The fifteenth day of the first month is a day of celebration, but there is an extraordinary history, the original origin of this festival and the early Han Dynasty to quell the "Lu Pheasant's Rebellion" related.
Liu Bang's empress was Empress Lu, who was a vicious and lecherous woman among the aristocrats of the imperial dynasty at that time. As soon as Han Gaozu died, she killed all the ministers who had fought with Gaozu, and used the brothers and nephews of the Lv clan, who were relatives, to usurp the throne. Soon after the reign of Empress Lu, all the Lüs were eventually exterminated by Liu's old ministers. When Emperor Wen of Han ascended the throne, he felt that it was very rare for the world to enjoy peace again, so he found a good day at the beginning of the year to have fun with the people. I heard that the "Zhulu's Chaos" was put down on the 15th day of the first month, which happened to be a sunny day, so he decided to go out of the palace on the 15th day of the first month of every year, so it was called the "Lantern Festival". Since then, it has been passed down from generation to generation, and the 15th day of the first month of every year has become a world-wide festival of joy for the people.
The Lantern Festival is the first full-moon day of the year, also known as "Yuansi" and "Yuanyi". It is also called the "Festival of Lights" because the program on this day is dominated by lanterns. It is also known as the Shangyuan Festival, which is based on the Taoist saying that it is the first day of the year when the heavenly officials are in charge.
The three gods of Taoism are the three gods in charge of the earth's welfare, and they each have their own duty dates, the heavenly officer is the "Shangyuan Festival", the earthly officer is the "Zhongyuan Festival", and the human officer is the "Lower Yuan Festival". The day of the "lower yuan festival", of which the celestial official is the first, so people attach great importance to this "celestial official blessing" day.
Superior Yuan, also known as the Festival of Lights. It is said to be due to the custom of observing lanterns on the New Year's Day, which originated in the Han Dynasty.
Originally, the Han Dynasty held a festival for the god Taiyi (the North Star) on this day, with lanterns and colorful decorations all night long. Another place is said to be related to the Tang Taizong and the ascension lamp. Legend has it that Emperor Tang Taizong Li Shimin encouraged the culture of reading, and people sent their children to school. Admission to the first program called "open lights", that is the first to do a good job of the first delicate lanterns, brought to school, please a learned old man for him to light up, a symbol of a bright future. Once upon a time, most private schools opened later on the 15th day of the first month of the lunar calendar, so the lanterns for the opening of the school became a decoration of the "Shangyuan Festival".
There is another explanation: Taoism believes in the "three gods", and legend has it that the "three gods" have their own birthdays: the "heavenly officer" was born on the fifteenth day of the first month, the "earthly officer" was born on the fifteenth day of the first month, and the "earthly officer" was born on the fifteenth day of the first month. The "Earth God" was born on July 15th, and the "Water God" was born on October 15th. It is said that the "three gods" can play the roles of "Heavenly Officials granting blessings", "Earthly Officials pardoning sins", and "Water Officials relieving misfortunes" to people. The role of the "God of Water". With the influence of Taoist thought, the ancient people of China called the fifteenth day of the first month of the year "Shangyuan Festival" (the night of this day is called "Lantern Festival", or "Lantern Night"), and the fifteenth day of the seventh month of the year "Zhongyuan Festival", and the fifteenth day of the seventh month "Zhongyuan Festival". The 15th of July is called the "Mid-Yuan Festival" and the 15th of October is called the "Lower-Yuan Festival", and the custom of "haunting the Lantern Festival" has been formed in the folklore. Initially, on the fifteenth day of the first month, thousands of families and Taoist believers got together to celebrate the birthday of the "God of Heavenly Officials", praying for the "blessing of Heavenly Officials" and wishing for a bumper harvest and a peaceful life in the new year. To the Tang Dynasty, with the development of society and the gradual improvement of people's lives, this custom, the development of the first month of the fifteenth three days before and after the lanterns.
