What is the Mid-Autumn Festival? It is one of the traditional festivals in China, and it is a festival that many people expect. It has been popular since the Tang Dynasty, so let's follow me to see the relevant knowledge about what the Mid-Autumn Festival is, hoping to help everyone.

What is the Mid-Autumn Festival 1 What is the Mid-Autumn Festival?

Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival. Mid-Autumn Festival is also called August Festival, Moon Chasing Festival, Moon Worship Festival, Daughter's Day, etc. It began in the Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty. Until the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was an important festival with the same name as the Spring Festival. Nowadays, Chinese culture has a far-reaching influence, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is also celebrated in East Asia and Southeast Asia. The traditional customs of Mid-Autumn Festival include appreciating the moon, offering sacrifices to the moon, drinking osmanthus wine, enjoying osmanthus, and so on, which have been passed down to this day.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is in August of the lunar calendar, and this month is in the middle of autumn, which is called "Mid-Autumn", and the fifteenth day is also in autumn and this month, so August fifteenth is called the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival is mainly on the moon, and the common names of "Moon Festival" and "Moon Night" come from it. The moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival is round and big, which has a good meaning of reunion, so it is also called "Reunion Festival".

On May 20, 2006, the Mid-Autumn Festival was included in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list, and in 2008, the state designated the Mid-Autumn Festival as a national legal holiday.

What is the predecessor of Mid-Autumn Festival?

Like other festivals, the Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the pre-Qin period, when people worshipped and sacrificed the moon. According to the available data, we can know that the ancients would sacrifice to the moon on the autumnal equinox, and it was not until the calendar appeared that the festival of sacrificing to the moon was transferred to the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month.

Zhou Li is the earliest extant document to record the word Mid-Autumn Festival. It can be seen that the Festival of Sacrificing the Moon has evolved into such a happy family festival as Mid-Autumn Festival in the Han Dynasty. Although the Mid-Autumn Festival was recorded in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Mid-Autumn Festival was not widely popular in the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties.

The Mid-Autumn Festival can become a national unified festival, which should be in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the Book of the Tang Dynasty, it is recorded how people in the Tang Dynasty spent the Mid-Autumn Festival. The Tang Dynasty is an extremely romantic dynasty. They combined all kinds of myths about the moon and the Mid-Autumn Festival to form a unique romantic literature, and even combined various customs of the Mid-Autumn Festival to make them more interesting.

The dynasty that officially established the Mid-Autumn Festival as August 15th was the Song Dynasty, and cookies close to moon cakes also appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty. Meng Yuan's Tokyo Dream of China recorded the scene of Mid-Autumn Festival in the Northern Song Dynasty in detail. After that, the Mid-Autumn Festival has become one of the important festivals in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and moon cakes have also successfully entered all walks of life.

Appreciating the moon, offering sacrifices to the moon, eating moon cakes, etc. are all customs left over by people's agreement. Why eat moon cakes and enjoy the moon on the Mid-Autumn Festival? First, it is the custom left over from the ancient moon festival; second, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a good time to enjoy the moon because of the sparse clouds; third, it is related to the myth related to the moon.

What are the customs of Mid-Autumn Festival?

1, enjoy the moon

There has been a custom of enjoying the moon in China since ancient times, and it is recorded in the Book of Rites that "the moon falls at dusk in autumn", that is, worshipping the moon god. In the Zhou dynasty, every mid-autumn night was held to welcome the cold and offer sacrifices to the moon. Set up a big incense table and put on seasonal fruits such as moon cakes, watermelons, apples, plums and grapes, among which moon cakes and watermelons are absolutely indispensable.

2. Eat moon cakes

As the saying goes, "August 15th is a full moon, and Mid-Autumn moon cakes are sweet and fragrant". Moon cakes were originally used as sacrifices to the moon god. The word "moon cakes" first appeared in Wu Zimu's Dream of the Liang Lu in the Southern Song Dynasty. At that time, it was just a cake-shaped food like Linghua cake. Later, people gradually combined the Mid-Autumn Festival with mooncake tasting, which symbolizes family reunion.

3. Sacrifice the moon

Under the moon, put the moon statue in the direction of the moon, and the red candle burns high. The whole family worships the moon in turn, and then the housewife cuts up the reunion moon cake. Cut the people in advance to calculate the number of people in the whole family, at home and in the field, all together, can not cut more or less, the size should be the same.

