Wang Yongping | From Lari to Lapa: The Combination of Local Culture and Foreign Culture

Author: Wang Yongping

Source: "Literature and History Knowledge" WeChat public account

The original article was published in The Knowledge of Literature and History, No. 1, 2019

The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the traditional festival of Lapa Ba in China, commonly known as "Lapa Ba". Although there are many opinions about the origin of the Lapa Festival, it should be considered that it is a far-reaching ritual of la-ri sacrifice in the pre-Qin period, recently influenced by the legend of Buddhism commemorating the enlightenment of the Buddha since the Jin and Tang dynasties, and in the Song and Ming dynasties, it combined the custom of praying for the new year in the past, and finally formed a folk festival with drinking Lapa porridge as the main landmark festival. The development from Lapa Day to Lapa Festival vividly reflects the process of absorption and transformation of foreign culture by local culture.

The Great Festival at the End of the Year: Wax Sai Hundred Gods and Laxiang Ancestors

In the pre-Qin period, because people were influenced by the concept of "animism", many gods and spirits were worshipped, such as the worship of ancestors, the worship of natural gods such as heaven and earth, the sun, moon and stars, and animals and plants, and various sacrifices were arranged according to different seasons and times. There are two important sacrifices in winter: the wax festival and the wax festival.

In ancient times, the wax of the wax festival, pronounced zhà, with "", is the name of the year-end sacrifice; there is also "lice", pronounced là, later simplified to "wax", which refers to the lipids secreted by animals and plants, also used as an abbreviation for candles. The wax of the wax sacrifice should be "臘", pronounced là, the same as "臈", also the name of the sacrifice, later simplified to "la"; in addition, there is also the word "la", pronounced xī, referring to dried meat. The wax festival and the wax festival were originally two sacrifices that were both different and related, namely the wax sacrifice of the hundred gods and the wax sacrifice of the ancestors.

The Wax Festival is a year-end festival, and legend has it that it began with the Iki clan. According to the Book of Rites and Suburban Animals:

Heavenly Son Big Wax Eight. Iqi began as wax. Wax also, so also, the year of December, the combination of all things and soy also. The sacrifice of wax is also the lord first and the priest is also the priest, and the sacrifice of a hundred kinds is also reciprocated. ...... Harvested by wax, the people have rested.

Zheng Xuan, a great Confucian of the Eastern Han Dynasty, noted: "There are eight gods in the wax festival, Xian Xi one, Si Xi II, Nong III, Postal Table Four, Cat, Tiger Five, Fang Six, Shui Yong Seven, and Insect Eight." (Li Ji Justice, vol. 26) Xianxi and Sixi refer respectively to the gods who invented agriculture and were in charge of agriculture, such as Shennong and Houji; nong refers to the gods of officials who diligently supervise agricultural affairs and field laws, such as "Guzhi Tian Qi, who has contributed to the people"; postal table refers to the office of the agricultural inspector in the field, and there are also gods; cats and tigers refer to cat gods and tiger gods, because cats eat field mice that damage crops, and tigers eat wild boars that destroy crops, so they must welcome their gods to be sacrificed; Fang Tongfang, referring to embankments, and Yong refers to ditches, all of which are related to farmland water conservancy. Therefore, they sacrifice their gods to prevent floods, and insects are sacrificed to avoid insect infestation. The Yi clan, said to be the Ancient Tianzi, or Shennong, or Emperor Yao, also made great contributions to the development of primitive agriculture. It can be seen that the objects of wax sacrifice are all gods closely related to agricultural production, so there is a wax sacrifice of hundred gods.

Since the wax festival is a thank you to the gods who bless agricultural production, the scene is very lively and revelry. Confucius once participated as a guest in the Wax Festival of the State of Lu (Li Ji Li Yun). After Zigong had watched the wax festival, Confucius asked him if he was happy. Zigong replied, "Everyone in a country is crazy, and I don't know what it is to be happy about." Confucius said: "The people have worked hard for a year to have this day's enjoyment, and the truth is not something you can understand." The so-called one piece of one chi, the way of culture and martial arts. (The Book of Rites, Miscellaneous Notes) Thus it can be seen that this is actually a day to celebrate the harvest.