Lantern Festival in the Tang and Song Dynasty, the most lively, everywhere, lights and colors, ladies play, all night long, the city open night, the Tang Shen [people all] period of poetry:
The fire tree is very flower together, the Star Bridge, iron locks open.
This is the description of the Lantern Festival.
Dragon lanterns and the origin of the spring festival
The lanterns in the festival of lights in a variety of types, such as flowers, insects, birds, beasts, all kinds of, but one of the most special and huge, is the number of "dragon lanterns".
The customary New Year's "dragon lantern" play. The Dragon Lantern is "off the Dragon Lantern", because the Dragon Lantern long giant and heavy, the sound of drums and gongs in the head and tail, meandering away, not dozens of strong man, lifting the pole back and forth, not enough to maneuver. The "fall" is swinging, as a verb, that is, "dance dragon".
The dragon dance "dragon", usually placed in the local Dragon King Temple, the day of the dragon dance, with flags, drums and gongs, horns as a guide, the dragon body from the temple to come out, connected to the dragon's head and tail, the eye-dotting ceremony. The body of the dragon is made of bamboo in the shape of a round dragon, connected in sections, covered with a huge red cloth with dragon scales painted on the outside, and there is a person holding the pole every five or six feet, with the head and the tail about a dozen zhang long from each other. The dragon is led by a person holding a pole, and a huge ball is erected at the top of the pole as a guide. During the dance, the ball swings back and forth, around and around, and the dragon's head snatches the ball, causing the dragon's body to wander and fly.
The Dragon Dance is a big festival, and the dragon will be entertained wherever it goes. The dragon dance team can sometimes have five or six feasts a day, which is called "dragon for wine".
When the dragon dance is over, the head and tail are burned and the body is returned to the temple to be used again next year.
The Festival of Lights began in the early Han Dynasty and flourished in the Tang and Song dynasties, but the custom of the Dragon Dance is believed to be the inheritance of the legacy of the Yin and Zhou Dynasty's "Sacrifice to Heaven".
The dragon appeared very early in the historical records, and the "dragon dance" contains the "wind and rain, the country and the people in peace", the original "pray for the New Year" meaning.
The ancients were not open to the people's wisdom, probably because the dragon in the myth is the master of the sea, the power is infinite, and the ocean is the main water, the dragon is also very natural to do the crops of the rain god. People to food for heaven, grain is the fundamental life-sustaining, indirectly also manipulated the human life. According to this meaning, the importance of the dragon is even more important than the ancestors ---- of Emperor Shun, Qi and Hou Ji. In this way, the dragon is the ancient people as "auspicious" in the celebration of sacrifice, natural is not surprising.
"Rites of kings system" said: "temple sacrifices, spring is key, summer is [衤帝], autumn is tasted, winter is baked"
It can be seen that the Spring Festival "light", that is, on behalf of the "spring festival! ". Therefore, the "dragon dance" should initially be a kind of sacrifice, rather than entertainment, to become a celebration of entertainment should be after the Han and Tang Dynasty. Here is a legend, can also show that the dragon dance is pure commemoration, contains a sacrificial component ----
Legends of a long time ago, camas creek bank there is a lotus village, in front of the village there is a lotus pond, the pond is full of lotus flowers. Every summer, the turquoise lotus leaves spread over the water surface, countless out of the water lotus flowers, curling, bright and colorful.
The lotus pond lived in a pair of hard-working and kind-hearted young couple, the man called Baibei, the woman called Lotus, husband and wife, male farming and weaving, respect and love each other. This year, lotus pregnant, after ten months, the child was not born. After ten months, the child was not born. After another year, the child was still not born, and it was not until nine hundred and ninety-nine days that a boy was born. Hundred leaves to see the child was born upright and strong, heart good like. And then a closer look, but was stunned: the child's chest and spine with fine dragon scales, golden light, dazzling. Counting, there were nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces. When the midwife next to her saw it, she was shocked and yelled, "Oh, no wonder, your family has given birth to a dragon god!"
