Super Cold Ancient Festivals - Buddha Bathing Festival

The Buddha Bathing Festival, also known as April 8, Buddha's Birthday Festival, and Longhua Hui, has gradually emerged in the folklore since Buddhism was introduced to China. Today, many monasteries, as well as believers in Buddhism, still hold activities to continue the custom of the Buddha Bathing Festival.

Origin of the festival

The festival began with the birth of Sakyamuni.

Shakyamuni is the founder of Buddhism, and therefore also known as the folk "Buddha", we often say Rudraksha Buddha, in fact, is Shakyamuni's one of the ten titles.

Legend has it that when Siddhartha Gautama was born, nine dragons spat out pure water with fragrance to wash his body. And when he was born, he could walk, and each of his feet also stepped on a lotus flower, with one finger pointing to the sky and the other to the earth. Therefore, the day of Sakyamuni's birth was designated as the Buddha Bathing Festival. Buddhism was introduced to China during the Eastern Han Dynasty. At first, only monasteries celebrated the festival, and it was only after the Wei, Jin, and North/South Dynasties that the festival was gradually celebrated among the people. The date of the festival is also said to be various, and after the evolution of the times, it is generally fixed on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar.

Festival Rituals

Buddha Bathing

On the day of the Buddha Bathing Festival, all the major Zen monasteries usually conduct Buddha bathing. The monks will place incense and candles inside the Zen monasteries, and place the bronze Buddha statues in the fragrant water of the bathing water for bathing and washing, and the people who believe in Buddhism will come to pray for blessings. At the end of the bathing, people who believe in Buddhism come to pray for blessings. After the bathing, they ask for some of the water to be poured on their heads or drink it.

The incense used in the water is also very delicate and varied, for example, in the Song Dynasty, the "five-color incense soup" consisting of Du Liang Xiang (green water), Yu Jin Se (red water), Qiu Long Xiang (white water), Pian Zi Xiang (yellow water), and Nu Xie Xiang (black water) was used to bathe the Buddha.

Fasting

Also known as eating fasting, good will, the temple will be held on the day of the festival of fasting, invited to chanting, eating fasting, but not to come to eat or to pay for the meal, commonly known as "will be printed money", the meal is usually noodles, vegetables and so on. The festival also has a lot of special food and drink delicacies.

Tang Dynasty in the Buddha Bath Festival will eat "cake rice", the Five Dynasties, people will eat "fingers of the sky shuttle filling": the Yuan Dynasty to eat "perfumed black cake": the Ming Dynasty to eat a kind of called "not fall clip". The Ming Dynasty ate a kind of food similar to zongzi called "BuLuJiao", as well as umi rice. However, due to the Qing dynasty rulers believe in shaman, these characteristics of food in the historical data gradually disappeared.

Knotting

It is the practice of giving "knotting beans" in order to pray for karma in the next life. The monks would cook the beans and sprinkle salt on them, and distribute them to the visitors and pedestrians in order to make Buddhist karmic connections, and the people would also give beans to make good karmic connections.

Life Release

Buddhism advocates not to kill, so it is natural that there is a custom of releasing live animals during the Bathing Buddha Festival, and in most places, a life release assembly is held.

Praying for children

Not only do the faithful come to pray and chant during the festival, but many women also pray to the "Goddess of Mercy" and "Maitreya" to have children.