What is Laba Festival? What's the custom?

The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month (1February) is called Laba Festival, which is an ancient national traditional festival. Broadly speaking, Laba on the eighth day of December in the summer calendar, the sacrificial furnace on the 24th of December and the Lantern Festival on the 15th of the first month are all part of the traditional Spring Festival, and Laba marks the beginning of the whole activity to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year.

The formation of "Laba Festival" is the product of two aspects: one is the ancient "La Worship"; The second is the influence of Buddhist culture. This festival is the product of the fusion of China's ancient traditional culture and foreign Buddhist culture.

According to ancient records, "wax" was also called "wax" or "hunting" in ancient times. Wax (wax or hunting) is an ancient ceremony at the end of the year. Jia Ping in the summer, Qing Sacrifice in the Shang Dynasty, Big Wax in the Zhou Dynasty and Wax in the Han Dynasty. In ancient agricultural society, all customs and habits were inevitably associated with agricultural production. Farmers' life, spring ploughing, summer harvest, autumn harvest and winter storage, is busy in the first three seasons, and only the winter storage season is relatively idle. Therefore, at the end of the harvest, people usually organize themselves to hunt animals in the wild to worship their ancestors and the gods of heaven and earth, so as to get a bumper harvest and good weather in the coming year, and pray to avoid bad luck, drive away bad luck and keep their families safe and auspicious. This is "La Worship", also known as "hunting sacrifice". Therefore, people call the twelfth lunar month, which comes from praying for blessings at the end of the year and rewarding ghosts and gods. However, although La Worship is in1February, the date is not fixed. Sometimes at the beginning of the month, sometimes at the end of the month, it was not until the Southern Dynasties that the specific time of the twelfth lunar month was determined. According to the records. In order to pray for longevity and avoid disaster, the ancients offered sacrifices to Ba Shen in the twelfth lunar month. They are: First, offering sacrifices to God and Shennong; Second, offering sacrifices to God and Hou Ji; The third is the god of agriculture, offering sacrifices to the ancient god of heaven; Fourth, sip the gods for the postal table, and offer sacrifices to the people who opened the way and demarcated the field; Fifth, the cat and tiger gods sacrificed them to eat wild rats and beasts to protect their seedlings; Sixth, worship gods and dikes; Seventh, water is god, offering sacrifices to ditches; Eight is the god of insects, offering sacrifices to avoid pests. From then on, people called Lari "Laba".

Laba in ancient times was a sacrifice, but now people are not interested in sacrificial activities when they mention Laba. On the contrary, they relish the custom of eating Laba porridge.

Laba porridge, also known as "Buddha porridge", is said to be related to Buddha Sakyamuni. With the introduction of Buddhism into China at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the legend of Laba porridge was put on a religious coat.

It turned out that Sakyamuni was Siddhartha Gautama, the son of Sudoku King who lived in northern ancient India (now Nepal). He felt the pain of life and death, resolutely abandoned the aristocratic life of the royal family and traveled all over the mountains and rivers to seek the true meaning of life. One day, he was walking near Nilian River in Bihar, which was sparsely populated and very desolate. Because of the long journey, he was tired and hungry on the road. At this time, a kind-hearted shepherd girl happened to pass by, so she added some wild fruits to the miscellaneous grains she carried with her, boiled them with clear water and fed them to him. After he woke up from the porridge, he was refreshed, so he sat under the bodhi tree and meditated, and finally became a Buddha in early December. Later, Buddhists called this day "Enlightenment Day" of Buddhism. To commemorate this event, on the eighth day of December, in addition to chanting scriptures and worshipping Buddha, Buddhist temples also followed the example of shepherdess, taking fragrant melons and fruits to cook porridge for the Buddha and sharing it, and called this porridge that gave the Buddha strength "Buddha porridge", which is now commonly known as "Laba porridge". Lu You, a poet in the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote in his poem "Walking to the West Village on December 8": "At present, Buddhism and Taoism coexist with porridge, which makes Jiangcun more frugal."

In some monasteries, before the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, monks begged along the street with alms bowls, and cooked the collected rice, chestnuts, dates, nuts and other materials into Laba porridge and distributed it to the poor. It is said that you can get the blessing of Buddha after eating it. In Tianning Temple, a famous temple in Hangzhou, there is a "rice building" for storing leftovers. Monks in the temple usually dry the leftovers every day, accumulate a year's surplus food, and cook Laba porridge for believers on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which is called "Fushou porridge" and "Fude porridge", which means that eating it can increase happiness and prolong life.

There is another interesting legend about Laba porridge. According to legend, when Zhu Yuanzhang was a child, his family was very poor. Once he was so hungry that he sneaked into the rich man's kitchen to find something to fill his stomach. However, there is nothing in the kitchen except sawdust, straw and a few broken crocks. Finally, he found a mouse hole. He thought that if he could catch a mouse, he could satisfy his hunger. So I dug down with my hand, but when I dug the mouse hole, I was surprised to find that there were rice, millet, beans, chestnuts, pearl rice, red dates, peanuts and melon seeds in the mouse's "granary", but there was only a little of everything. He simply put everything in a broken jar, put some water on the stove and began to cook porridge. Before long, a pot of delicious porridge was ready. At that time, he was so hungry that he thought this porridge was sweeter than any delicacies. Later, when he became an emperor, he was tired of eating big fish and meat, delicacies and delicacies. One day, he suddenly remembered the taste of cooking porridge with mouse food when he was a child, which made the chef cook a pot of porridge with miscellaneous beans, dates and walnuts. It happened to be the eighth day of December, so it was called "Laba porridge". At that time, it was strange for officials to watch the emperor eat this porridge. After returning home, he also learned to cook this dish. Later, it spread to the people, and people followed suit. So eating "Laba porridge" has gradually become a custom, which has been passed down to this day.

