The origins and customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The origins and customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival are as follows. The Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as Moon Eve, Autumn Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, August Festival, Reunion Festival, Moon Playing Festival, Moon Worship Festival, and even Daughter's Day or Reunion Festival, etc.

It is one of the important festivals in Chinese traditional culture.

Scholars currently agree that the Mid-Autumn Festival became popular from the Song Dynasty, and by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it had become as famous as the Spring Festival as a traditional Chinese festival.

Influenced by Chinese culture, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also a traditional festival for Japan, South Korea and some Southeast Asian countries and regions in East Asia, especially for local Chinese and overseas Chinese.

There are many opinions about the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival, but there is not much controversy about the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival in the pre-Qin period.

The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the ancient worship of the moon god. It is the remnant and derivative of the Han nationality's custom of worshiping the moon.

Sacrifice to the moon is one of the important sacrifices in ancient China.

As early as the Zhou Dynasty, the emperor had the custom of worshiping the sun at the spring equinox, the earth at the summer solstice, the moon at the autumnal equinox, and the sky at the winter solstice.

The "Book of Rites" records: "The emperor faces the sun in spring, and the moon in autumn. The sun rises in the morning, and the moon falls in the evening." The traditional Chinese calendar is related to the moon worship in ancient times.

The ancients divided the year into four seasons, and each season was divided into three months: Meng, Zhong and Ji.

The eighth month of the lunar calendar is the second month of autumn, which is called "Zhongqiu".

And August 15th is in the "Mid-Autumn Festival", so it is called "Mid-Autumn Festival".

The Mid-Autumn Festival has gradually developed from the ancient emperor's worship of the moon to the folk, and has become an important festival for the Chinese nation.

Of course, there is another theory that points out that the Mid-Autumn Festival does not originate from the ancient moon worship, but is a folk festival to celebrate the harvest.

The meaning of the word "Autumn" is: "Autumn is when the crops are mature."

In an agricultural society, every autumn is the day of great harvest.

In order to celebrate the harvest, express their joy, and look forward to a good harvest in the coming year, people hold various activities on the night of the full moon on August 15th.

These customs were passed down and became the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In addition, the "Book of Rites·Yue Ling" also records: "The moon of Mid-Autumn is used to nourish the elderly and eat rice porridge." This is not only the earliest record of the word "Mid-Autumn Festival", but it can also be seen that in the Zhou Dynasty, officials would

On August 15th, it is a welfare policy to give porridge to the elderly to strengthen their health and prevent aging.