Qingming Festival is an important traditional festival in China. When it comes to Qingming Festival, the weather is generally warm, the grass grows and the Orioles return. All things are revived. It is a good time to enjoy spring with friends. In addition to outings, Qingming Festival is also a festival to commemorate the ancestors. Every family pays homage to their ancestors and sweeps their tombs to comfort their ancestors.
Qingming Festival, also known as the spring outing Festival, is the 108th day after the winter solstice. It is a traditional Chinese festival and one of the most important sacrificial festivals. The traditional Qingming Festival of the Han nationality in China began in the Zhou Dynasty and has a history of more than 2500 years.
Qingming was only the name of solar terms in the first place. It became a festival to commemorate the ancestors and related to the cold food festival. Cold food festival is an early festival in ancient China. It is said that it was set up in the spring and Autumn period to commemorate Jie Zitui, a loyal and righteous official of Jin State. In fact, from the historical point of view, the prohibition of fire and cold food mainly reflects the remains of the custom of changing fire in ancient China. In primitive society, the ancestors dug wood for fire, and the fire was hard to come by. The tree species for fire were often changed due to seasonal changes. Therefore, it was an important event in the life of the ancients to change fire and exchange for new fire. Spring and March is the season to change the fire. People should forbid to make a fire before the new one arrives. The Han Dynasty called the cold food festival a non-smoking day, because people were not allowed to raise fire on that day. In the evening, candles were lit in the palace, and the fire was transmitted to the families of noble relatives and important officials.
The customs during the cold food festival mainly include prohibition of fire and cold food and tomb sweeping, which later became the main content of Qingming Festival. The ancients attached great importance to the sacrifice of Chinese ancestors. In ancient times, when some family members died, they only dug tombs and buried them, without building mound signs. Sacrifice was mainly carried out in ancestral temples. Later, when digging tombs, they built tombs and arranged ancestor worship in cemeteries, which provided material support. During the Warring States period, the trend of tomb sacrifice gradually increased.
In the Qin and Han Dynasties, the custom of sweeping graves was more prosperous. According to the book of the Han Dynasty, Yan Yannian, the Minister of state, would return to his hometown to visit the cemetery regularly even if he was thousands of miles away from Beijing. In the Tang Dynasty, both scholars and civilians regarded the tomb sweeping on the cold food festival as a ritual to return to their original family. Because the Tomb Sweeping Day was very close to the cold food festival, people often extended the tomb sweeping to the Tomb Sweeping Day. For example, Wei Yingwu said in a poem: "it's good to eat cold food during the Qingming Festival, and flowers bloom in the spring garden.". "Bai Juyi also said in a poem:" the crowing magpie crows over the trees. Who cries for cold food in the Qingming Festival. "In view of the fact that both cold food and Tomb Sweeping Day have been practiced in the folk society, the court formally stipulated in the form of official documents that when the Tomb Sweeping Day arrives, it can have a holiday together with the cold food festival. This regulation has been more than 1200 years ago, which shows that the Qingming Festival has the color of a national legal festival since then.
In the song and Yuan Dynasties, the Qingming Festival gradually rose from being attached to the cold food festival to replacing the cold food festival. This not only shows that tomb sweeping and other rituals are mostly held during the Qingming Festival, but also the original customs and activities such as cold food, Cuju and swing on the cold food festival are all taken over by the Qingming Festival.
The Qingming Festival later absorbed the content of Shangsi Festival, another earlier Festival. In ancient times, Shangsi festival was held on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar. The main customs of Shangsi Festival are outing in the green and bathing in the river to pray for blessings and eliminate disasters, which reflects the psychological needs of people in need of spiritual adjustment after a dull winter. Lu Ji of the Jin Dynasty wrote in a poem: "it's late in the spring, and the weather is soft and beautiful. At the beginning of Yuan Jilong, he swam on the Yellow River. At that time, it was a vivid portrayal of the festival.
From about the Tang Dynasty, people paid a visit to the Qing Dynasty as well as tomb sweeping. Since the Tomb Sweeping Day is to go to the countryside, while mourning for our ancestors, we can gallop the green fields in the bright spring light, which is also a kind of adjustment way to change our mood. Therefore, Qingming Festival is also known as the Qingming Festival. Children who are fond of playing are often not satisfied with having a outing only once in Qingming, just as Wang Wei, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, once said: "young people travel in different days, so they don't have to go to Qingming and Shangsi.".
Finally, in the song and Yuan Dynasties, a tomb sweeping day, which was the essence of two ancient festivals, was formed. It was a traditional festival combining the cold food custom with the Shangsi outing. The Ming and Qing Dynasties generally inherited the old system of the previous dynasties, and Qingming Festival still maintained and developed its status as an indispensable festival in spring life. During the period of the Republic of China, in addition to the original customs of tomb sweeping and outing, tree planting was also determined as a routine item. In fact, it was only an official recognition of the long-term folk tree planting custom.