Qingming Festival has nothing to do with Tomb Sweeping
4hw.com.cn: Qingming Festival is a traditional festival in China, and it is also the most important festival for sacrifice and tomb sweeping. Tomb sweeping is the most important activity in all ages. But do you know that the ancient Qingming Festival has nothing to do with sacrifice? What's the matter? Let's have a look.
To understand the origin of Qingming Festival, we must first understand the other two festivals: Shangsi Festival and cold food festival. The dates of these three festivals are very close, usually in the first ten days of lunar March.
First of all, Shangsi Festival is one of the oldest festivals in China. It is said to be originated from the commemoration of the birth of the Yellow Emperor and also the day of Zou. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Shangsi festival was changed to March 3, and gradually became a feast by the water and a spring festival in the countryside.
Cold food festival is generally 105 days after the winter solstice. Its origin also has a legend: in the spring and Autumn period, Prince Chong'er of Jin was in exile, tired, hungry and unable to move forward. He happened to be in a place where there were no people. But he had no choice but to cut a piece of meat from his leg and boil soup for Chong'er.
When Chong'er became Duke Wen of Jin Dynasty, Jie Zitui didn't ask for contributions, but took his mother to live in seclusion in the mountains. Duke Wen of Jin insisted on asking him to come out to express his thanks, so he set fire to burn the mountain from three sides and tried to force him out of the mountain. But I didn't expect that jiezitui was burned with his mother at last, and I was not moved. In order to commemorate jieziti, Duke Wen of Jin ordered this day to be cold food festival.
In ancient times, it was necessary to ban fireworks, eat only cold food and worship ancestors. In the Han Dynasty, the cold food festival was forbidden for a month in many places. In the Tang Dynasty, the cold food festival became three days, namely, big cold food, official cold food and small cold food. Due to the relationship between festival customs, the cold food festival atmosphere has been a little sad.
Due to the relationship of calendar algorithm, the coincidence rate of Qingming in 24 solar terms and "little cold food" is very high. On the basis of the solar term, the Qingming Festival gradually formed. At first, the main custom of Qingming Festival was outing, and the connotation of the festival was cheerful. In other words, Qingming Festival is not a sad Festival, but is called "Carnival" in ancient China: because there are many outdoor entertainment activities, and men and women participate in it together.
However, for quite a long period of time, people mainly celebrate Shangsi Festival, and the existence of cold food festival and Qingming Festival is not high. Until the Tang Dynasty, Cuju and many other recreational activities joined in, the festival combination of cold food festival and Qingming Festival developed rapidly, and gradually reached the level with Shangsi Festival.
At the same time, although the status of cold food festival has been improved, compared with the happy Qingming Festival, it was a little less popular at that time. In the course of development since then, Qingming Festival continues to absorb the customs of Shangsi Festival and cold food festival, including willow planting, tomb sweeping, etc., plus its own youth tour, and finally forms the now familiar Qingming Festival.
In this way, during the song and Yuan Dynasties, the Qingming Festival, which combined the essence of two ancient festivals, finally formed a traditional festival centered on ancestor worship and tomb sweeping, integrating cold food customs with Shangsi outing and other activities. Ming and Qing Dynasties generally inherited the old system of the previous generation, and the Qingming Festival still maintained and developed its indispensable status.
Before that, the question whether Qingming Festival can be said to be "happy festival" was once controversial. In the opinion of folklore experts, there is no need to discuss this issue. Qingming Festival is the most important festival in spring, with rich connotation. It is not a sad Festival, and it is absolutely OK to say 'Happy Festival'.
"Tomb Sweeping and outing are combined in Qingming Festival. To offer sacrifices to ancestors, later generations expressed their yearning for their ancestors, and also received spiritual consolation. As one of the important contents of Qingming Festival, outing is to let people feel the vitality of spring and full of positive attitude towards life. "Said the expert.