Who invented the Spring Festival couplets?

The origin of Spring Festival couplets

Wang Anshi, a poet in the Song Dynasty, wrote in Yuan Ri:

Besides firecrackers, the spring breeze warms Tu Su.

Thousands of families always trade new peaches for old ones.

What do "new peach" and "old symbol" mean? In modern terms, it is the Spring Festival couplets. Spring Festival couplets are a kind of couplets. How did China Spring Festival couplets develop?

As a unique literary form, Spring Festival couplets have a long history in China. It began in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has developed for more than a thousand years today.

As early as before the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a custom of hanging peach symbols around the gate every New Year. Fu Tao is two big boards made of peach wood, on which are written the names of the legendary gods and spirits who exorcise ghosts and suppress evil spirits. This custom lasted for more than 1000 years. It was not until the Five Dynasties that people began to put couplets on mahogany boards instead of the names of gods. According to historical records, on New Year's Eve in 964 AD, Meng Chang, the master of Houshu, wrote a couplet on the bedroom door, namely, "On New Year's Eve, Jia Jienuo. Changchun ",the earliest Spring Festival couplets in China.

After the Song Dynasty, it has become quite common for people to hang Spring Festival couplets in the New Year. Therefore, Wang Anshi wrote in the poem "January Day" that "thousands of households always change new peaches for old ones" was a true portrayal of the Spring Festival couplets at that time. Due to the close relationship between the appearance of Spring Festival couplets and Fu Tao, the ancients also called Spring Festival couplets "Fu Tao".

In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding father of the Ming Dynasty, strongly advocated couplets. After establishing the capital of Jinling (now Nanjing), he ordered ministers, officials and ordinary people to write a couplet and put it on the door before New Year's Eve. Dressed in casual clothes, he went out door to door to watch the excitement. Scholars at that time also regarded couplets as elegant enjoyment, and writing Spring Festival couplets became a social fashion.

After entering the Qing Dynasty, couplets prevailed in Qianlong, Jiaqing and Daoguang generations. Just like the prosperous Tang Dynasty, many famous couplets appeared.

With the development of cultural exchanges among countries, couplets were introduced to Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Singapore and other countries. These countries still have the custom of pasting couplets.