Lantern Festival is the main traditional festival in China, also known as Yuanxi and Yuanye, also known as Shangyuan Festival, because it is the first full moon night in the New Year. Because this festival has the custom of watching lanterns in past dynasties, it is also called the Lantern Festival. The formation of Lantern Festival custom has a long process. According to general data and folklore, the fifteenth day of the first month has been paid attention to in the Western Han Dynasty, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sacrificed in Ganquan Palace on the night of the first month? Taiyi? The activity was regarded by later generations as the first sound of offering sacrifices to the gods on the fifteenth day of the first month. However, the fifteenth day of the first month was really a folk festival after the Han and Wei Dynasties. The introduction of Buddhist culture in the Eastern Han Dynasty is of great significance to the formation of the Lantern Festival custom.
During the Yongping period of Emperor Han Ming (AD 58? 75), because the Ming Emperor advocated Buddhism, it coincided with Cai Kun's return from India for Buddhism, saying that on the fifteenth day of the first month in Mohatuo, India, monks gathered to pay tribute to Buddhist relics, which was an auspicious day to participate in Buddhism. In order to promote Buddhism, Emperor Hanming ordered the fifteenth night of the first month to be in the palace and the temple? Burning a lamp to show Buddha? . Therefore, the custom of burning lanterns on the fifteenth night of the first month has gradually spread in China with the expansion of the influence of Buddhist culture and the participation of Taoist culture. The real motivation of Lantern Festival custom is that it is at a new time point, and people make full use of this special time stage to express their wishes for life.
The custom of putting lights on Lantern Festival developed into an unprecedented lantern market in the Tang Dynasty, and after the middle Tang Dynasty, it has developed into a national carnival. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (AD 685? In 762), the lantern market in Chang 'an was very large, with 50,000 lanterns and various lanterns. The emperor ordered people to make 20 giant lantern buildings, with a height of 150 feet, which were golden and spectacular.
Since then, the Lantern Festival has developed continuously, and the time of Lantern Festival has become longer and longer. What is the Lantern Festival in Tang Dynasty? One day before and after Shangyuan? In the Song Dynasty, two days were added after the sixteenth, and in the Ming Dynasty, it was extended to ten days from the eighth day to the eighteenth.
In the Qing Dynasty, when Manchu entered the Central Plains, the court no longer held lantern festivals, but the folk lantern festivals were still spectacular. The date was shortened to five days and continues to this day.
? Solve riddles on the lanterns? Also called? Playing riddles? It is an activity added after the Lantern Festival, which appeared in the Song Dynasty. In the Southern Song Dynasty, the capital Lin 'an made riddles every Lantern Festival, and there were many people guessing riddles. At the beginning, it was a busybody who wrote riddles on paper and pasted them on colorful lanterns for people to guess. Because riddles are enlightening and interesting, they are welcomed by all walks of life in the process of spreading.
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, various acrobatic skills began to appear in the lantern market. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, besides riddles and hundreds of operas, there were also opera performances.
In addition to visiting the lantern market, people in the past dynasties also had customs such as welcoming Zigu to worship Ce Shen and crossing the bridge to touch nails and walk away from all diseases, and played games such as beating Taiping drum, yangko, stilts, dragon dance and lion dance. At the same time, we should also eat some festive foods: in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, we ate bean porridge or rice porridge cooked with meat and animal oil during the Lantern Festival, and in the Tang Dynasty, we ate a kind of porridge called? Cocoon? Pasta and burnt cakes (that is, scones) came into being in the Song Dynasty, and there was a soup made of salted black bean soup and mung bean powder. Mariko? Since then, eating Yuanxiao has been a habit in the north and south of the Lantern Festival.
During the Lantern Festival, it is the time for young men and women to meet their lovers, so the Lantern Festival has become China's? Valentine's day? .
The Lantern Festival in traditional society is a folk festival that is valued by both urban and rural areas. It is particularly lively in the city, and it embodies the unique carnival spirit of China people. The function of festival custom carried by the traditional Lantern Festival has been dispelled by daily life, and people have gradually lost their spiritual interest. The complex festival custom has been simplified to? Eat Yuanxiao? Food customs.