Where exactly did the Thousand Horns Lantern in Guancheng come from? Why is it called the first lamp?

Old times, "lights" is an important part of the spiritual life of the people of Dongguan, not only the daily lighting can not be separated, in the years of festivals and some of the major occasions of life is indispensable. In the hearts of Dongguan people, the lamp has long been a symbol that transcends the physical, with strong symbols and symbols, marking out the cultural ****ness of the people under one side of the water and soil.

Dongguan and lights

"Lights" and the Dongguan people's sense of life rituals are closely linked - New Year's Eve night, Dongguan people will burn lights to worship the stove; the Lantern Festival, to tie the delicate and exquisite lanterns, word lamps and lanterns; to the Mid-Autumn Festival, the family must hang lanterns, children hand a lamp pomelo play. If there is a newborn in the family, then in the next Lantern Festival, it is necessary to go to the ancestral temple to open the lamp, because in the Dongguan dialect, "lamp" and "Ding" homophonic, "add lamp" is "to add Ding", is an extremely solemn thing. And the whole of Dongguan to do the most famous lights to Guancheng, the annual Lantern Festival on the most notable, but also here to make the thousand angle lamp.

Thousand Angle Lantern

Thousand Angle Lantern originated from the Song Dynasty octagonal palace lanterns, as the name implies, the entire lamp has a thousand horns, each corner decorated with a lamp, fully decorated with a thousand lamps. As you can imagine, the volume of a thousand horns lamp is very huge, by the top of the lamp, the lamp belt, the lamp body, the lamp post and the end of the lamp is composed of five parts.

The top of the lamp for the round roof, with bamboo gabions (now wire) tied eight three-dimensional colorful dragons as the skeleton, to eight directions, forming eight corners; each corner of the lower end of the three embroidered lamps hanging about 3 meters long, each embroidered with a character story, adding up to 24 lamps just to speak a set of "twenty-four filial piety", which can be said to be far-reaching meaning.

The lamp body is the main part of the lamp, divided into eight sides, by more than 200 different sizes of convex three-dimensional triangles, squares, rectangles and trapezoids, usually triangles, trapezoids part of the paper framed with flowers and carvings, and the four-square part of the painting of insects, fish, flowers, birds and people and other auspicious patterns and text; lamp post used to place lamps, a **** there are 8 strips must be accurately calculated to be able to Evenly put down 1,000 lamps; lamp tail in the bottom, and the top of the lamp echoes, constitute a complete palace lantern.

It is said that the lanterns were popularized when the Song Dynasty royal family moved to Dongguan during the Southern Song Dynasty, originally as a symbol to show the prosperity of the family, but now, it is more a kind of traditional culture for the traceability and development of the craftsmen's elaborate production, a unique lanterns of the thousands of horns, Dongguan people's wishes for the future of the unceasing succession of the thousands of years of history with this vivid history. The heavy history of Dongguan is presented in this vivid and lively form.

The Thousand-Cornered Lanterns and Inheritance

At present, with the growing interest in history, the Thousand-Cornered Lanterns are gradually awakening to their traditional cultural imprints and re-entering the lives of the people of Dongguan. The age-old craft of making thousand-horn lanterns lacks specific written records, so in the once-in-a-decade process of making thousand-horn lanterns, people make a new creation every time without drawings or samples, based on the older generation's impression of thousand-horn lanterns.

And the thousand-horn lanterns with many unique labels are enough to stir the nerves of every paper maker in Guancheng. In their hearts, the thousand-horn lanterns are a benchmark, and it has become a dream for them to be involved in the production of thousand-horn lanterns in their lifetimes.

Perhaps in the future, the thousand-horn lantern can only be "one in ten years", but as long as there are people, there is a legacy, then this carries a heavy history of the lights will not go out, the people of Dongguan on the future of life's good wishes will be passed on from generation to generation, and the birth of the endless!