China's three major lantern festivals are the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Lantern Festival and what festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, together with the Spring Festival and the Lantern Festival, are known as China's three major traditional lantern festivals. However, do you know the origin of these three festivals to enjoy the lights?

1, Spring Festival lanterns

China's Spring Festival lanterns are also collectively known as lanterns. During the Spring Festival, every household has the custom of hanging lanterns, red lanterns create a festive and peaceful atmosphere. So, why hang lanterns in the Spring Festival?

Legend has it that in ancient China, there was a monster called "Nian", with a long tentacled head, fierce and unusual. Every New Year's Eve, it climbed ashore and devoured livestock and hurt people. One New Year's Eve,

This custom originated more than 1,800 years ago in the Western Han Dynasty, around the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar every year, people put up Chinese New Year lanterns to symbolize the meaning of reunion and to create a festive atmosphere. From outside the village came a begging old man, only the east end of the village, an old woman gave the old man some food, and advised him to go up to the mountains to avoid the "year" beast, the old man stroked his beard and laughed: "Granny if you let me stay at home for a night, I will certainly be the beast of the year to oust". In the middle of the night, the beast broke into the village. It found that the village atmosphere is different from previous years: the east end of the village old lady's house, the door stickers red paper, bright lights inside the house. Inside the yard, there are "bang bang pop" sound of explosions, "year" trembling, and no longer dare to come forward. It turned out that "Nian" was afraid of red color, fire and explosions. This incident soon spread in the surrounding villages, people know the way to drive away the New Year beast.

From then on, every year on New Year's Eve, every family posted red couplets, firecrackers; household candles brightly lit, to wait for the year. Similarly, red lanterns were hung to drive away the New Year's beasts, and have been passed down ever since.

2, Lantern Festival lanterns

In the festive Lantern Festival, an essential custom is that every household must hang red lanterns. So, why hang lanterns on the Lantern Festival? According to the relevant historical records, there are two main reasons for hanging lanterns on the Lantern Festival: one is the "sacrifice to the gods"; one is "burning lanterns to honor the Buddha.

"Sacrifice to Taichi God" is related to Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty. Taiyi is the most honored of the heavenly deities, and its status is above the five emperors. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was a great believer in gods and immortals, and in the fifth year of the Yuan Ding era (112 B.C.), he built an altar to the Taiyi Shrine at the Ganquan Palace, and every year thereafter, on the evening of the fifteenth day of the first month of the lunar calendar, he would make a sacrifice and pray with great fanfare, in order to ask the Taiyi Shrine to come down to earth and bless the earth. The court of this practice spread to the people, it gradually formed the custom of hanging lights on the 15th day of the first month.

"Burning lamps to honor the Buddha" began in the Eastern Han Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Mingdi Yongping. According to the "Records of the Western Regions" records, the first month of the fifteenth, Indian monks and nuns gathered to watch the Buddha's relics release light and rain flowers, that this is a good time to be blessed by the heavenly officials. Han Mingdi in order to promote Buddhism, ordered the night of the 15th of the first month in the court and the temple lighting ceremony. This practice has been advocated and popularized to the people, it formed the tradition of hanging lanterns on the 15th day of the first month of every year.

And the origin of lighting lanterns in folklore is completely different from history.

3, Mid-Autumn Festival lanterns

Mid-Autumn Festival and the Spring Festival, Lantern Festival together is considered to be China's three major lantern festivals. Although it is not as lively as the Lantern Festival's large-scale lantern festival, Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Appreciation is also one of the customs of this traditional festival.