The Wax Festival is also a great festival at the end of the year, mainly to worship ancestors and gods related to residential travel, but it is not known when it began, and there were already wax festivals by the Zhou Dynasty. According to the Book of Rites and the Order of the Moon:

Mengdong Moon ,...... The Son of Heaven prays for the coming year in The Heavenly Sect, the Great Ancestral Shrine in the Commune and the Gate, the Ancestors of La, the Five Ancestors, and the LaborErs to rest.

Zheng Xuan's note: "This "Zhou Li" is called the wax festival. Tianzong, called the sun, moon, and stars also. Great cutting, killing herds and cutting them also. La, referred to as the poultry sacrifice obtained from field hunting. The Five Shrines: Doors, Households, Middle Mists, Stoves, and Xingye. Or pray for the year, or say great cuts, or say wax, intertextuality. According to Zheng Xuan's explanation, praying for the Heavenly Sect refers to the sacrifice of the sun, moon, and stars, the Great Cutting Shrine refers to the mass slaughter of animals to sacrifice the commune and the Gate, and the Wax Sacrifice refers to the hunting of animals and animals to sacrifice ancestors and the Five Ancestors. These sacrificial activities are collectively called wax. However, Kong Yingda, the great Confucian of the early Tang Dynasty, believes that such an explanation is too general, in fact, it can be carefully distinguished, that is, the sacrifice of heavenly sects, communes, gates, etc. belongs to the category of wax sacrifices to hundreds of gods, while the sacrifice of ancestors and the five gods is the wax sacrifice. Among the five worships, the door, the household, the middle bird (the god of the lord's house), and the stove are all related to the dwelling, and the line is the god who points out the way when walking. It can be seen that the objects of the wax sacrifice are mainly ancestors and gods closely related to people's lives.

Because the ancestors of the La sacrifice were related to the rise and fall of the society, the ancients regarded it as a symbol of the survival of the country. In 665 BC, the State of Jin borrowed a way from the State of Yu to attack the State of Yu, and Gong Zhiqi of the State of Yu persuaded the King of the State of Yu with the principle of cold lips and teeth, yu Jun did not listen, gong Zhiqi predicted that the State of Yu would not be able to pass the day of the year-end festival, and sure enough, the State of Jin destroyed the State of Yu on the way back to the division after the destruction of the State of Yu (cf. "Zuo Chuan , Five Years of the Duke of Qi"). From this story, it can be seen that the wax festival is mainly an important day for the ancestors at the end of the year.

Although the Wax Festival is said to be held in the month of Mengdong, that is, in October, it and the wax festival are actually held at the end of the year, but due to the different calendars used in the past. The week ends in October, while the Shang and Xia are in November and December, respectively. Kong Yingda said: "December, according to Zhou's words, if Xia Zheng says it, then October, with Yin's words, then November, called the month of Jianhai." Repay it with the achievement of all things. Therefore, whether it is a wax festival or a wax festival, according to the calendar common to future generations, it is held in December, so it is also called the wax month, marking the beginning of the rest of the people who have worked hard for a year to welcome the arrival of the new year.

The second day of Wax is the festival: the confluence and demise of wax and wax

After the Qin and Han Dynasties, the state sacrifice basically followed the old system of waxing moon sacrifice in the pre-Qin period, and there was some reform. Although wax festivals and wax festivals are sometimes held separately, there has been a phenomenon that wax and wax are not separated, and they are gradually mixed.

The State of Qin did not follow the example of the previous generation until the twelfth year of Qin Huiwenjun (326 BC) and began to worship. In order to pursue the art of immortality, Qin Shi Huang restored the Xia Dynasty sacrifice name in December of the thirty-first year (216 BC) and "changed its name to 'Jiaping'" ("History of Qin Benji"). In the Han Dynasty, it was changed to La. Therefore, the Eastern Han Dynasty Ying Shao said in the "Customs and Customs and Rituals": "According to the "Ritual Tradition": 'Xia Yue Jiaping, Yin Yue Qing Qi, Zhou Yue Da Wax, Han changed to Wax.' According to Cao Wei Zhang's "Guangya Shi Tian", it is: "La, Suo Ye." Xia Yue Qingqi, Yin Yue Jiaping, Zhou Yue Da, Qin Yue La. According to the "Almanac" of Jian Mu excavated from the Tomb of Guanfeng Qin in Jingzhou, Hubei Province, qin shi huang was marked as "Jiaping" in December of the 34th year of The First Emperor of Qin ("Guan Frustrated Qin Han Tomb Jian Mu", Zhonghua Bookstore, 2001, p. 94). It can be seen that Ying Shao's citation is correct. However, from the records of the "Customs and Customs" and the "Guangya", it can be seen that the Han and Wei dynasties had begun to confuse wax (wax) and wax (臈). Therefore, Du Taiqing of the Sui Dynasty said in volume 1 and 2 of the Jade Candle Treasure Book: "The old wax is both a curse, and a fat is not a wax." Now the branches are broken, the wax is reported to the eight gods, and the ancestors of the lord. In short, wax is a sap (wax) and a wax. When the rites were re-established in the Tang Dynasty, the wax sacrifice was simply incorporated into the Wax Festival, and the Tang Dynasty Du You's "Tongdian Ritual Ceremony IV" said under "Ji Li Da": "In the Kaiyuan Dynasty, the ritual is made: the winter wax day, and the hundred gods are on the altar of the southern suburbs." ”

