The Spring Festival is one of the most important festivals in Chinese, and since ancient times, there has been a saying that "the hundred festivals are the first". So, in the Tang Dynasty a thousand years ago, how did people celebrate the Spring Festival?
In fact, in a strict sense, the Tang Dynasty people did not have the saying that the Spring Festival was celebrated. The Tang Dynasty adopted Xia Zheng, with the first day of the first lunar month as the first year, and they called the New Year "Yuan Zheng". And for the Tang Dynasty people, too Yuanzheng, they are serious.
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang specially issued the "Decree of False Tranquility", which stipulated: "Yuan Zheng and winter solstice shall each be given seven days of leave." "See, in the Tang Dynasty, there was already a "Golden Week".
On the day of Chinese New Year's Eve, the Tang Dynasty people would hold a grand puppet show. A kind of opera is a form of opera formed by absorbing folk songs, dances and dramas on the basis of folk sacrifice ceremonies, it has a long history, since the ancient pre-Qin period, it has been an important activity of the Spring Festival of the Chinese people. In the Tang Dynasty, the religious color of puppet opera gradually faded, the folk entertainment atmosphere was strong, and its dance movements changed from mysterious and strange to beautiful and moving, which also made it an important entertainment activity for officials and people to enjoy together.
In addition to the puppet play, the Tang Dynasty Spring Festival also has a major play, the vigil. In the Tang Dynasty, the court had the custom of vigil, and Li Shangyin described the grand situation of the vigil in the Sui Dynasty in the poem "Sui Palace Shou Nian": "Shen Xiangjia is fried for the court, and jade liquid qiong pulp is used as a shou cup." Looking at the dew disk in the distance, it was suspected that it was the moon, and the distant smell of the drum was thunderous. "The Tang Dynasty, as the peak of China's feudal dynasty, was even more magnificent and gorgeous in its palace vigil than the Sui Dynasty.
In the folk, vigil is also an important activity during the Spring Festival. Meng Haoran has a poem cloud "The family should lie down at the end of the year", which shows the degree of love of the people for the vigil during the Tang Dynasty. In the Chinese New Year's Eve night, folk have some customs such as candles, door gods, pasting Spring Festival, pressing new year money, and hanging New Year paintings. On the street, there are lights everywhere, like lantern clubs, colorful. Unfortunately, the fireworks that could take off during the Tang Dynasty had not yet appeared, and the children at that time only played with "firecrackers". Otherwise, with the national strength of datang, the sky of Chinese New Year's Eve night must be colorful. Chinese New Year's Eve night activities continue until daylight, and the vigil officially ends.
However, Yuan Zheng has only just begun. The ancients valued the family, and so did the Tang Dynasty. On the morning of the first day, the descendants of the elders in the extended family gave the elders of the family a new year early. Regarding the etiquette of new year worship, the Tang Dynasty had a special rule, men mainly knelt down on both knees and prostrated their heads, while women did not need to kneel, standing forward and bending forward and arching their hands. This is also a feature of the Tang Dynasty, where women are generous and natural, revealing the open and inclusive spirit of the Tang Dynasty.
In the prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty, the people were rich, and even the way of the New Year appeared generous. On the first day, every household in Chang'an City has a banquet, and wherever the guests go, they will eat wherever they go, and the host family generally does not skimp on it. Therefore, at that time, no matter who the Tang Dynasty people visited, they had food to enjoy. However, according to the customs of the Tang Dynasty, it is necessary to bring "New Year's Greetings" when visiting the New Year. This custom originated during the Tang Taizong period, when Li Shimin made a greeting card out of red gold leaf and wrote the imperial book "Universal Celebration" to the ministers. This form quickly became popular among the people, and it was impossible for people to use gold leaf, so they replaced it with plum blossom paper, which was also known as "flying post" at that time.
The Tang Dynasty people originally loved to communicate, coupled with the seven-day "Golden Week", officials had a hard time taking a holiday, and they didn't have to worry about the case, so naturally they had to relax and entertain. However, the Tang Dynasty stipulated that on the first day of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court should hold the Yuan Day Great Dynasty Meeting, which was the most solemn dynasty meeting of the year, and the officials in the Beijing Division could not be absent for no reason, and the officials in the field must also send people to send congratulatory gifts, and even the vassal states of the Tang Dynasty must also send emissaries to pay tribute to the Emperor and congratulate the Great Emperor on his boundless life.
Therefore, the officials in the Beijing Division during the Tang Dynasty had to pay homage to the emperor on the first day of the new year, and have a meal with the emperor before they could go home and reunite with their families. As for the local officials, there was also a rule at that time that they were not allowed to leave the government and return to their hometowns, so they either took their families to their own jurisdictions for the New Year together, or they could only look at each other with tears in their eyes. However, this is not the most tragic, during the Tang Dezong period, due to the many problems of the country, Dezong was also a diligent emperor, he did not want to give officials a holiday, and the officials fiercely opposed. Emperor Dezong then folded it in the middle, adopting the "single and double number" type of holiday, the twenty-eighth holiday of the Waxing Moon, the twenty-ninth day of the Waxing Moon, and so on. The ministers could only cry without tears.
However, compared with the emperor, the ministers were still more leisurely in the New Year. From the beginning of the new year, the emperors' hardest day officially began, they first held the Yuan Day Great Dynasty Meeting, received the civil and military officials, and then received the envoys sent by the vassal states one by one. The vassal states offered rare treasures, and the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty naturally could not neglect the people, and the words of encouragement and the rewards that should be given could not be less.
After the end of the Great Dynasty, the emperor will hold a large display to display the "national instruments" and reflect the powerful national strength of the Tang Dynasty, so as to show the wind and mighty spirit of the Tang Dynasty. After the decoration was completed, the emperor also had to watch the military parade, issue a general amnesty order, grant amnesty to the world, and let some prisoners go home to reunite with their families, which also revealed the strong humanistic color of the Tang Dynasty.
The Tang Dynasty was a prosperous dynasty in Chinese history, so the Spring Festival of the Tang Dynasty also revealed its profound cultural heritage and strong national strength. Many of the Spring Festival customs of the Tang Dynasty have been passed down to the present day, and as an excellent traditional culture, it has become another valuable cultural wealth.
Resources:
Old Book of Tang