Diary of Tomb-Sweeping Day's Origin

Tomb-Sweeping Day originated from the ancestral belief and the custom of worshipping spring in ancient times, which has both natural and humanistic connotations. It is both a natural solar term and a traditional festival.

The traditional Tomb-Sweeping Day in China began in the Zhou Dynasty and has a history of more than 2,500 years. In ancient times, it was not as important as the Cold Food Festival the day before, because the dates of Tomb-Sweeping Day and the Cold Food Festival were close, and the people gradually merged their customs. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Tomb-Sweeping Day and Cold Food Festival gradually merged into the same festival, which became the day to visit graves and worship ancestors, that is, today's Tomb-Sweeping Day.

Since then, Tomb-Sweeping Day's outing to sweep the grave has become a fixed custom of the Chinese nation.

The meaning of solar terms

From the Han Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, the solar terms were divided by the "average time method", and the period from winter solstice to the next winter solstice was divided into 24 segments (each segment was 15 days), with winter solstice as the starting point of the "24 solar terms".

Tomb-Sweeping Day Qi is counted from the winter, that is, the first 105 day after winter. The current "twenty-four solar terms" come from the "fixed air method" concluded more than 300 years ago (used since 1645), which is determined according to the position of the sun on the ecliptic. When the solar calendar reaches 15, it is the node of Tomb-Sweeping Day.