Is the winter solstice a festival or the origin of sweeping graves in solar terms?

You may be interested: what time is the winter solstice on 20 19?

Is the winter solstice a festival or a

Is the winter solstice a festival or the origin of sweeping graves in solar terms?

You may be interested: what time is the winter solstice on 20 19?

Is the winter solstice a festival or a solar term?

Solstice is a solar term and a traditional festival. With the return of traditional culture, more and more people attach importance to the winter solstice festival.

During the winter solstice, the longitude of the sun reaches 270, and the vertical irradiation point of the sun is in the tropic of Capricorn, and the northern hemisphere welcomes the shortest day. In the northern hemisphere, the sunrise is the latest and the sunset is the earliest. The arctic circle is all day long. There is a whole day and night around the winter solstice in the area north of the Arctic Circle, and the Arctic is dark for half a year from winter solstice. After the solstice in winter, the sun gradually returns.

As a traditional cultural festival, the winter solstice shows that the ancestors of the Chinese nation attach great importance to the relationship between nature and human nature. The winter solstice is the most prosperous cathode in a year, full of vitality. In numerology, the period from heavy snow to slight cold is the second month, and the midpoint is the winter solstice, which is the most prosperous month sequence of the second month. People born around winter can take Zi as the main motivation and combine with other branches to analyze the influence of natural mind.

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The origin of sweeping graves from the winter solstice

The Winter Solstice Festival originated in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and has been passed down to this day.

According to "Li Zhou Guan Chun Shen Shi", "Winter solstice, to ghosts and gods." It seems that there have been winter solstice sacrifices since the Zhou Dynasty.

The "Four-person Moon Order" of the Han Dynasty records that millet cakes should be used as offerings from the winter solstice to worship the gods and ancestors, and everyone should serve food and wine together, and also bless teachers and the elderly. This custom is the same as that of New Year's Day.

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, the solstice in winter was the day of offering sacrifices to heaven and ancestors. On this day, the emperor went to the suburbs to hold a ceremony to worship heaven. On this day, people must worship their parents and elders. Except for families offering sacrifices to their immediate ancestors, all those who have "ancestral temples" or "ancestral halls" should hold ceremonies offering sacrifices to gods, which are called "winter sacrifices". Some of them are held ten days before the winter solstice, and the ceremony is very grand. After the festival, banquets are held to entertain relatives and friends, which has a profound effect on caring for relatives and neighbors.

You may be interested: what is the specific date of the winter solstice on 20 19?

According to Gu Qiyuan's Tomb of Sacrificing Guests in Ming Dynasty and Shen Defu's Collection of Sacrificing Wanli Wild Events in Ming Dynasty, the Nanjing Mausoleum has a set of regular sacrifices, and Taizu Xiaozong has three sacrifices at the age of one, namely Tomb-Sweeping Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and Winter Solstice Festival. This also shows the importance attached to the winter solstice sacrifice.

In modern times, the custom of worshipping ancestors and sweeping graves in winter in southern Japan is not the tradition of ancestors, but the creation of modern people themselves.

Most areas in the south, from Shanghai, Suzhou and Hangzhou, Nanchang and Putian to Kunming, Hainan and Chaoshan, have the custom of sweeping graves from winter to Sunday, but the specific practices are different. For example, Putian, Fujian, is divided into north and south oceans, Tomb-Sweeping Day, Nanyang sweeps graves, Beiyang sweeps graves from winter to day, and Tomb-Sweeping Day sweeps graves less than from winter to day, so it is generally Qingming. Those who died before Tomb-Sweeping Day will sweep their graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day, and those who died before winter will sweep their graves from winter to Sunday.

Another example is in Taiwan Province Province, China, where the tradition of offering nine-layer cakes to ancestors from winter to sun is still maintained. On or before the winter solstice, people with the same surname and clan will gather in the ancestral hall to worship their ancestors one by one, which is commonly known as "ancestor worship". After the ceremony, there will be a grand banquet for the people who come to worship their ancestors. Everyone drinks heartily and meets again after a long separation, which is called "food ancestor". Sacrificing ancestors on the winter solstice festival is passed down from generation to generation in Taiwan Province Province to show that they don't forget their roots.