In the process of wax and wax gradually mixed into wax, wax day eventually became a festival, and was integrated into the festival system of the year, becoming an important folk festival. Since the Han Dynasty, Lari has become a festival for clan reunions, ancestor sacrifices, rest and drinking. Cai Yong of the Eastern Han Dynasty said in "Dictatorship": "Waxers, the great sacrifice at the end of the year, indulge the people to feast and drink." The people of the Han Dynasty already had a tradition of "Lari XiuJiazuo" (Liu Xiang's "Daughters of Lienu Chuan Lu's Mother Teacher"). When Zheng Xuan was twelve, he returned home with his mother and caught up with the "Zhengla banquet, with more than a dozen people in the same column, all dressed in beautiful clothes and elegant, and the language was idle", and the scene was lively ("Art and Literature Gathering and The Subordinates of the Year" quoted "Zheng Xuan's Biography"). In the Han Dynasty, the imperial court also had the custom of giving money and food, such as giving sheep, which means auspicious and auspicious, and giving beef, japonica rice, etc., which are valuable food.

In the Tang and Song dynasties, it was stipulated that there would be a three-day holiday, rest with the people, and have fun and entertainment. In addition to the traditional ancestor worship, worship of hundreds of gods and hunting activities, the imperial court also gave feasts, food, clothing, new calendars, zhonghe rulers, golden flowers, head cream, facial fat, lipstick, bath beans and other cleaning products, and medicines such as red snow, purple snow, and incense. Tang Dynasty Wu Pingyi's Jinglong Wenguan Records Volume II: "In the third year of Lari, emperor (Emperor Zhongzong of Tang) summoned scholars and close subjects in the garden to hunt ... Enter from the north gate in the evening, give food in the inner temple, add lip fat, wax fat, and serve with a green skeleton. The great tang dynasty poet Du Fu's "La Ri" poem Yun: "Lipstick noodle medicine follows grace, and the green pipe silver poppies under the nine xiao." The wind of gifts in the Song Dynasty spread to the people, and the Song Dynasty Meng Yuanlao's "Tokyo Dream Hualu" volume 10 records that the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty was Kaifeng, "Lari, the temple sent noodle oil and disciples" and "Lu Xiang family families gave each other away". The Southern Song Dynasty's Elaborate "Past Events of Wulin" Volume III records that the southern Song Dynasty capital Lin'an, La ri gave hundreds of officials "Wax Medicine, Department and Pharmacy Bureau Manufacturing and Imperial Pharmacy Special Manufacture".

Folk also have the custom of making bacon and bacon. Volume 5 of the Tang Dynasty Han E's "Four Hours of Compilation" records the method of making bacon and bacon: "To make lak wine: take a stone of water on the day of lak, put it in a bujin vessel, dip the end of the song in three buckets, and then lay down four buckets of rice." On the fifteenth day of the first month of the following year, three buckets of rice were laid down. On February 2, three more buckets of rice were laid down. It will be opened on April 28. But its urn is exposed, and without grass, it is stopped in three directions and is undefeated. The Tang Dynasty poet Han Hongshi has the sentence "Kai Urn Lajiu Cooked" ("Chu Lord's Book House Will Bi Shuzi, Qian Yuanwai, Lang Zhijun"), and the Song Dynasty poet Lu Youshi has the sentence "Mo Xiao Nongjia Lajiuhun" ("You Shanxi Village"), reflecting the customs of people making la wine and drinking la wine during the Tang and Song dynasties. The method of making dried bacon is: "Take beef, sheep, roe deer, venison, five flavors and two nights; and then boil it in a soup of onions, peppers and salt, so that when cooked, hang in the shade." Undefeated through the heat. "The bacon made in this way becomes a delicacy for travel and home cooking.

