Mulian, a disciple of Sakyamuni, tried to dye rice with the juice of southern candle leaves in order to let his mother eat rice, and cooked it into black rice and sent it. Hungry ghosts were afraid to eat it. My mother was finally full. Later, people ate black rice every year to commemorate Mulian, the dutiful son.
Black rice was originally a folk food, which existed in the Tang Dynasty. In rural areas of Yixing, Liyang, Jintan and southern Anhui, it has become a custom that many people cook black rice with the leaves of Vaccinium bracteatum on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month. In China, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Anhui and other places, people still keep the ancient custom of eating black rice in April of the lunar calendar.