Shangyuan, Zhongyuan, and Xiaoyuan, what are these festivals?

The Upper Yuan Festival is the Lantern Festival, the Middle Yuan Festival is the Ancestor Festival, and the Lower Yuan Festival is the Day of the Lower Yuan.

1, Lantern Festival

Also known as the Shangyuan Festival, Xiaozhengmu, Yuanxi or Lantern Festival, it is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the first month of the Lunar Calendar every year. The first month is the first month of the lunar calendar, the ancients called "night" for "night", the first month of the fifteenth day of the first month is the first full moon in the year, so the first month of the fifteenth day of the first month for the "Lantern Festival". According to Taoism's "Three Elements", the 15th day of the first month is also known as the "Festival of the Upper Elements". Since ancient times, the Lantern Festival has been dominated by the warm and festive custom of watching lanterns.

2. Zhongyuan Festival

The traditional Chinese festival, also known as the half of the seventh month, the fourteenth day of the seventh month, the Festival of the Ancestors, the Bon Festival, the Festival of the Earth Officials, the festival customs are mainly ancestor worship, put the river lanterns, the souls of the dead, burning paper ingots, and sacrifices to the land and so on. The "Mid-Yuan Festival" is the name of the Taoist religion, and is known as the "Half of July" in folklore, which can be traced back to the worship of ancestral spirits and related festivals in the ancient times.

3, the next yuan festival

Traditional Chinese festival, for the tenth month of the fifteenth day of the lunar calendar, also known as the "next yuan day" "next yuan". It is one of the traditional Chinese folk festivals. The origin of the festival is related to Taoism. Taoism has three officials: the heavenly official, the earthly official, the water official, so-called the upper yuan nine air blessing heavenly official, in the middle of the yuan seven air forgiveness of sins of the earthly official, the lower yuan five air relief of the water official. "

Legend of Shangyuan Festival

Legend is that a long time ago, legend has it that there were many ferocious birds and beasts that went around hurting people and livestock, and people organized to fight them, and a god bird trapped as lost and landed on earth was accidentally shot by an unknowing hunter.

The emperor was so angry that he ordered his soldiers to set fire to the earth on the fifteenth day of the first month and burned all the human beings to death. The daughter of the Heavenly Emperor was kind-hearted and could not bear to see the people suffer innocently, so she risked her life to tell the people the news. When the people heard the news, it was as if a thunderbolt had rung over their heads. They were so frightened that they did not know what to do.

It was only after a long, long time that an old man came up with a method, saying, "On the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth days of the first month, every family hangs up red lanterns, lights firecrackers, and sets off fireworks in their homes. In this way, the Heavenly Emperor will think that people have been burned to death." Everyone nodded their heads in agreement and went off in separate directions to get ready.

On the night of the fifteenth day of the first month, the heavenly soldiers looked down and found a red light on the earth, thinking that it was the flames of a big burning fire, so they reported to the Heavenly Emperor that there was no need to go down to the earth to set fire. People thus saved their lives and property. In order to commemorate the success of this time, from then on every first month of the fifteenth, every family hangs lanterns, fireworks to commemorate this day.