The Historical Origin of Cold Food Festival

Cold Food Festival, also known as "No Smoking Festival", "Cold Food Festival" and "Hundred Five Days Festival", follows the ancient habit of changing fire. In early spring every year, the climate is dry, not only the kindling preserved by people is easy to cause fire, but also the occurrence of spring thunder is easy to cause mountain fires. In this season, the ancients held a grand sacrificial ceremony to put out all the kindling handed down from the previous year, that is, "forbidding fire", and then drilled a new fire as the starting point of production and life in the new year, which was called "changing fire" or "inviting new fire". When the fire is changed, a grand ritual activity is held to burn the symbol of millet, the god of cereal, which is called human sacrifice. After the custom was passed down, it formed the later No Fire Festival. There is an interval between banning fire and changing fire. Historical materials have different opinions such as three days, five days and seven days.

In this period when there is no fire, people must prepare enough cooked food and live on cold food. This is the so-called "cold food", hence the name "Cold Food Festival". The Cold Food Festival has lasted for more than 2,000 years and is called the largest folk festival. The origin of the Cold Food Festival is Mianshan, Jiexiu, Shanxi, with a history of 2640 years (358 years earlier than the Dragon Boat Festival). According to the definition of "Cold Food Festival" in Ci Yuan and Ci Hai, in the Spring and Autumn Period, Jie Zhitui went through hardships, assisted Zhong Er, the son of Jin Dynasty, to restore the country and lived in seclusion in Mianshan, Jiexiu. Forcing him out of the burnt mountain, Zi pushed the mother and son out of sight and burned us. In order to mourn him, Jin Wengong ordered that fire and cold food should be banned on the anniversary of his death (after the winter of November 150), thus forming a cold food festival.

The Cold Food Festival originated from the record of the burning of Mianshan in Jiexiu, which was first seen in Huan Tan's new volume Xi Li Xi Shi, and then in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, the Biography of Zhou Ju, the Criminal Order of Cao Caoming, the Book of Jin, the Biography of Xerox, and Li Daoyuan's Notes on Water Mirror Fen.

In history, the Cold Food Festival and the Qingming Festival are similar, and over time, they merged into one festival. "Tang Yao Hui Volume 82 Vacation" clearly records: "(Kaiyuan) February 11: Cold food is bright, and the fourth day is a holiday. February 15th, 13th year of Dali: From now on, the cold food will be clear and there will be a five-day holiday. To March 9, the sixth year of Zhenyuan: the cold food is clear, and it is appropriate to celebrate the Yuan Day, and it will be given for three days before and after. " Therefore, "The Grand View of China Traditional Culture" contains: "Roughly in the Tang Dynasty, the Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day became one."