What is the Mid-Autumn Festival? 2 The three themes of Mid-Autumn Festival.

First, this month once shone on the ancients: the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival

The initial embryonic form of Mid-Autumn Festival can be traced back to the ancient people's worship of natural phenomena, especially the moon. There are a lot of contents about sacrifice in the Book of Rites. Among them, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, there was a record of "offering sacrifices to the sun at the altar and the moon at the altar".

In the Qin and Han Dynasties, every autumn equinox, the emperor would send ministers to sacrifice to the moon. During the period of Emperor Wendi of the Western Han Dynasty, Liu An, the king of Huainan, and his disciples wrote a book "Huainanzi", which collected and processed a large number of myths related to the moon, including stories such as "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon" and "Wu Gang cutting Guangxi", which had a great influence on later generations.

During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, metaphysics prevailed, and the literati's poems about the moon gradually increased. Tao Yuanming once wrote: "In the morning, I will promote the management of waste and filth, and bring the lotus home with me." Shen Xiuwen, a famous litterateur in the Southern Dynasties, once wrote "A Moon-Chanting Song for Wang Zhongcheng and Philip Burkart", which is an early poem about the moon. However, at that time, people worshiped the bright moon and expressed their feelings for the moon not only on August 15th. The Mid-Autumn Festival in the poem only refers to the middle stage of autumn, which is similar to Mid-Autumn, not the solar terms, and August 15th is not a festival. The most powerful evidence is the Tang Dynasty writer Ouyang Zhan's "Playing with the Moon", which records:

When the moon is for fun, the winter is full of frost and cold, and the summer is full of steaming clouds and heat. Yun Zheyue, frost invades people, covering and invading, all of which are harmful to play. Autumn is in time, then summer and winter; August is in autumn, and the season begins and ends in Meng; The fifteenth day is in the night and the middle of the month. If you are in heaven, you will be cold and hot; Take the number of months, and the toad and rabbit are round.

According to Ouyang Zhan, people liked to enjoy the moon on August 15th, because it was too hot in summer and too cold in winter, and because it was full and cool on August 15th, so it was the most suitable day to enjoy the moon. It can be seen that people enjoyed the moon on August 15th at that time, not because it was a festival, but because the climate was suitable.

The Tang Dynasty was a paradise for poetry, and there were numerous poems about the moon, among which Li Bai, Bai Juyi and others described the moon with excellent sentences. So that in the middle and late Tang Dynasty, appreciating the moon became a must for scholar-officials on August 15th. The phrase "Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th" was recorded in the Book of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. It is precisely because of this sentence that many people believe that the Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the Tang Dynasty. From the custom of "appreciating the moon" in Mid-Autumn Festival, we can think that Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the Tang Dynasty. However, the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Tang Dynasty is only a season, not a concept of "festival". It was in the Song Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival was really designated as a festival.

During the Song Dynasty, culture and commodity economy developed further, and the custom of enjoying the moon was integrated with more entertainment and market elements. That is to say, in the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was no longer the patent of the literati class, and folk customs gradually formed, and holiday themes such as "reunion" were injected on this day. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the court officially issued a fake peace order, and officials could take a day off on the Mid-Autumn Festival. Since then, the Mid-Autumn Festival has officially become a "festival".

Second, if the moon is full of affection, it will be long and round: the theme of "reunion" in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Northern Song Dynasty

With the foreshadowing of the Tang Dynasty, on the Mid-Autumn Festival full moon night, scholars and literati began to enjoy the moon and sing poems on this day. In the Song Dynasty, this tradition spread more widely. There are not only Su Shi's "Water Tune Song Tou", but also folk customs such as enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival, frolicking and raising torches.

Although it is good to enjoy the moon, it is not always possible to enjoy it every year. For example, if there is no moon to enjoy in extreme weather, wouldn't it be disappointing? So on this day, people began to invite friends to get together. If there is no moon, at least the family can get together for a drink. Take Yan Shu, a scholar-bureaucrat, as an example. Yan Shu was a famous writer in the Northern Song Dynasty. He and Wang Junyu were close friends. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, they would enjoy the moon together. One Mid-Autumn Festival, because it was cloudy and there was no moon to enjoy, Yan Shu was very disappointed. Wang Junyu wrote poems to entertain, and called the women and children of the two families together. The two families drank happily until the next day.

