Cold food festival should be familiar to all of us. It is one of the most important traditional festivals in our country and plays a very important role in ancient times. However, many customs of cold food festival have been moved to Qingming Festival, so we have gradually forgotten about it.
What's the date of cold food festival in 2019
Cold food festival 2019: Thursday, April 4, 2019
What does cold food festival mean
The cold food festival, also known as the "no smoking Festival", "cold Festival" and "Bai Wu Festival", follows the old habit of changing fire in ancient times. In early spring, the climate is dry, not only people's preserved fire is easy to cause fire, but also spring thunder is easy to cause mountain fire. In this season, the ancients had to carry out a grand sacrificial activity to extinguish all the fires handed down from the previous year, that is, to ban fire, and then drill the flint again to take out a new fire as the starting point of production and life in the new year, which is called "changing fire" or "inviting new fire". When changing the fire, a grand sacrificial activity should be held to burn the symbol of grain God Ji, which is called human sacrifice. As a result, the fire prohibition Festival came into being. There is a time interval between banning fire and changing fire. There are three days, five days and seven days in historical data. During this period of time when there is no fire, people must prepare enough cooked food to live on cold food, which is called 'cold food', hence the name 'cold food festival'. The cold food festival, which lasted for more than 2000 years, is known as the first memorial day among the people.
What does cold food festival do
In ancient times, the cold food festival was also called the "no smoking Festival". Every family was forbidden to make a fire and ate cold food. However, due to the Chinese people's persistent pursuit of the sages, from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the southern and Northern Dynasties, the imperial court of Tang Dynasty recognized and participated in it. In Su Shi's Wang Jiangnan Chaoran Tai Zuo, the saying "try new tea with new fire" refers to the poet's tea making behavior after cold food. Shanxi folk custom of banning fire and cold food is one day, only a few places are still used to banning fire for three days.
From the northern and Southern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, the cold food festival was regarded as a "wild sacrifice". In Tang Dynasty, it was included in the book of Kaiyuan rites, Volume 87, which became one of the auspicious rites officially recognized and advocated. Later, it evolved into royal mausoleum worship, official worship of Confucius Temple and sages, and common people's grave worship. At that time, a family or a group of people went to the ancestral cemetery to offer sacrifices, add soil and Hang paper money. Then they scattered Zi Tui Yan and she pan Tu on the top of the tomb, rolled them down, pierced them with willow branches or needles, and placed them on the top of the house to express their ancestors' virtue.
Cold food festival is a very important festival in China's thousands of years of history, but in modern times, many customs of cold food festival have been integrated into the Qingming Festival, so that now many people only remember the Qingming Festival, but almost forget the cold food festival.