The news spread throughout the village, and everyone came to congratulate them. The news alarmed the village's old patriarch, whose son was an official at the imperial court and who kept a rampant and ugly grandson by his side. As soon as this grandson and grandson heard that a dragon's seed had been born in Baiye's family, they immediately came to slash and kill with steel swords in their hands. The townspeople got the news and immediately reported it to Baiye. They discussed it carefully and came up with a solution: put the child in a foot basin and quietly hide him in the lotus pond in front of the door.
The old patriarch and his grandson rushed through the door with their men, and the child was gone. Seeing that he could not find the dragon's seed, the old patriarch seized Baiye and forced him to hand it over. When his grandson saw how beautiful Lotus was, he had a plan and raised his steel sword to kill Baiba and snatched Lotus into his home. The old patriarch thought to himself: without parents, the dragon seed will surely starve to death even if it lives. The old patriarch thought, "If you don't have a father and mother, you will be starving.
However, when Lotus was taken to the old patriarch's house, she missed her husband and children and was very sad. The patriarch of the old man forced her to go to panning rice, lotus dragged the panning bucket to the edge of the pool, gently rippling the water, suddenly a cool wind blew, the depth of the lotus pond, the flowers and leaves have fallen to the sides to make way for the water, only to see their son sitting in a foot basin, drifting toward her. Lotus was surprised and happy, and quickly took her son into her arms, fed him milk, and still put him back in the foot basin. With a cool breeze, the foot basin floated back to the lotus bush. The lotus knew that her son had not starved to death, and she was very happy.
Since then, she went to the pool three times a day to pan the rice, and fed her son three times with milk. After nine hundred and ninety-nine days of feeding, her son grew up, and his dragon scales shone brightly. At night, the lotus pond shone brightly. The village people were secretly happy to know that the dragon's seed had not been extinguished. When the old patriarch learned that the dragon's seed was in the lotus pond, he had another poisonous plan.
One evening, the lotus to the pond panning rice, the two grandchildren hiding in the poplar bushes to watch the movement, only to see the blue ripples, flowers and leaves floating, a cool wind blowing, the depths of the lotus pond Xu Xu floated to a foot basin, the basin is sitting in a full of golden children, joyfully raised his hands to the panning of the lotus pounced over. Lotus full of joy, was about to reach out to embrace, poplar bush flashed out of a person, raised a brightly shining steel knife straight to the child cut. In a flash, only to see the child from the foot basin abruptly jumped up, transformed into a golden dragon, to the pool to leap. But it was too late, the knife cut the little dragon's tail. A big, beautiful butterfly that was resting in the lotus bush suddenly flew over and articulated itself on the little dragon's tail with its body, and with a pair of beautiful wings it became the little dragon's tail.
The little dragon let out a long cry, and all of a sudden, the wind was fierce, the clouds rolled over, and the petals of the pond full of lotus flowers flew up and swirled. In the midst of the thunder and lightning, the little dragon's body gradually grew bigger and bigger, transforming into a huge dragon tens of feet long, tumbling and leaping over the lotus pond. At this time, a tornado rolled over, the small dragon rose up in the air, riding the wind straight up, flying into the clouds. The tornado was so powerful that the man who cut the dragon's tail was swept up into the air and thrown away without a trace. When he saw his grandson being swept away by the wind, the patriarch's old man fell into the lotus pond and drowned with a sound of "plop".
When Lotus saw her son transformed into a dragon and fly up into the sky, she cried out, but the dragon had already flown away without a trace.
Since then, whenever there was a drought on both sides of Campsis Creek, the little dragon came to spread clouds and spread rain.
The local people thanked it by picking seven hundred and seventy-nine lotus blossoms from this pond and used nine hundred and ninety-nine leaves of petals to make a flower dragon. Because there were less than a thousand leaves, it was named the Hundred Leaf Dragon.
