Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional virtues - The origin of the festival

The origin of the festival

On the origin of the Dragon Boat Festival, summarized, there are roughly the following said:

Welcome the Tao God, which is from the Eastern Han Dynasty "Cao E Tablet". Cao E is the Eastern Han Dynasty Shangyu people, his father drowned in the river, a few days to see the body, when the filial daughter of Cao E was only fourteen years old, day and night along the river crying. After seventeen days, she threw herself into the river on May 5, and carried her father's body out five days later. In the Spring and Autumn Period, Wu Zixu, a loyal minister of Wu, died of injustice, turned into a Tao God, the world mourned and sacrificed, so there is the Dragon Boat Festival.

Dragon festival, this argument comes from Wen Yiduo's "Dragon Boat Festival Examination", and "Dragon Boat Festival's historical education". He believes that the fifth day of the fifth month of May is the ancient Wu-Yue region "dragon" tribes held totem sacrifices. The main reasons are; (a) the two most important activities of the Dragon Boat Festival eat zongzi and race, are related to the dragon. Zongzi into the water is often stolen by the dragon, while the race is used in the dragon boat. (B) the race and the ancient wu yue local relationship is particularly deep, and wu yue people also have broken hair tattoo "to like the dragon" custom. (C) in ancient times on the fifth day of May, there are "colorful silk arm" folk custom, which should be "like the Dragon" tattoo custom remains.

Evil Day, in the pre-Qin era, generally believed that May is a poisonous month, the fifth is evil, according to legend, the day of the evil sycophants, the five poisons and out. According to the Book of Rites, the Dragon Boat Festival originated from the storage of orchids bathing in the Zhou Dynasty. The chapter "Zhong Xia Ji" in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu" stipulates that people should abstain from sex and fast in the month of May. In the Xia Xiaozheng, it is written, "This day is for storing medicines in order to remove poisonous qi." Dadailei" in the record, "the fifth day of the fifth month of the animal orchids for the bath" to bathe to drive away evil spirits that the fifth day of the death of the legend is also a lot of. The Historical Records of the Grand Historian (史记-孟尝君列传) recorded that the famous Grand Historian Meng Chang Jun (孟尝君) was born on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month. His father asked his mother not to give birth to him, believing that "the son of the month of May, longer than the household Qi, will be unfavorable to his parents." According to an anonymous article in the book "Customs", "It is said that if a child is born on the fifth day of the fifth month, the male will harm his father and the female will harm her mother. Wang Chong, author of "On the balance", also recorded: "taboo to lift the first month, May son; to the first month, May son to kill the father and mother, shall not be lifted also." In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the great general Wang Zhenxiao was born on the fifth day of the fifth month, so his grandfather named him "Zhenxiao". Song Huizong Zhao Ji was born on the fifth day of the fifth month, from childhood foster outside the palace. It can be seen that the ancient May 5 as a bad day, is a common phenomenon. Can be seen from the pre-Qin later, this day are unlucky day. In this way, in this day plug calamus, moxa to drive away ghosts, lavender atractylodes, Angelica dahurica and drink andrographis wine to avoid the epidemic, is a logical thing. And people also avoid the "five" taboo, called "Dragon Boat Festival".

Summer solstice, this view of Liu Deqian in the "" Dragon Boat Festival " and "" Traditional Chinese Festivals and Interesting ", put forward three main reasons: (a) the authoritative work of years and times "Jingchu years and times" did not mention the May 5 to eat dumplings of the festival custom, but to eat dumplings written in the summer solstice. As for the race, the sui dynasty du taiqing made the "jade candle treasure canon" it into the summer solstice recreational activities, visible is not necessarily to salvage the great poet qu yuan cast river. (b) Some of the customs of the Dragon Boat Festival, such as "treading on a hundred grasses", "fighting with a hundred grasses", and "picking miscellaneous medicines", actually have nothing to do with Qu Yuan. (C) The first explanation of the Dragon Boat Festival in the Times and Fashions of Huajili is: "The day leaf is the sun, that is, the Dragon Boat Festival is the middle of the summer, so the Dragon Boat Festival is also known as the Festival of the Day. The earliest origin of the Dragon Boat Festival is the summer solstice. Tui Dang out, and to commemorate the Qu Yuan said the most extensive impact. As a result of Qu Yuan's personality and artistic excellence, people are also willing to attribute this anniversary to him.

