The Origin and Customs of Double Ninth Festival

On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the Double Ninth Festival, also known as Mountaineering Festival, Chrysanthemum Festival, Cornus officinalis Festival and Old People's Day, is a traditional festival in China. The Double Ninth Festival is a mixture of all kinds of folk customs, which mainly includes activities such as sightseeing, climbing high and overlooking, watching chrysanthemums, planting dogwood everywhere, eating double ninth cake and drinking chrysanthemum wine. Why climb the mountain!

"Huainanzi Terrain Training" says: "Kunlun Mountain, or twice as high, is Liangshan, and it will not die if you climb it; Or twice as much, it's called fooling around, it's spirit, it can make wind and rain; Or twice as much as this, it is the dimension of heaven, and it is God, which is called the residence of Taidi. " Throughout the ages, people have always thought that Kunlun is a material channel connecting heaven and earth, and today is the best place to cross it. The ancestors thought that the continuous Kunlun Mountain was a "ladder to heaven". Through Kunlun Mountain, Qingliang Mountain, Hanging Gardens and the sky, you can reach the "Taidi Residence", so people can live forever and become immortals. This is a Taoist theory.

In the dynastic history of China, the legend about Tian Tong Tower was recorded in Hanzhong: "The Tian Tong Tower is thirty feet high, and I hope to collect clouds and rain under it. I'm going to Chang 'an for three hundred miles to see Chang 'an City. Since the Yellow Emperor, he has worshipped the sky. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sacrificed to heaven, boarded the Tian Tong stage and danced with 300 eight-year-old girls. Setting up shrines, inviting immortals and offering sacrifices to heaven have made people ascend to heaven to wait for God. " "Shan Hai Jing" said: "There is wood, which looks like an ox. Lead it with the skin, like a yellow snake. Its leaves are like Luo, but it is like Luan, and its wood is like cockroaches. " Hehe, there is no mountain, no high platform, and you can use trees as ladders.

Until the pre-Qin period, the purpose of climbing mountains in September of the lunar calendar changed. At that time, people thought that only the yin and yang of heaven and earth could breed everything, and only everything could produce men and women, husband and wife, father and son, monarch and minister, and etiquette. Without heaven and earth, everything can't survive, and heaven and earth are the root of everything. Therefore, the ancients had great respect and reverence for heaven and earth, so they formed a ritual system of offering sacrifices to their ancestors regularly according to the solar terms. Become a habit, and gradually fixed, become a traditional festival.

During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, mountain climbing was an indispensable activity every year, and the date was set on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. The name of "Double Ninth Festival" also began to appear in historical records. Cao Pi, the Emperor of Wei Wen, wrote a letter to his friends Zhong You's Nine Days Book and Zhong You, saying, "The New Year arrives in June, and suddenly it returns to the ninth day of September. Nine is the number of yang, and the sun and the moon coincide. It is well known and considered suitable for a long time, so it is a feast. " It can be seen that people at that time not only knew the Double Ninth Festival, but also thought it was the ninth festival, meaning "long life".

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the traditional festival of Double Ninth Festival in China developed into an entertaining and ceremonial cultural activity. During this period, various forms of cultural and recreational activities of the Double Ninth Festival, although inheriting the old traditional ways and methods, have incorporated many new contents.

In the Ming Dynasty, it became a custom to insert dogwood, drink chong yang wine, eat double ninth festival cake and present flower cakes to family and ancestors. In addition, there are recreational activities such as climbing mountains, enjoying chrysanthemums, hunting, shooting willows and flying kites. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Double Ninth Festival was very popular in Beijing. Every festival, the emperor will personally climb the Long Live Mountain to worship Buddha, pray for a long life and peace, and enjoy the scenery of Beijing. Empresses and concubines are in the imperial garden of the Forbidden City, and they climb to the top of the mountain to look out.

How do the common people celebrate the festive season? The Year of Yanjing records the grand occasion of people climbing Chongyang in the Qing Dynasty: "The capital is called Chongyang September 9. On the ninth day of September every year, people carry pots and water chestnuts and climb high when they go out. There are Tianning Temple, Taoranting and Sophora japonica in the south, thrips and purification fields in the north and eight places in the far west. Poetry drinking, barbecue cake sharing, seeking a moment of fun. "

With the development and progress of society, the ways and means of celebrating the Double Ninth Festival are also advancing with the times. It is the common wish of all of us to respect history, cherish the present, move towards beauty and always be on the road. Finally, end today's topic with a poem about Chongyang, which is the most free and easy. This poem is Du Mu's "Climbing the Mountain in Nine Days":

On the river, the geese just flew south, and they made friends with wine and hip flask mountain.

Laughter makes people laugh, when chrysanthemums are in full bloom.

But I will get a reward for getting drunk on the festival, and I won't have to sigh when I get there.

Only in this way can Niu Shan know why tears stain clothes.