What festivals are April 4th and August 8th? Why did April 4th and August 8th gradually decline?

Bian Xiao prepared for everyone today: What festivals are April 4th and August 8th? Interested friends please come and have a look!

The ancients liked to overlap several festivals. Why are there no festivals on April 4th and August 8th?

Have you noticed that in China, a country with a long history and rich culture, people still like traditional festivals? Although some western festivals have been introduced to China in recent years and sought after by some young people, from the overall trend, western festivals naturally cannot be compared with traditional festivals in China.

This is mainly because traditional festivals are the embodiment of China's excellent traditional culture, the crystallization of long-term accumulation and cohesion of the Chinese nation's long history and prosperous culture, bearing ancient and profound national wisdom, inheriting the simple philosophy of harmony between man and nature, and hoping that man and nature can live in harmony and carry forward social morality and good manners. Words and deeds handed down from generation to generation are imperceptible, so these festivals become cultural symbols, deeply rooted in the bone marrow and blood of China people, and become national genes handed down forever.

Counting every traditional festival, we will find that behind the ancient traditional festivals, there are humanistic and natural cultural contents such as primitive beliefs, sacrificial culture, astronomical calendars and a large number of easy-to-understand technologies, which contain profound and rich cultural connotations. It not only clearly records the colorful social life and cultural content of the ancestors of the Chinese nation, but also reflects the profound historical and cultural accumulation.

There are many traditional festivals in China, and different places have different customs, so local festivals are more complicated. However, everyone celebrates important festivals, such as Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, Cold Food Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Beggars' Day, China New Year's Day, Mid-Autumn Festival, Double Ninth Festival and Winter Solstice Festival. These people all get together to worship God and ancestors, and they are happy.

Another interesting phenomenon in traditional festivals is that ancestors like overlapping festivals, such as the first month, February, March, May, June, July and September of the lunar calendar. But you will find out why there are no April 4th and August 8th. Why not more than 10 months?

Let's explain why our ancestors liked overlapping numbers. Numbers in China appeared very early, and the history of recording numbers is almost as long as the development of Chinese characters, or even earlier. In Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, Oracle Bone Inscriptions and Jin developed a mature counting system. From the Oracle Bone Inscriptions discovered so far, we can know that Oracle Bone Inscriptions's counting method consists of nine numbers from 1 to 9 and several decimal symbols. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's number symbols are hieroglyphics of numbers, and Oracle Bone Inscriptions's numbers are decimals. Ten, one hundred, one thousand and ten thousand all have special unit words.

"Statue Monument of Daiyue Temple in Xianqing"

Lowercase numbers were always used before the Tang Dynasty. During the period of Wu Zetian in the Tang Dynasty, capitalized Chinese characters appeared. From the stone tablets at that time, it can be proved that the earliest visible capitalized Chinese characters came from the Dai Yue statue in the Wu Zetian period. Commonly used Arabic numerals were introduced to China in 13 and 14 centuries, but they were not officially used in China until 1892.

The ancients believed that numbers were mysterious, and the worship of nature and gods was very common in ancient times, and numbers were naturally a part of them. Each number represents a different concept and expands many meanings. So there has been a worship of numbers since ancient times. With the prevalence of yin-yang theory in Taoist culture, such as the eight diagrams in the Book of Changes, numbers usually represent mysterious meanings. For example, the Tao Te Ching says, "The Tao gives birth to one, two, two, three and three students." Overlapping numbers are more mysterious, so many legends and proverbs come from the rise and fall of the sun and the moon, which is the earliest origin of festivals where the sun and the moon overlap.

In addition, the formation of festivals originated from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and began to take shape in the Tang and Song Dynasties. But different cultures are popular in different periods, such as the rise and fall of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, and their gradual integration, which makes some festivals more popular, while others are gradually forgotten. Tracing back to the source, every overlapping month and day has a saying and commemorative significance at the earliest.

For example, the earliest festivals, April 4 and August 8, are still popular in some areas and places, but they do not appear in large-scale festivals. Let's see what these two festivals mean.

April 4th is the first festival to worship Chi Di. Chi Di, also known as Yan Di, is the leader of the ancient ginger tribe in China, named Shennong, Xiao Wei, Lianshan and Lieshan. According to legend, Emperor Yan formed an alliance with the Yellow Emperor, defeated Chiyou and became the ancestor of China. April 4th is Yan Di's birthday. People offer sacrifices on this day, which can be seen from the poems of the Song Dynasty poet Wang. For example, "On April 4th, Chi Di paid homage to Jingming Temple in Ciyunling, Yianzhai paid homage to Jiangci Temple, and Huang Zisheng was ordered to return to his hometown": "Sacrificing snuff is a blessing and a new mountain". I am a pedestrian, too. "。 It can be seen that there was a custom of offering sacrifices to Emperor Yan on April 4th in the Song Dynasty.

August 8 is the legendary "Yaochi Club" of the Queen Mother of the West. It is said that the Queen Mother meets twice a year. March 3rd is the birthday of the Queen Mother, so there is "Queen Mother's Day". August is the season when peaches are ripe, and immortals from all walks of life are invited to taste them, so the "Flat Peach Conference", also known as the "Yaochi Conference", was held on August 8. Of course, the years of Journey to the West, 3000, 6000 and 9000, are all mature, but the folk celebrations can't wait that long. Therefore, the sacrifice of the Queen Mother of the West on August 8 every year is actually a change of the ancient autumn harvest sacrifice.

So, why did it gradually decline on April 4 and August 8? One is to offer sacrifices to Emperor Yan on April 4th and to the Yellow Emperor on March 3rd. Later, the sacrifices of Emperor Yan and the Yellow Emperor were gradually linked. Most of them died mainly for the Huangdi Mausoleum, and the date is uncertain. Sometimes in mid-spring and sometimes in Mid-Autumn Festival, it became Tomb-Sweeping Day of the Republic of China. Later, Tomb-Sweeping Day changed from solar terms to festivals instead of cold food festivals. Therefore, the sacrifice to Emperor Yan on April 4 is basically unknown now. On August 8th, the Yaochi of "Flat Peach Festival" will be gradually absorbed by Mid-Autumn Festival. Because the famous Mid-Autumn Festival was separated by several days, August 8 in the Tang and Song Dynasties was lost.

As for why there is no 10 October 10, 1 October 1, 12 February 12, it is because the ancients thought that the number was from1to 9. So there is no overlap after September, for example, in Huangdi Neijing: Qi Bo Yan: The number of heaven and earth begins at one and ends at nine. That's the reason. Therefore, most of the festivals after 10 are winter solstice festivals, twelfth lunar month festivals and so on.