Since Buddhism was introduced to China, temples have cooked porridge with fragrant grains and fruits and distributed it to believers and faithful men and women. In the Song Dynasty, the folk gradually formed the custom of cooking and drinking porridge on Laba Festival, which has continued to this day.
Extended data
Buddhist theory
Eating Laba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is a custom formed by Chinese Buddhists to commemorate the enlightenment of Sakyamuni Buddha. Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, whose real name is Gautama Siddharta, is the son of Su Fan, King of Kapilovi (now Nepal) in northern India. When he was young, he saw that all life was suffering from physical illness and death. In order to seek the true meaning of life and the liberation of life and death, he abandoned the royal life and became a monk. He stayed in the snow-capped mountains for six years, and often every wheat and hemp was eclipsed.
Later, I found that asceticism was not the way out, so I gave up asceticism and went down the mountain. At this time, a shepherdess saw that he was weak and cooked chyle (made of milk and grain) to raise him. Sakyamuni recovered from this and stayed under the bodhi tree for seven days. On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, he saw the stars at night and became a Buddha.
Since Buddhism was introduced to China, temples have cooked porridge with fragrant grains and fruits and distributed it to believers and faithful men and women. On this day, various monasteries held a ritual meeting, imitating the story of the Buddha becoming a monk and offering chyme to a herder in front of the Taoist road, and cooking porridge for the Buddha with torreya grandis and fruit, called Laba porridge. In some monasteries, monks hold bowls and give alms along the street before the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. The collected rice, chestnuts, dates and nuts are boiled into Laba porridge and distributed to the poor. Everyone thinks that eating it can get the blessing of Buddha, so the poor call it "Buddha porridge"
Generally speaking, the Buddhist porridge in the temple is delicious and abundant, which can meet the needs of good men and women who come to the temple to attend the memorial ceremony. Some believers come specifically for "porridge" and think that Laba porridge is auspicious for the Buddha, not only for their own consumption, but also for their families. Year after year, the tradition of making Laba porridge in temples is widely circulated among the people.