How did Qingming change from solar terms to festivals?

Qingming, at first just the name of a solar term, later became a festival to commemorate ancestors, related to the Cold Food Festival. Cold Food Festival is an early festival in ancient China. Legend has it that it was set up in the Spring and Autumn Period to commemorate Jiexiu, a loyal minister of the State of Jin. In fact, the prohibition of cold food mainly reflects the remains of the custom of changing fire in ancient China. In primitive society, the ancestors drilled wood for fire, and fire was very rare. Due to the seasonal changes, the tree species used for making fires are constantly changing. Therefore, changing fire into new fire is a major event in the lives of the ancients. Spring and March are the seasons for changing fires, so people should forbid making fires before new ones come. The Han Dynasty called the Cold Food Festival a no-smoking festival, because people were not allowed to light a fire on this day, and candles were lit in the palace at night, and the fire spread to the homes of dignitaries. The customs during the Cold Food Festival mainly included forbidding fire and cold food and offering sacrifices to sweep graves, which later became the main content of Tomb-Sweeping Day.

The ancients in China attached great importance to offering sacrifices to their ancestors. In ancient times, when someone died in the family, they only dug graves for burial, not built graves. Sacrifices are mainly held in ancestral halls. Later, when digging a grave, a mound was built, and ancestor worship was arranged in the cemetery, so there was material support. During the Warring States period, the wind of tomb sacrifice gradually flourished.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, sweeping graves became more popular. According to Hanshu, Yan Yannian, the minister, regularly returned to his hometown to pay homage to the cemetery even though he was thousands of miles away from Beijing. In the Tang Dynasty, both literati and civilians regarded the grave sweeping of the Cold Food Festival as a ritual festival to return to their hometown and pursue religion. Because Tomb-Sweeping Day is close to the Cold Food Festival, people often extend the time for sweeping graves to Tomb-Sweeping Day. Poets' works are often cold food and Qingming. For example, Wei has a poem saying: "Qingming is good for cold food, and the spring garden is full of flowers." Bai Juyi also has a poem that says, "The cock crows and the tree is faint, and the Qingming cold food cries." In view of the fact that both folk cold food and Tomb-Sweeping Day have become a habit, the imperial court formally stipulated in the form of official documents that when Tomb-Sweeping Day came, he could have a holiday with the Cold Food Festival. This regulation has been around for more than 1200 years, which shows that Qingming began to have the color of a national statutory holiday.

During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, Tomb-Sweeping Day gradually rose from being attached to the Cold Food Festival to replacing it. This is not just a grave-sweeping ceremony on the dining table, but the original customs and activities of the Cold Food Festival, such as cold food, cuju and swinging, have all been taken over by Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Tomb-Sweeping Day later absorbed another earlier festival: Shangsi Festival. Shangsi Festival, held on the third day of the third month of the ancient lunar calendar, is mainly the custom of walking by the river, bathing for blessings and eliminating disasters, which reflects people's psychological needs for mental adjustment after the dreary winter. There is a poem written by Lu Ji in the Jin Dynasty: "It's late spring and the weather is soft. Yuanji Longchu, swim the Yellow River. " It is a vivid portrayal of people's childhood travel in Shangsi Festival.

Since the Tang Dynasty, people have been sweeping graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day, accompanied by recreational activities. As Tomb-Sweeping Day is going to the suburbs, while paying homage to his ancestors, it is also a way to adjust his mood to visit gardening and metallurgy in the bright spring. Therefore, Tomb-Sweeping Day is also called Youth Day. Children who are playful by nature are often not satisfied with having an outing in Tomb-Sweeping Day only once, just like the poem "When a teenager goes on a trip, he doesn't have to be both Tomb-Sweeping Day and thinking" written by Wang Wei, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty.

Tomb-Sweeping Day combined the essence of two ancient festivals, and finally formed a traditional festival in Song and Yuan Dynasties, which centered on worshipping ancestors and sweeping graves, and integrated cold food customs with activities such as thinking about going for an outing. The Ming and Qing Dynasties generally inherited the old system of the previous generation, and Tomb-Sweeping Day still adhered to and developed its position as an indispensable festival in spring life. During the Republic of China, on this day in Tomb-Sweeping Day, in addition to the original customs of sweeping graves and hiking, tree planting was also determined as a routine project, which was actually just an official recognition of the long-standing tree planting folk custom. Tomb-Sweeping Day is at the turn of mid-spring and late spring, that is, after the winter solstice 106 days. Grave-sweeping activities are generally carried out in Tomb-Sweeping Day (Qingming in the morning and cold food at night) before 10 or after 10. In some places, people's grave-sweeping activities last for a month.

Officials sometimes delay their duties when they go back to their hometowns to sweep graves. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty issued a decree to solve the problem of holidays, and began to stipulate that the Cold Food Festival should have a holiday of four days. By the sixth year of Zhenyuan, the holiday would be increased to seven days. In this way, officials can calmly pay homage to the grave. It can be seen that the Cold Food Festival has become a very grand national festival in the Tang Dynasty. Wang Lengran's Cold Food in the Tang Dynasty said: "Autumn is as expensive as wax, so it is better to eat cold food before spring." That is, the importance of the Cold Food Festival exceeds that of the Double Ninth Festival and the twelfth lunar month at the end of the year. The Cold Food Festival in Song Dynasty also had seven days' holiday. Volume 1 of Pang Wenchang Magazine in the Northern Song Dynasty records: "Every 70-year-old ancestral temple has six days, and Yuan Day, cold food and winter are seven days each." In the Southern Song Dynasty, Chen Juan quoted Song Luyuan-ming's Miscellaneous Notes on the Age of the Year as saying, "The first two days in Tomb-Sweeping Day are Cold Food Festival, with three days before and after, and seven days off. Civil fire ban 104 days, called private cold food, also known as big cold food. Northerners use this day to offer sacrifices first. There is a saying that there is no way out for the moon. " 1935, the government of the Republic of China designated April 5th as a national holiday in Tomb-Sweeping Day. On February 7, 2007, the 1 98th executive meeting in the State Council adopted a decision on amending the National Festival and Memorial Day, stipulating that "Tomb-Sweeping Day will have a holiday1day (Tomb-Sweeping Day in the Lunar New Year). In 2008, Tomb-Sweeping Day officially became a legal holiday, with one day off. It was changed to three days in 2009. 20 14 Tomb-Sweeping Day holiday is from April 5th to April 7th. Tomb-Sweeping Day not only pays attention to the prohibition of fire to sweep graves, but also has a series of customs and sports activities, such as climbing, swinging, cuju, polo, swinging and inserting willows.