1 originated from the sacrificial activities of ancient emperors.
The Confucian classic Book of Rites in the pre-Qin and Western Han dynasties recorded that "the sun rises in spring, the sun rises in autumn and the moon sets at night", which means that emperors began to worship the moon and Yue Bai as early as the Spring and Autumn Period. Later, aristocratic officials and scholars followed suit and gradually spread to the people.
2. Originated from agricultural production
China has been a farming nation since ancient times, and autumn is the harvest season. Especially in the Mid-Autumn Festival in August, all kinds of crops, fruits and vegetables are maturing one after another. People regard the Mid-Autumn Festival, the middle day of autumn, as a festival to celebrate the harvest and express joy. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival may be a custom passed down by the ancients.
3. The moon cake says
Some historians have pointed out that the origin of Mid-Autumn Festival should be August 15th, 13th year of Tang Jun's great cause at the end of Sui Dynasty. Pei Ji and Tang Jun, with the idea of a full moon, successfully invented moon cakes and distributed them to the army as military salaries, which successfully solved the problem of military rations derived from the absorption of a large number of anti-Sui rebel troops and gave birth to the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration.
Second, legends and stories
In the legend of Mid-Autumn Festival, "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon" is undoubtedly the most talked about.
This is an ancient fairy tale, which originated from the ancient people's worship of stars. According to the existing written records, it first appeared in the Warring States period. Chang 'e, the fairy of the Moon Palace in China mythology, lived in the Guanghan Palace above the moon because she took the elixir of immortality that Dayu got from the Queen Mother of the West.
Chang 'e was forced by Feng Meng. In desperation, she ate two pills of elixir given by the Queen Mother of the West to her husband Hou Yi and flew to the Moon Palace. The myth of "the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon".
The myths and legends about Chang 'e are all recorded in the classic Gui Zang from Shang Dynasty to Warring States Period, among which it can be explained as husband and wife through the comparison of divinatory images. The annotation in Huai Nan Zi of Gaoyou in the Eastern Han Dynasty clearly points out that Chang 'e is the wife of Hou Yi. Chang 'e, Hou Yi's wife, changed her name to Chang 'e, because the Han people avoided the taboo of the then emperor Liu Heng.