Memorial female poet Qiu Jin: Qiu Jin word Ruiqing Jingxiong, No. Jianhu female warrior, the small word Yu Gu, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, good at poetry, lyrics, songs, fugue, and like to ride a horse, fencing, there are flowers, Mulan, Qin Liangyu in the world of the name. 28 years old to participate in the revolution, the influence of a great, in the planning of the uprising for the Qing soldiers arrested, to the end of the day, in the thirty-third year of the light of the 5th of June in the Shaoxing Xuan Hengkou heroic martyrdom. Posterity to venerate her poetry, mourning her loyal and courageous deeds, so, with the Poet's Day to commemorate her, and the Poet's Day is to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan and designated as the Dragon Boat Festival.

To honor Qu Yuan, one of China's greatest romantic poets.

Qu Yuan is one of China's greatest romantic poets, as well as one of the earliest known famous poets and great statesmen in China. He created the genre of "Chu Shi" (which is also known as the genre of "Lyrics and Fugues"), as well as the tradition of "Vanilla Beauty".

According to the Records of the Grand Historian (《史记》), "Qu Yuan Jia Sheng Lian Zhuan (屈原贾生列传)", Qu Yuan advocated the idea of raising the number of virtuous people, enriching the country and strengthening the army, and advocated the alliance of Qi and the Qin Dynasty against the Qin Dynasty, but he met with the strong opposition from the aristocrat Zilan and others, and was forced out of the capital city, and was banished to the Yuan and Xiang valleys. During his exile, he wrote such immortal poems as "Li Sao", "Heavenly Questions" and "Nine Songs", which are unique and far-reaching (thus, the Dragon Boat Festival is also known as the Poets' Festival). In 278 B.C., the Qin army attacked the capital of Chu. Qu Yuan saw his motherland being invaded, and his heart was cut to pieces, but he could not bear to give up his motherland, and on the 5th of May, after writing his final poem "Huai Sha", he threw himself into the Miluo River, and died, composing a magnificent piece of patriotism with his own life.

Legend has it that after Qu Yuan's death, the people of Chu were in mourning and flocked to the Miluo River to pay homage to him. The fishermen rowed up their boats and salvaged his real body back and forth on the river. A fisherman took out for Qu Yuan prepared rice balls, eggs and other food, "flop, flop" thrown into the river, said that the fish and lobsters and crabs eat enough, will not go to bite the body of Dr. Qu. People see have followed suit. An old physician to bring a altar of yellow wine poured into the river, said to be drug stunned dragon water beasts, so as not to harm Dr. Qu. Later, for fear of rice balls for the dragon to eat, people came up with a neem leaf wrapped in rice, wrapped in colorful silk, developed into a brown.

After that, on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar every year, there is a dragon boat, eat zongzi, drink xionghuang wine custom; in order to commemorate the patriotic poet Qu Yuan.

In Memory of Wu Zixu: The second legend of the Dragon Boat Festival, which is widely circulated around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, commemorates Wu Zixu during the Spring and Autumn Period (770 - 476 BC). Wu Zixu was a native of Chu, whose father and brother were both killed by the king of Chu. Later, Zixu abandoned the darkness and ran to Wu to help Wu conquer Chu, and entered the capital of Chu, Ying City, in five battles. At that time, King Ping of Chu had already died, and Zixu dug up his grave and whipped his body 300 times to avenge the killing of his father and brother. After the death of King Helu of Wu, his son Fu Chai succeeded to the throne. The Wu army had high morale and won a hundred battles, and the Yue kingdom was greatly defeated, and King Goujian of Yue asked for peace, and Fu Chai agreed to it. Zixu suggested that the state of Yue should be completely destroyed, but Fu-chai refused to listen to him, and Wu's Dazai, who had been bribed by the state of Yue, framed Zixu with slanderous rumors, and Fu-chai believed him and gave Zixu a sword, which he used to kill himself. Zixu was a loyal man, and he was very happy to die. Before he died, he told his neighbors, "When I die, I will dig out my eyes and hang them on the east gate of Wu Jing to see the Vietnamese army enter the city to destroy Wu", and then he killed himself.

The Spring Festival is called "the first day of the year", "the first of the year", "New Year", etc. December 31, 1911, the Republic of China Hubei military government in the release of the "Ministry of the Interior on the". Republic of China on the change to the solar calendar encyclical", explicitly referred to the New Year's Day as "Spring Festival". To September 27, 1949, the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference further clarified the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar as the "Spring Festival", "Spring Festival" name formally included in the Chinese holiday code. The Spring Festival is commonly known as "New Year's Day".