Every year in the Spring Festival, the people would beat gongs and drums to dance the dragon.
The Story of Lantern Riddles
When it comes to lanterns, we can't help but talk about "lantern riddles". About lantern riddles, there is such a joke ----
There is a rich man surnamed Hu, the family wealth of ten thousand slam dunks, rampant townships, the skin smiles meat does not smile, everyone called him "smiling tiger". Smiling tiger as long as you see than their own well-dressed people, will desperately flatter, to those poor people in poor clothes, not even look at a glance.
The Chinese New Year is approaching that year, the Hu family door a front and back came two people, the front of the man called Li Cai, the back of the one called Wang Shao. Li Cai was well-dressed, and Wang Shao was dressed in rags. Family man saw Li Cai, busy back into the report, Smiling Tiger panicked to welcome out the door, full of smiles, respectfully. Li Cai said to "borrow silver ten taels", Smiling Tiger busy to take the silver, long gone. The tiger has not yet turned around, Wang Shao went up and shouted: "Master, I borrow some grain."
The Smiling Tiger glanced at him and scolded, "Kid, who are you to borrow grain? Go away!"
On the way home, the more Wang Shao thought about it, the more angry he became, and suddenly he had a plan.
When the Lantern Festival was approaching, every family was busy making lanterns, and Wang Shao was happy to be busy all day. At the night of the Lantern Festival, all kinds of lanterns were hung up in front of every house on the street, and Wang Shao also carried a lantern to the street. The lantern was big and bright, and it had a poem inscribed on it.
Wang Shao came to the smiling tiger's door and carried the lantern high, attracting many people to look around. Smiling Tiger is watching the lanterns, a sight, also crowded to the lanterns, only to see the lamp inscribed with four lines of poetry.
The head of the body is as thin as silver, on the claim that there is no half a millimetre,
Eyes long to the buttocks, light recognition of clothes do not recognize people.
The smiley tiger heard, only angry red face, angry eyes, shouted: "good boy, dare to scold the master!"
Then he ordered his men to grab the lanterns. Wang Shao was busy lifting the lamp, smiling back, "Master, how can I see is to scold you?"
The smiling tiger huffed and said, "What is written on your lamp?"
Wang Shao read it aloud.
The Smiling Tiger said hatefully, "Isn't this still cursing me?"
Wang Shao laughed out loud, "Master, you are so overly concerned! These four verses are a riddle, and the answer to the riddle is 'needle' Think about it, don't you?"
The smiling tiger was stunned, only angry dry eyes, no words to say, turned around and left in a mess. The surrounding people know that Wang Shao is pointing at the monk scolding thieves and bald, and happy to laugh.
The story spread far and wide.
The next year, many people wrote riddles on the lanterns for the amusement of those who watched the lanterns.
In fact, the riddles were a by-product of the lanterns, which were used to increase the festive atmosphere.
Lantern riddles are a unique Chinese word game, originating from the ancient cryptic language, it will be things or phrases of the real image of the temporary hidden, another with a thing related to the characteristics or background, composed of beautiful rhymes or popular text, to suspense and challenge others.
After the Sixth Dynasty and up to the Tang Dynasty, there were many literati who loved riddles. Lanterns hanging riddles, difficult to ask people, began in the Southern Song Dynasty, "Wulin old story" has mentioned the Lantern Festival Festival forbidden city not night for the lanterns, the congregation of riddles written in the lights, reflecting in the candles, hanging columns of the thoroughfares, by the people guessing, at that time known as the "Lanterns riddles," belonging to a kind of elegant Puzzle Entertainment. Later, has been extended to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
To the late Qing Dynasty, lantern riddles decline, the literary value gradually faded, and flow for the vulgar riddles.
Lantern riddles are a product of the agricultural society in the era of the rise of the peace, the progress of the times, the pace of life is getting faster and faster, and then fewer people have leisure time, the decline of the lantern riddles is a very natural thing.