According to "Tokyo Dream Record", in the Northern Song Dynasty, on this day, all monasteries had to take a Buddhist bath to cook Laba porridge for the Buddha and give it to the donor. On this day, the Emperor of Ming Dynasty gave the civil and military officials Laba porridge cooked in the palace, and the materials used were very particular. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge became more popular. Not only did everyone make Laba porridge, but the rich also decorated the porridge noodles with fruits and insects and gave them to each other. During the Yongzheng period, the court changed the residence east of imperial academy in Andingmen, Beijing to the Lama Temple. On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Laba porridge that the emperor gave to the civil and military officials was boiled here. There is a big copper pot with a diameter of about 2 meters, a depth of 1.5 meters and a weight of about 8 tons in the palace, which is specially used for cooking porridge. This big copper pot for cooking porridge is still preserved by the west drum tower in the front yard of Yonghe Palace, which is also a cultural relic.

According to the records of the Lama Temple, Laba Festival is divided into four scenes: cooking porridge, offering porridge, offering porridge and sending porridge. From the first day of the twelfth lunar month, general manager office sent clerks to deliver the finest cream, millet, glutinous rice, diced mutton and whole grains, as well as dried fruits such as red dates, longan, raisins and walnuts, which were delivered to the fifth day. The fire started in the early morning of the seventh day, and the porridge was cooked in the early morning of the eighth day. A * * * boil six pots, and the first pot is Buddha; The second pot is dedicated to the emperor and the inner palace; The third pot is for the five ministers and the big Lama; The fourth pot is given to civil and military officials and sent to local officials in various provinces; The fifth pot was distributed to lamas in the Lama Temple; The sixth pot, plus the leftovers from the first five pots, is the charity Laba porridge. Of course, one pot is not as good as the other.

In the folk, every household should also make Laba porridge and cook it. First, put some bowls in the pot on the altar to offer sacrifices to ancestors. Only after the sacrifice, put it away and give it to relatives and friends in a food basin or suitcase. Be sure to send it out as soon as possible. At the latest, the whole family will get together to eat Laba porridge. If you have chickens and dogs at home, you should also feed a few spoonfuls of Laba porridge. Children in Beijing sing a nursery rhyme: "Laba porridge, laba rice, chickens lay eggs after eating." If you plant flowering fruit trees in the yard, you will coat some Laba porridge on the branches, hoping that flowers will be full of flowers and fruits in the coming year. Every family will cook a lot of Laba porridge, because Laba porridge is easy to preserve and can be preserved for a long time without deterioration or taste change. Even if it is dry and sticky with water, it can still be eaten for the New Year. If it is left after eating for a few days, it is a good sign, so it is "more than one year". It means rich. People also like to add some decorations, such as flowers, to porridge bowls. There are several kinds of flowers, such as "Eight Immortals", "cornucopia" and "Liu Hai Jin Chan". There are also simplified ones, that is, a pomegranate flower cut from red paper. People who are more particular should first carve the fruit into human shapes, animals and patterns, and then cook it in a pot. More distinctive is to put "fruit lion" in Laba porridge. Fruit lion is a lion made of several kinds of fruits, with peeled and dried crisp dates as the lion's body, half walnut kernel as the lion's head, peach kernel as the lion's foot and sweet almond as the lion's tail. Then stick them together with sugar and put them in a porridge bowl, just like a little lion. More exquisite, it is made of jujube paste, red bean paste, yam, hawthorn cake and other foods in various colors into eight immortals, longevity stars, arhat statues and so on. This decorative Laba porridge can only be seen on the altar of a big temple in the past.

In some places in northern China where little or no rice is produced, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. Make minced meat with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and roll noodles. On the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family eats Laba noodles. In many other places, there are customs such as soaking Laba garlic and brewing Laba wine. Peel Laba garlic and soak it in rice vinegar. A month later, garlic was light green and delicious. After eating, it can drive away diseases and avoid epidemics. Laba wine is a kind of wine brewed from glutinous rice in Laba Festival. After the new year, the wine is dark red, crystal clear and bright, and the wine is rich in flavor. After drinking, the lips and teeth remain fragrant. Unfortunately, this kind of folk self-brewed wine is generally very small, only for family use, and it is difficult to buy in the market.

At the end of the twelfth lunar month, there are many folk customs of the twelfth lunar month. For example, "eat ice", the day before Laba, people usually use steel pots to scoop water and freeze. When Laba Festival comes, they break the ice and eat it. It is said that the ice on this day is magical, and it won't hurt your stomach for a year after eating it. As the Spring Festival is approaching, people still have the habit of curing pork and mutton, which is called "bacon" and "bacon flavor". Although it has passed the summer, it will not rot. Farmers should apply winter fertilizer in the fields, which is called "wax fertilizer" to increase crop nutrients. There is also the custom of "ringing the bell in the twelfth lunar month" in urban and rural areas of China, starting from the first day of the twelfth lunar month and ending at the thirtieth. Every evening, idle old people walk up and down the street with big gongs and some with thick sticks, knocking and shouting, "Be careful of electric lights and candles in cold winter;" Beware of thieves, the door is closed. Look at the woodshed, the ashes are piled up, and the candle is careful behind the stove. "In rural areas, the twelfth lunar month will also organize people to watch more vigils to prevent fires and theft.