The oracle bone inscriptions of "Nian" are written with the character "Wo" on the upper part and "Ren" on the lower part. The character for "year" in Jinwen is also the same as the oracle bone script, it is also from 禾 (禾) and 人 (人). In the Small Seal Script, the character for "year" is written as "上禾下千", and in the Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字-禾部), it reads "年" (年), "year" (年), "year" (年). It is pronounced from "禾" and "千". The character for "man" in the Small Seal Script was changed to "thousand", which is why Xu Shen used it, while the character for "thousand" was originally a decorated person, so there is no contradiction in this explanation. "Wo" is a general term for grains, and cannot be misinterpreted as only "wheat". The good or bad of the year, mainly by the growth and harvest of "Wo" to determine the situation, and now has been unearthed in the oracle bone inscriptions in the "Wo" character, almost all look heavy was bent over, it can be seen that it symbolizes a bumper crop of cereal production. What is the meaning of the character "人" under the character "年"? From the oracle bone inscriptions, the character "年" seems to be a man holding grain on his head.

There is another legend:

In ancient China, there was a monster called "Nian", which had tentacles and was very fierce. "It lived deep under the sea for many years, and only climbed ashore on New Year's Eve to devour livestock and hurt people. Therefore, every New Year's Eve, the people of villages and hamlets fled to the mountains with their young and old to avoid the harm of the "year" beast. One New Year's Eve, from outside the village came a begging old man. The villagers were in a hurry and panicked, only the east end of the village, an old woman gave the old man some food, and advised him to go to the mountains to avoid the "New Year" beasts, the old man pulled up his beard and laughed and said: "Granny, if you let me stay at home for one night, I will definitely drive away the "New Year" beasts. " The old woman still continued to persuade the beggar old man smiled but did not say anything.

In the middle of the night, the beast of the year broke into the village. It found that the atmosphere in the village was different from that of previous years: the old woman's house at the east end of the village had a big red paper on the door, and the candles in the house were burning brightly. "The beast shivered and gave a strange cry. Near the door, the yard suddenly came "bang bang pop" sound, "year" trembling, and do not dare to come forward. It turns out that Nian is afraid of the color red, fire and explosions. At this time, the door of the mother-in-law's house was wide open, only to see an old man wearing a red robe in the courtyard laughing. "Nian was so shocked that he fled in disarray. The next day was the first day of the first month of the lunar calendar, and the people who came back from their refuge were very surprised to see that the village was safe and sound. It was then that the old woman realized what had happened, and rushed to tell the townspeople about the old man's promise to beg. This incident soon spread in the surrounding villages, people know the way to drive away the "New Year" beast. From then on, every New Year's Eve, home red couplets, firecrackers; household candles brightly, to keep the night. Early in the morning on the first day, but also to go to friends and relatives to say hello. This custom has become more and more widespread, and has become the grandest traditional festival of Chinese folklore.

There is another way of saying it:

In ancient times, there was a beast called "year", a few times bigger than the current elephants, and dozens of times more ferocious than tigers. Specializing in eating people, and eat is dozens of people, it was eaten by the number of people can not be counted. The people suffered a lot. One day, "Nian" came again, and a young man hated it so much that he said, "It's better to fight with it than to let it eat us, for we're all going to die anyway." He took a cleaver axe and rushed up, and many young men followed. But they were no match for Nian, and the young men were all eaten by Nian. After that, the year became even more vicious, and the people's grievances and hatred shook the earth.

The grievances alarmed Taibai Jinxing in the sky, and the hateful voices alarmed Earth King Bodhisattva underground. The star and the king of the earth, the bodhisattva discussed, and sent Shennong old man to the earth to collect the "year". Shennong held a beast whip in his hand and aimed it at the buttocks of "Nian". The ferocious "year" actually obediently crouch on the ground and did not move. Shennong ran up a few steps, one foot on the head of the "year", roared: "animal, you eat countless people, sinning y, today your end has come." Said, from the waist to take down two slices of melon bowl, aimed at the "year" on a close. Bigger than an elephant, the "year" actually closed in the bowl at once. Shennong put the "year" of the bowl buried in the ground, when he left, he repeatedly urged that: "this bowl buried in the ground, the future will grow melon, this melon can not be broken, it must be said that it is not broken." Later, the place where the bowl was buried really grow melon, the people in accordance with Shennong "not" the voice, it is called "North melon". Shennong in addition to the "year" of the day happens to be the lunar calendar December 30, the people will call this day "New Year", that is, to avoid the "year" and remove the "year"! The people called this day "New Year", which means to avoid and get rid of "New Year". On this day, the northern melon is offered in the hall, to show that the evil spirits, and banging gongs and drums, sounding bamboo and lanterns, in order to commemorate the merits of Shennong's ancestor. Presumably, it was attached by later generations based on New Year's traditions. It is unlikely to be the origin of the "year".