Ouyang Xiu, a great writer in the Song Dynasty, also had the habit of inviting friends to get together during the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the eighth year of Qingli, Ouyang Xiu was an official in Yangzhou. Before the Mid-Autumn Festival, he asked his family to prepare food for the Mid-Autumn Festival early, and he invited Mei Yaochen and other friends to get together.

At first, most scholars in the Song Dynasty invited friends and colleagues to gather at the Mid-Autumn Festival, but this custom became more secular when it spread to the people. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, the folk people begin to invite their parents, brothers and relatives to get together, which makes them happy and adds a lot of life. In the farming society, the Mid-Autumn Festival is the harvest season, and the bottom people put the crops, candied fruit, melons and fruits harvested in autumn on the table, so that the whole family can taste them together, which makes it interesting.

At this time, a clever daughter-in-law will make some cakes and shortcakes. Su Shi wrote in "Stay away and be honest": "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, and there are crispness and satiety in them." Here, the word "small cake" was mentioned, and the word "moon cake" was mentioned for the first time in "Old Wulin Story" in the Song Dynasty. Because the story of the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon recorded in Huai Nan Zi also happened on a full moon night, people put Chang 'e, Jade Rabbit, Osmanthus fragrans and other patterns on the surface of moon cakes, which further enhanced the folk atmosphere of Mid-Autumn Festival. Because moon cakes and the moon are in the same shape, they all have the meaning of "reunion".

After the development of this custom of getting together in the Mid-Autumn Festival, the bright moon, sweet-scented osmanthus, moon cakes, fruits, wine, etc. have become common folk elements in the Mid-Autumn Festival. If you are in the south of the Yangtze River or near the sea, crabs are also essential delicacies in the Mid-Autumn Festival. When relatives get together, there is food to eat, children are more hilarious, adults are laughing constantly, and the feeling of reunion is very strong.

From the Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, the theme of the Mid-Autumn Festival changed from "enjoying the moon" to "reunion". The main reasons can be summarized as follows:

First, although the culture of the Tang Dynasty was prosperous, most literati had the idea of passive seclusion, so the cultural atmosphere of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival was mostly full of loneliness and loneliness. The Song Dynasty took "valuing literature over martial arts" as its national policy. Most of the literati in the Song Dynasty had Fan Zhongyan's "feelings of home and country", and the attitude of the literati in the Song Dynasty was relatively positive. The cold mood of enjoying the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival was no longer suitable for the literati in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the literati in the Song Dynasty celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival with their colleagues, friends and family, which played a certain role in promoting the theme of "reunion" in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Second, the folk culture in Song Dynasty developed rapidly, and the Mid-Autumn Festival gradually became secular. Scholars in the Song Dynasty diversified the entertainment methods of Mid-Autumn Festival, and the folk gradually followed suit, which became a common practice. The evolution of folk festival customs is an important driving force to promote the theme change of Mid-Autumn Festival.

Thirdly, farming civilization has a great influence on the Mid-Autumn Festival season. The Mid-Autumn Festival is accompanied by the timely emergence of agricultural products, fruits, moon cakes and other cultures among the people, which promotes the beautiful meaning of "reunion" in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Therefore, it can be concluded that the Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Tang Dynasty, with the theme of "appreciating the moon" at first. After the development of the times, it joined the festival theme of "reunion" in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Third, lifting myself to look, I found that it was moonlight and sinking back again, I thought suddenly of home: the theme of "reunion" in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Southern Song Dynasty.

If in the Northern Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival had both the theme of "appreciating the moon" and "reunion", in the Southern Song Dynasty, due to the special historical background and culture, the theme of "homesickness" was added to the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the festive atmosphere of Mid-Autumn Festival was relatively relaxed in the literati class and the bottom people class. Most literati liked to enjoy the moon and reunite with their friends, and the people were also happy to have family reunion at this time. There are many descriptions of family reunion in the Mid-Autumn Festival in The Whole Song Poetry. For example, Kong Pingzhong wrote in the Mid-Autumn Festival in Xining for four years:

The full moon is especially good, the autumn breath is clearer, the years are bitter and rainy, and Enigmatic is alone this night. My niece in Houge, my brother in Qiantang. Reunion is the most appropriate, and drinking to the deepest.

