The origin of Spring Festival couplets

Chinese New Year couplets, also known as "spring stickers", "door". Every Spring Festival, every family should choose a pair of red couplets to paste on the door, to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, adding to the festive atmosphere, sending people to the new year, the good hope of a new life. When the door of the home posted on the Spring Festival couplets and the word of blessing, means that the Spring Festival officially kicked off. So do you know what is the origin of the Spring Festival couplets?

The origin of putting up couplets:

It is said that in the ancient Chinese myth of Shan Hai Jing (Classic of Mountains and Seas), there is a spooky world recorded, in the middle of that world there is a majestic mountain, on which there is a big peach tree covering 3,000 miles, and in the top of this peach tree there is a golden chicken, which calls out to the ghosts who go out at night to come back to the ghostly realm every morning. The gate of the Ghost Realm is situated in the northeast of the peach tree, and there are two godmen standing by the gate, whose names are called Shentian and Yubi. If a ghost did something harmful at night, Shentan and Yubi would immediately find and catch them, tie him up with a rope made of mango reeds, and then send him to feed tigers. Therefore, ghosts all over the world were very much in awe of Shentan and Yubi. Since the Zhou Dynasty, Chinese folk people have used peach wood to carve the likenesses of Shentian and Yubi, and hung the peach wood at the entrance of their homes to ward off evil spirits and prevent them from harming themselves, and to get rid of the evil spirits.

Later, people simply carved the name of God Tantui and Yubi on the mahogany boards, believing that this can also correct the evil, and this kind of mahogany boards, in later years, was called peach talisman. This custom continued for more than 1000 years. In the period of the Five Dynasties, the couplings appeared on the peach talisman instead of the name of the great god of auspiciousness. At that time, China's earliest spring couplets appeared, later, by the Lord of the latter Shu Meng Chang himself, he will be "New Year in the Qing, Jiajie No. Changchun" engraved in the peach board, so the peach runes from the original is to exorcise the devil and get rid of ghosts of the word, into the author used to express the feelings of the genre, which is the beginning of the Spring Festival couplets.

In the Song Dynasty, people wrote couplets on mahogany boards, and on New Year's Day, it became more common to hang spring couplets. Wang Anshi once wrote in the New Year's Day: "A year apart from the sound of firecrackers, the spring breeze sends warmth into the tassel. Thousands of doors and tens of thousands of pupils of the day, always change the new peach for the old," reflecting the New Year's Eve at that time, every family posted the Spring Festival couplets of the night. With the emergence of the door god, people gradually transferred the mission of driving away evil spirits and avoiding disasters to the door god, and used red paper to write couplets to symbolize the joy and auspiciousness. Since then, spring scrolls have evolved into a way for people to express their good wishes for the coming year's good fortune and abundant harvests. These spring scrolls, on the one hand, have the meaning of peach wood to quell the evil spirits, on the other hand, they express their good wishes, and on the third hand, they can decorate the gateway beautifully. Therefore, the appearance of spring couplets and peach symbols are closely related, so people in ancient times also called spring couplets peach symbols.

From the Ming Dynasty, the folk began to popularize the custom of pairs of couplets, the name of the couplet is from that time, when Zhu Yuanzhang after becoming emperor, very much like the bustling rows. So he promoted the sticking of peach charms among the people, and he issued an imperial decree that before the New Year's Eve every year, every household in the city should welcome the New Year by sticking spring couplets written on red paper on the door frames.

At that time ah, there was also such a story. One year, Zhu Yuanzhang went from house to house to check the spring scrolls, and whenever he saw a well-written spring scroll, he was very happy and praised it. While making his rounds, he saw that one family had not put up any spring scrolls. Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry and asked why. Zhu Yuanzhang was angry and asked why. The attendant replied that it was a family engaged in killing pigs, and that they were particularly busy during the New Year, and had not yet had the time to hire someone to write them! Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people to bring pen, ink, paper and inkstone, for this family wrote a spring couplet: hands split the road of life and death, a knife to cut off the roots of right and wrong. After writing it, he went on his rounds. After a while, Zhu Yuanzhang passed by here again when he was on his rounds. Seeing that the butcher's house had not yet put up the spring couplets he had written, he asked what was wrong. The master of this family replied respectfully, "This pair of spring couplets is written by the emperor himself, we are hanging high in the center hall, and we also burn incense every day to make offerings". Zhu Yuanzhang was very happy to hear this, so he ordered his attendant to reward the family with thirty taels of silver.

This shows that the name and promotion of the Spring Festival couplets is Zhu Yuanzhang to take the method of administrative orders, issued by the imperial decree to be able to promote the household, and then the literati to write Spring Festival couplets as a literary and elegant writing pleasure. As a result, posting Spring Festival couplets turned into a popular social trend that has been passed down until today. Until now, almost every family in our country still retains the custom of putting up spring couplets.

Posting Spring Festival couplets: 1, the time to post Spring Festival couplets

In accordance with the different customs of different places, the time to post Spring Festival couplets is also slightly different. As the saying goes: "twenty-eight, paste flowers", there are some places in the ballad, "twenty-nine, paste inverted You (that is, paste the Spring Festival couplets)," said. In folklore, there is also a myth that the spring scrolls are the gods in the sky, when the spring scrolls are torn, will rise to heaven, to the Jade Emperor to report the situation of households, hoping that the gods can bring good luck to the folk family. Posting spring couplets is best between 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on New Year's Eve, the old spring couplets torn, said to break the bad luck, there is a meaning of getting rid of the old and putting in the new.

2, distinguish between the upper and lower couplets

In the posting of the Spring Festival couplets, often people put the upper and lower couplets posted in the wrong location. To distinguish between the upper and lower couplets, the key in the last word. According to the rules, the last word in the first line must end in an oblique tone (three or four tones in Mandarin), while the second line ends in an even tone (one or two tones in Mandarin).

The couplets should be posted on the right side of the upper couplet and the lower couplet on the left side, with the left and right facing the door. The reason for this posting is that straight lines are written from right to left, so the couplets are also read from right to left.　

3, the word can not be randomly posted

Pasted at the same time as the Spring Festival couplets, some people also like to paste the word "Fu", but paste the word "Fu" are not all to be posted upside down.

The word "lucky" on the main door must be pasted positively. Fukuji on the door has "welcome blessing" and "Nafu" meaning, and the door is the entrance and exit of the family, a solemn and respectful place, the posting of Fukuji, must be solemn, dignified and generous, so it should be posted.

Cabinet on the lucky word to be posted upside down. Cabinet is a place to store things, upside down the word of good fortune, that good fortune (also wealth) will always come to the home, the house and the cabinet.

Special circumstances. If there is an accident at home during the year, those who wish to have a good fortune can post the fortune word upside down.

The above is what I know about the origin of the Spring Festival couplets, Spring Festival couplets really appeared in the Ming Dynasty during the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, at that time, Zhu Yuanzhang asked every household to post Spring Festival couplets, so the streets and alleys were filled with Spring Festival couplets everywhere. Today, every Spring Festival, no matter in the city or in the countryside, every family has to pick the beautiful red Spring Festival couplets to paste on the door, to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, and increase the festive atmosphere.