The origin and significance of Laba Festival

Laba Festival, that is, the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, is also called "Magic Weapon Festival", "Buddhist Enlightenment Festival" and "Enlightenment Meeting".

Among the legends about the origin of Laba Festival, the most widely circulated and recognized legend is that Qi Le, a shepherdess, saved the Buddha. Legend has it that Sakyamuni practiced meditation for six years and still got nothing. He is skinny with hunger. Then a shepherdess passed by and gave him a bowl of porridge. After dinner, the Buddha came to the bodhi tree and suddenly realized.

The moral of Laba Festival is to pray for a good harvest and sacrifice to ancestors. Laba Festival is the first festival before the Spring Festival. Rural people regard Laba Festival as a prelude to the Spring Festival. Starting from Laba, every household should prepare peanuts, melon seeds and bacon to buy new year's goods. There is a folk saying that eating Laba porridge will celebrate the New Year.

You don't have to choose Laba this day, you can live a long life and be rich. In rural areas, Laba is also a traditional auspicious day. On this day, in addition to drinking Laba porridge, rural people often engage in betrothal, daughter-in-law, and other Laba marriages.

Wheat grain rice:

Xining Laba Festival does not drink porridge, but eats wheat kernel rice. On the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, the newly ground wheat grains are cooked with beef and mutton, with green salt, ginger skin, pepper, tsaoko, Miao Xiang and other condiments, and cooked overnight with slow fire.