterns, that is, all kinds of riddles were written on paper and pasted on lanterns, and the person who guessed correctly could get a small reward. This entertaining activity is deeply loved by people and widely circulated.

Lantern Hotel:

People should set up a "heaven and earth hall" when offering sacrifices to God on New Year's Eve. People set up a small shed in the yard, and on a small table in the shed stood the throne of God, "the ten spirits of heaven and earth are really slaughtered"; There are incense burners and offerings in front of the shrine, and a lantern is hung to represent Jiang Taigong's seat. It is said that when Jiang Taigong was a god, everyone else was sealed, but he forgot to seal himself, so he had no seat and could only sit with God.