In order to welcome the Golden Pig Spring Festival, the Forbidden City 'New Year Greetings – Celebrating the New Year in the Forbidden City' has begun! In particular, a variety of decorations of the former imperial palace for the New Year have been restored, presenting the audience with a Forbidden City full of New Year's flavor. Lo and behold, the sky lantern that was only watched by the emperor in the past was the first time I saw it.
According to the customs of the Qing Palace, every year from December 24 of the lunar calendar to the third day of February of the following year, the palace should install sky lanterns and longevity lamps. According to relevant historical materials and existing relics, there are three places in the palace, namely the Qianqing Palace, the second is the Imperial Pole Hall, and the third is the Jianfu Palace. This is the first time that the longevity lamp was displayed, it was in the Qianqing Palace.
At present, in the Qianqing Palace and the Imperial Pole Hall, Dan Qishang and His Majesty Dan still have the stone pedestals that installed the Heavenly Lantern and the Longevity Lantern in the past. The stone pedestal is 137 cm high, hexagonal, 85 cm wide on each side, in the form of a sumire, and is embossed with lotus, lotus and lion motifs. In the middle of the seat, there is an iron sleeve with a diameter of 70 cm, an inner diameter of 37 cm and a depth of 70 cm, which is used for erecting lamp poles. On December 24, the Qianqing Palace and the Imperial Pole Hall each installed a longevity lamp on the left and right, and His Majesty Dan installed a sky lantern on the left and right.
The Qing Palace stipulated that on the 24th day of the waxing moon, the sky lantern and the longevity lamp should be installed, and this custom continued from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. On this day, the minister in charge of the Interior Led the eunuchs to enter the Qianqing Gate with lamps, and installed the lanterns in the Danqi on both sides of the Qianqing Palace, and installed the Longevity Lantern on the Dan majesty.
From the date of installation, the sky lantern is lit every night until the first three days of February. From the date of installation, the lanterns were lit daily, and until the Chinese New Year's Eve the ministers of the Interior led the staff to change the joints, and the lights of the railings of the two corridors were installed. On Chinese New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, the eleventh, fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first month, and the lights will come out on the eighteenth day of the first month.
At present, the Forbidden City has set up a pair of "Sky Lanterns" and "Longevity Lanterns" in front of the Qianqing Palace, announcing that "New Year Greetings - New Year in the Forbidden City" is officially open to the audience. At the same time, the Noon Gate of the Forbidden City and the Cining Palace also have related exhibitions and time-honored displays of "Celebrating the New Year in the Palace".
Folk New Year has the custom of hanging lanterns, and the royal family is no exception. The court of the Qing Dynasty followed the old system of the Ming Dynasty, and a pair of sky lanterns and longevity lamps were set up above and below the Dan Majesty of the Qianqing Palace around New Year's Day (that is, today's Spring Festival), and Qianlong began to erect a pair of additional pairs in the Imperial Pole Hall for fifty-four years. However, with the decline of the Qing Dynasty's national strength, the Emperor of Daoguang Twenty Years (1840) issued an edict that the Heavenly Lantern and the Longevity Lantern were stopped. In the following 179 years, only a few lamp holders stood quietly in the Qianqing Palace and the Imperial Pole Hall, reading the vicissitudes of the world.
The outer court and the inner court of the Forbidden City are bounded by the Qianqing Gate, which is also the gate of the Inner Court Palace. Passing through the Qianqing Gate, I saw a pair of sky lanterns and a pair of longevity lamps erected high in the distance. Ren Wanping, vice president of the Palace Museum, said that the Sky Lantern in the Qing Dynasty was mainly illuminated, and the Longevity Lantern was used as decoration.
This lamp holder is a hexahedron, and in the Qianlong period, the pavilion at the top of the lamp tower was hexahedral. Thirteen years after Jiaqing, a circular pavilion with pointed eaves appeared.
The sky lantern and longevity lantern are one of the most grand activities of the New Year in the early and middle Qing Dynasty, from standing to retreating, more than 8,000 people are used before and after. Because the sky lantern and the longevity lamp have long disappeared in the long river of history, and the related cultural relics are scattered everywhere and have no trace, the Forbidden City has encountered great difficulties in restoring the sky lantern and the longevity lamp, and has fallen into a stalemate several times, so that they have the privilege of "resurrection".
This longevity lamp mainly undertakes the decorative function, focusing on the beautiful meaning. The lamp tower is the pavilion at the top, which has different styles in different years, the Qianlong Dynasty used to be a painted hexagonal heavy eaves pavilion, at the latest in Jiaqing thirteen years later is the gold hood lacquer circular pointed heavy eaves pavilion, now on the Qianqing Palace Dan Majesty and the Imperial Palace Dan Majesty on the longevity lamp holder is hexahedral, it is to echo with the hexagonal lamp tower; the interior of the lamp tower is installed with six immortal fans, that is, around a wooden pillar embedded with six fans painted with immortals, these six immortals can turn, like a marquee lamp; the upper part of the lamp house has a cloud holder, that is, a semicircular support with a cloud pattern In order to stabilize the eight-forked squat dragon, there is a ring in the dragon's mouth, which can pick up the lamp joint; in order to stabilize the eight-forked squat dragon, there is also an arc-shaped support pole under it, which is like a wooden tree, and it is called a cloud because it also has a cloud pattern on it; there are eight immortals corresponding to the squat dragon; there are words on both sides of the lamp union, a total of sixteen pictures, and each of the two pairs is very beautiful, and the song and dance, The auspicious and auspicious Rui and other contents are laid out one by one; in order to prevent the lamp joint from fluttering with the wind, there is a falling wind melon-style copper drum, each drum, of which the couplet Can you read how many couplets?
It has been nearly 200 years since Daoguang issued an edict to stop erecting the Sky Lantern and the Longevity Lantern, and now, the Forbidden City has restored the Sky Lantern and the Longevity Lantern, and several lamp holders that quietly read the vicissitudes of the world and the great changes in the world in front of the palace are no longer alone. The world's first lamp of "resurrection" is the most cattle, so that today's people can see its style, add brilliance to the prosperous China, and send good blessings to the people.