In addition, the exorcism is also an important folk activity of the Wax Festival. Exorcism is a kind of late-year exorcism of ghosts and sending yin (cold) to the sun (wen) that has been handed down from the pre-Qin period. The Book of Rites and the Moon Decree reads: "The Moon of The Winter Season... The fate of the Great Difficulty (傩), the side of the side, unearthed cattle, to send cold. The Analects of the Township Party mentions "The Townspeople." The Han Dynasty exorcism was held on the day before the Day of the Waxing Sun, and was called the Removal of the Wax or the Eradication of the Epidemic. According to the Book of Etiquette of the Later Han Dynasty, "One day of the first la, the great one, is called the expulsion of the epidemic." "The ceremony is: the yellow disciples are selected to be over ten years old, and one hundred and twenty people under the age of twelve are the servants, all of whom are made of red soap and hold the big shrew. Some people dressed up as Fang Xiangshi, golden four-eyed, bearskins, Xuan Yi Zhu Bao, and Zhi Ge Yang Dun. There are also people dressed in hairy horns and dressed as twelve beasts, driving away evil spirits in the forbidden. In the Yellow Gate lead song, the slang and. Fang Xiangshi and the twelve beasts continued to jump and dance, and the crowd shouted and clamored in unison, searching around three times, and then holding torches, driving the plague ghost out of the end gate; the horsemen outside the door passed the torches out of the palace, and the five battalion knights outside the Sima Que Gate took the torches and finally threw them into the water. "The hundred officials and officials shall use the wooden face beast as a teacher for the servants, and set up peach stems, yu yu, and reeds, and the deacons will be the majesty." Reeds and peach scepters are given to dukes, secretaries, generals, special princes, and princes. Later generations of exorcisms have evolved on this basis, such as the folk exorcisms in the Jingchu area during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, wearing beards, dressing as king kong and lux to chase the epidemic; during the Tang and Song dynasties, there was a custom of "fighting night foxes (Hu)" derived from the expulsion of wild foxes, and at the same time, the content of Zhong Kui's fighting ghosts was also added; later, from The yi yi evolved and developed the puppet opera, and while rewarding the gods, the elements of entertaining people were becoming more and more intense.

Due to the influence of calendar changes and the theories of the five elements of yin and yang and the five virtues, the calendar is not fixed. The "Wei Tai Petition" says: "The kings each have their own deeds, the prosperous sun is the ancestor, and the decaying sun is the wax." "Therefore, The Water Dechenla, the Fire Dechenla, the Wood Deweila, the Jinde Ugly La, the Tude Chenla." The Chu Xue Ji Shi Xia (Beginner's Chronicles) says: "Han takes the day of shu as the la, Wei takes the chen, and the Jin takes the ugly." "Han Huode, the fire decays in the Shu, so the Day of the Fire is used as the wax." Specifically, on the third day after the winter solstice in the Han Dynasty, Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty said in the Shuowen Jiezi (說文解字) that "after the winter solstice, the three gods are sacrificed." During the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Wei considered himself to be Tude and was supposed to use the Chen Ri as the wax, but adopted the ugly sun as the wax, and Emperor Wen of Wei explained: "The beauty of the Tang Dynasty and Yu ... But the day of the laksha uses ugly ears, which is also the system of saints. (Book of Song Li zhi I) Jin Jinde, with the ugly day as the wax. Later, both Liu Song and Northern Wei considered themselves to be water virtues, with Chenri as wax; Sui was also Huode, with Shu Ri as La; Tang was Tu De, that is, Chen Ri was La; Song was Huo De, and also used Shu Ri as Lap. Because the Han, Sui, and Song dynasties all used the Day of The Curse of the Year as the Day of The Wax, and the Festival of Lap gradually declined after the Song Dynasty, the folk mistakenly believed that the Day of the Lap was on the Day of the Year of the Day of the Year of the Day

It is precisely because the dates of the La day in previous dynasties are not fixed, so it is easy to cause chaos, which is one of the main reasons for the decline of the Lap Festival after the Song Dynasty. During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, wax festivals were no longer held officially, and by the tenth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1745), the "Wax Festival" ("Qing History Manuscript Lizhi III"),, since then, the Wax Day Festival has also disappeared with the abolition of the wax sacrifice of the Hundred Gods.

