What are the legends and customs of Laba Festival?

Laba Festival, which falls on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, is also called "Magic Weapon Festival", "Buddhist and Taoist Festival" and "Taoist Society". Originally a Buddhist festival to commemorate the enlightenment of Sakyamuni Buddha, it gradually became a folk festival. The main custom is "drinking Laba porridge".

Laba Festival is one of the grand festivals in Buddhism. Buddhism records that Sakyamuni practiced asceticism for many years before becoming a monk, and found that asceticism was not the way out, so he decided to give up asceticism. At this time, I met a herder who offered chyle. After eating, I recovered my strength and sat down under the bodhi tree to meditate.1February 8, I went home as a Taoist. To commemorate this event, Buddhists held Buddhist ceremonies on this day, offering rice and fruit to cook porridge for the Buddha. Wu's Dream in the Southern Song Dynasty says: "On the eighth day of this month, the temple name is Laba. Dasha and other temples have five-flavored porridge called Laba porridge. " Since Buddhism was introduced to China, temples have cooked porridge with fragrant valleys and fruits and distributed it to believers and loyal men and women. On the day of Laba, Buddhist ceremonies were held in various monasteries, just like the story of a shepherdess offering chyle before becoming a monk. She cooked porridge with torreya grandis and fruits for the Buddha and named it Laba porridge. Legend has it that drinking this porridge can get the blessing of the Buddha. So Laba porridge is also called "Fushou porridge", "Fude porridge" and "Buddha porridge". "Laba" was originally a Buddhist festival. After several generations of evolution, it gradually became a household name.