However, in the Southern Song Dynasty, due to political reasons, especially at the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, after the Song Dynasty experienced the shame of Jingkang, the ministers of the Southern Song Dynasty moved south several times. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, the atmosphere is rather depressing, and the literati began to miss their relatives and homeland in the north. Because they could not "reunite", they formed a feeling of "homesickness". At this time, the Mid-Autumn Festival has joined the strong yearning for relatives and the mountains and rivers of the motherland.

Among them, Liu Xue Ji, an official of the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote in Ankang Mid-Autumn Festival Book:

Last year, I left all the wine schools, and I didn't return to the moon. This year, I am as happy as ever, and I don't have to worry about whether there is a month or not ... I hope my body is strong and I won't make my flesh and blood sigh.

On the night of Mid-Autumn Festival, this poem originally missed the family, but in the end it lamented that the motherland was degraded and the north and south were separated.

1 174, the Mid-Autumn Festival night in the first year of Chunxi in Song Xiaozong in the Southern Song Dynasty, the famous Southern Song poet Xin Qiji wrote a poem "Tai Chang cited the Mid-Autumn Night in Jiankang as Lu Shuqian's Fu", saying:

The autumn shadow turns to golden waves, and the flying mirror is re-ground. Ask Heng E about the wine: What can you do if you are white-haired and deceiving others? Take the wind, go to Wan Li in the sky, and look down at the mountains and rivers. Going to Guangxi is more humane and clear.

Xin Qiji was a famous anti-gold person in the Southern Song Dynasty. He wrote this word to his friends, and borrowed the full moon night in the Mid-Autumn Festival to express his wish to recover his homeland. Although it does not reflect "homesickness", it is full of feelings of home and country. It can indirectly explain the feelings of literati in the Southern Song Dynasty who miss their homeland during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In fact, after the shame of Jingkang, the Song Dynasty lost half of its territory and found itself in a corner of peace. In order to avoid war, most wealthy businessmen and literati moved to the south. However, China has moved to another place since ancient times. After being far away from his native land, people miss the land in the north and their separated relatives more and more. Literati can express their feelings with poems, while the bottom people can only look at the bright moon in the sky and place their homesickness through the Mid-Autumn Festival. Therefore, the theme of "homesickness" has developed rapidly among the people.

In addition to the political environment, the development of Neo-Confucianism has also promoted the formation of the theme of "homesickness".

In the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism developed rapidly, and the "loyalty and filial piety" advocated by Confucianism was even advocated by the society. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, people accompanied their families and respected their parents, which became a necessary feeling for the festival. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival gradually added some ethical significance from a festival. Over time, when people are alone or far away from their hometown, this "homesickness" feeling is not just a holiday tradition, but accompanied by ethical drive in their bones.

To sum up, the Mid-Autumn Festival, from "enjoying the moon" in the Tang Dynasty to "reunion" in the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, still has its theme. Due to the development of political environment and Neo-Confucianism, the Mid-Autumn Festival has formed another theme of "homesickness", and a variety of festival themes meet, forming a richer theme and custom of Mid-Autumn Festival.

Four, a thousand miles * * * Chanjuan: Summarize the three major themes of Mid-Autumn Festival.

The formation and development of traditional festivals in China are deeply influenced by historical and cultural factors, and it is this influence that keeps the traditional festivals stable and dynamic. The Mid-Autumn Festival originated from the worship of the moon by the working people in ancient China, and it was constantly improved in the historical development. In the Tang Dynasty, "appreciating the moon" became a major trend of the Mid-Autumn Festival, and then gradually formed a custom. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the scholar-bureaucrat atmosphere changed, and the Mid-Autumn Festival added the festival theme of "reunion", which was introduced to the people from the scholar-bureaucrat class and merged with China's farming civilization. During the Southern Song Dynasty, due to historical reasons and the development of Neo-Confucianism, the theme of "homesickness" began to be integrated, forming an important festival culture of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Appreciating the moon, reunion and homesickness are three major holiday themes, which have been completely inherited and developed by later generations, contributing to the unique position of the Mid-Autumn Festival in traditional festivals and enduring for a long time. I hope that people will live for a long time, and thousands of miles will be beautiful. On the occasion of the Mid-Autumn Festival, I would like to wish all readers a happy family.