Three Lapa Victories: From Buddhist Legends to Folk Festivals

At a time when the Festival of Lap Rak is gradually declining, LapPa is slowly taking shape as a new festival, and has absorbed some of the festival customs, eventually replacing lap day as an important festival in the Waxing Moon.

The Festival of Lapa is a religious festival, also known as the Festival of Enlightenment. According to Buddhist legend, Buddha Shakyamuni attained enlightenment on this day, hence the name. Buddhism was introduced to China around the time of the Two Han Dynasties, and Buddhism had a huge impact on Chinese culture during its spread. The Lapa Festival was formed during the Tang and Song dynasties based on Buddhist legends.

Regarding the Lapa Bacheng Festival, commentators cite the Southern Dynasty Liang Zongzong's "Records of the Jingchu Years" as saying: "December 8 is the day of La. Proverb: 'Drums are beating, spring grass is born.' The villagers also beat the waist drum, wore the beard, and made vajra and lux to ward off the plague. In fact, this passage is about the lak-il festival, because the date of the lap-day has not been fixed, so some scholars have pointed out that the beginning of this text should be "December is the waxing moon", "eight days" was mixed in the process of copying, and "lap moon" was mistakenly changed to "lap day", which led to confusion ([Japan] Moriya Mitoo," "Study on the Ancient Chinese Chronicles: Data Restoration Center として", Tokyo Imperial Academy, 1963, 122 pages). However, judging from the situation of wearing a beard, dressing as a king kong, and driving out the epidemic, it is obviously different from the image of Fang Xiangshi of the Han and Wei Dynasties of "four golden eyes, bear skin", which shows that elements of foreign Buddhist culture have penetrated into the traditional Lashi festival. According to the Taiping Imperial Chronicles, the Chronicle of the Jingchu Chronicles is quoted: "On the eighth day of December, bathe and remove the obstacles of sin. "It seems to show that during the Southern Dynasty, Lapa had formed a bathing custom.

The practice of bathing in Laba comes from a Buddhist legend about the Buddha's surrender to the Six Masters. According to the Tang Dynasty monk Ren Daoshi in volume VIII of the Collected Sutras and volume 33 of the Fayuan Zhulin, he quoted the Yun of the Sutra: "The Buddha subdued the Sixth Division with divine powers on the eighth day of the eighth day of the lunar month. The Sixth Division was inferior, throwing water and dying. It is still widely said that the degree of the outer path, the external road is ambushed. White Buddha's words: The Buddha washed my heart with Dharma water, and I now ask the monk to take a bath to remove the impurities from the body, which is still the constant condition. The note reads: "The monks were washed on the eighth day of the eighth lunar month today, and only this scripture is produced." "The Sutra of Metaphors has been widely circulated in society since the Han and Wei dynasties, and in the context of the flourishing of Buddhism in the Southern Dynasty, the bathing custom first appeared in Laba.

Lapa bathing customs include bathing monks and bathing Buddhas. Regarding the bathing monks, volume 1 and 2 of the Jade Candle Treasure Code records: "Bathing on the eighth day of December, there is already an internal scripture, the Greenhouse Sutra. "The conservatory is the bathroom. In the Tang Dynasty, the Dunhuang area was already popular with laba greenhouse bath monks, according to the Dunhuang documents P.3671, S.4663, S.5658 and other volumes: "What is the eighth day of December? Its daily bathing, turning obstacles to remove all diseases, called the greenhouse, is not endless today. Volume S.2832 also says: "On the eighth day of the waxing moon, it was a wind and cold moon, and the scenery was on the eighth day." For example, when we talk about "Greenhouse", the day when you only test (domain) bathing monks. Therefore, all the dirt has been exhausted, and there is no trace of any more troubles; the void and pure Dharma body are all stained with the water of merit. (Tan Cicada, "Dunhuang Folk Customs - The Pearl of the Silk Road", Gansu Education Publishing House, 2006, p. 125) Buddhism believes that bathing on the day of Lapa Ba has the miraculous effect of dispelling diseases and removing dirt, so it is known as Fa Shui and Meritorious Water. The Tang Dynasty poet Meng Haoran's poem "Praying at Shicheng Temple in Tan County on the Eighth Day of the Waxing Moon" says: "The pulpit invites the handle, and the spring hall gives a bathrobe." May the merit of the water, henceforth the dust machine. "It's about the bathing customs of the Laba Buddhist Temple.

About the Bath Buddha, the legend comes from the Day of Buddha's Enlightenment. According to Buddhist legend, Shakyamuni practiced in the wild for six years, endured all kinds of tribulations, and finally became enlightened on the eighth day of the eighth lunar month. In the "Oath of Oath" of Nanyue Huisi, a senior monk in the late Southern and Northern Dynasties, it is clearly stated that Shakyamuni "attained enlightenment on the eighth day of the eighth month of the lunar month." However, in the Dunhuang book S.2832 volume, it says: "Wax Moon: Jiaping Ying Festival, Xi (Wax) Laju Chen." When the good word (ancestral hall) is noble (yellow) stone, the day when the wild folds come. "Jiaping is one of the other names of Lari, and Xia and Qin used to use it as a name." The day when the wild fold comes", that is, the enlightenment of the Buddha. It seems that Buddhism originally intended to attach the day of Enlightenment to the day of Lara. According to volume S.4191: "The winter season and the moon, such as the god of bathing." P.3103 volume also says: "Fang Jin Three Winter Sequence, Eight Leaves First Chen." ...... Bathing buddhas and bathing monks. (Dunhuang Folk Customs - Silk Road Pearl Transmission Style, p. 125) It can be seen that in the Tang Dynasty, there was the custom of bathing Buddhas and washing monks on Lari, reflecting the infiltration of Buddhist culture into the traditional La festival. By the Song Dynasty, "The Master of the JingShi, Larido bathed in the monastery." For the feast, or for the poetry. I don't know what it started from" (Chen Yuanliang's "Chronicle of the Ages", vol. 39, "Lari", quoted in "Miscellaneous Records of the Years"). In fact, this should be the tang dynasty Lari monastery bathing customs. However, in the Song Dynasty, bathing the Buddha has become a lapa custom, and the Tokyo Dream Hualu volume ten years: "On the eighth day of the first month, there were three or five monks and nuns in the streets and alleys, chanting the Buddha in a team, with silver copper saloon or good basins, sitting on a gold bronze or wooden Buddha statue, soaking in perfume, sprinkling baths with poplar branches, paimen indoctrination, and bathing Buddhas in the great temples." "Therefore, the Lapa Festival is also known as the Bath Buddha Festival. However, as early as the Tang and Song dynasties, the Han and Wei dynasties had formed the custom of bathing Buddhas with April 8 as the Buddha's birthday, so the bathing custom of Lapa ba gradually declined after the Song and Yuan dynasties.

During the Tang and Song dynasties, the Lapa Festival also had the custom of frying "medicinal food" and making "Wax Medicine". During the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, Dunhuang monasteries had the custom of making "medicinal food". "Medicinal food" should be fried with oil, crisp, noodles and other raw materials. According to the Dunhuang document S.1519 volume "Monastic Accounts": Gengshu Nian (890) "December 8 face Wu sheng, oil half a liter, worship Wu monks and burnt medicine to eat"; Xinhai Year (891) "December 7th straight age Fa sheng broken oil noodle calendar: oil half liter, Su (crisp) half liter, eight days of burning medicine to eat" ;P.3234 volume five generations of "Monastic Accounting Account": "December 8 copy (stir-fry) medicine food, oil half a catty. ("Dunhuang Folk Customs - Silk Road Pearl Transmission Style", p. 128) In the Song Dynasty, there was also the custom of making "Wax Medicine", according to the third volume of the "Wulin Past Events": The southern Song Dynasty capital Lin'an was in the Lapa Festival, "The doctors also combined many medicines, and they used Hutou Dan, the Eight Gods, and Tu Su, and stored them with Daisy, and gave them to everyone, which was called 'Wax Medicine'." This custom should have been influenced by the legend of the Buddhist shepherd's offering of "and honey chyle", combined with the custom of giving medicines on Middle-earth.

In addition, during the Tang and Song dynasties, the temple also had the custom of burning lamps. On the east wall door of the main room of cave 192 of Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, it is written in Tang Xiantong's eighth year (867) "Wishing for Merit and Praise" Yun: "From the fifteenth day of the first month, the seventh day of the □, and the eighth day of La, the cave burns the lamp, and the annual offering is endless. (He Shizhe, "Re-recording of Cave 192 of Mogao Caves "Wishing for Merit and Praise" and Related Issues", Dunhuang Studies, No. 2, 1993) Dunhuang Research Institute Collection No. 0322 "Number of Niches assigned to The Eight Burning Lanterns" said: "On the night of December 8, the year of Gengji (950), the people of the □□□ Society burned lamps and distributed the number of cave niches. (Dunhuang Folklore - Silk Road Pearl Transmission Style, p. 126) However, due to the long-standing custom of burning lanterns on the fifteenth day of the first month, the lamps of Lapa Eight have been eclipsed in comparison, resulting in this custom gradually being forgotten by people.

The most important festival of Lapa Festival is Lapa Porridge. This custom is also related to Buddhist legends, where it is said that during the six years of asceticism before his enlightenment on the eighth day of the eighth month of the month, Buddha Shakyamuni ate only one hemp and one meter a day, resulting in extreme weakness. So he drank the chyle porridge offered by the shepherd, recovered his strength, and finally became a Buddha. In order to commemorate this incident, the disciples of the Buddhist monks in later generations followed the legend of the shepherd's sacrifice of rice, and on the day of the Lapa EightFold Enlightenment Festival, they selected refined rice and various dried fruits to make porridge for the Buddha, called "Buddha porridge" or "Laba porridge". Buddhist monasteries in various places also chant sutras and give porridge on this day to save the poor and provide relief. This custom began to be popular from the Song Dynasty, according to the "Tokyo Dream Record" volume 10 record: On the eighth day of the first month of December, "the great temples will bathe the Buddha, and send the Seven Treasures five-flavor porridge and disciples, called 'Lapa Porridge'." The people of the capital also eat porridge from the fruit miscellaneous ingredients." Volume III of the "Past Affairs of Wulin" also states: "On the eighth day, the monastery and the people used walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts and the like to make porridge, which is called 'Lapa Porridge'. "By the Ming and Qing dynasties, Laba porridge had become an important folk custom of the Laba Festival, and various localities also combined with local products to develop a local flavor of Laba porridge. According to the second volume of the Ming Dynasty's "Imperial Jingjing Scenery and Material Strategy" co-authored by Liu Tong and Yu Yizheng: "On the day, at the Jiaxiao'an Temple, the beans and fruits were mixed with rice for porridge, and the food was offered to the court, known as 'Laba Porridge'. Qing Gu Lu's "Qing Jia Lu" volume 12 also records: "The eighth day is Lapa Ba, and the residents use vegetables and fruits into rice to cook porridge, which is called 'Lapa Eight Porridge'." Or there are those who feed themselves to monks and nuns, called 'Buddha porridge'. "This custom has been passed down to this day, has been prosperous for a long time, and has become the standard of the Lapa Festival.

In addition, the Lapa Festival in various places has also formed the customs of making "Lapa Eight Vinegar", pickling "Lapa Garlic", sauerkraut (also known as "Pickled Vinegar"), brewing "Lapa Eight Wine", eating "Lapa Eight Noodles", and making "Lapa Eight Tofu". Since the beginning of the Lapa Festival, the prelude to the Spring Festival has been successively opened in various places. People are busy killing pigs and sheep, pickling chicken sauce and duck, smoking fish and sausages, cleaning houses, making new clothes, and purchasing New Year goods, and the atmosphere of the New Year is getting stronger and stronger. Therefore, the folk proverb has the saying that "after la eight is the year", the folk song also sings: "Children and children, don't be hungry, after the lap eight is the year." Lapa porridge, drink for a few days, drain Lala twenty-three. Twenty-three sugar melon sticky, twenty-four sweeping houses, twenty-five to make tofu, twenty-six boiled meat, twenty-seven chickens to kill the Year, twenty-eight noodles, twenty-nine steamed steamed steamed buns, thirty nights to play a night, the New Year's Day twist a twist. It can be seen that the Lapa Festival has evolved from the original religious festival to a symbol of the beginning of the folk Waxing Moon Festival.

Author Affilications:School of History, Capital Normal University

Editor: Xiang Yu

Proofreader: Water Life

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