Festive New Year Red (Visual China)
Chinese the Spring Festival is keen on pleasing the mouth, Tujili, and the "façade" that can best support the red-hot New Year is the Spring Festival. The brush characters of the dragon flying phoenix dance are connected with the sentences of depression and frustration, and there is a pride in itself. In many villages, door gods are also posted on the quaint double doors. On a square red background, two mighty and fierce samurai are depicted. Nostalgic people, still happy to hang two peach charms, others ask the head of the household what this is, the head of the household will read a poem beautifully: "Always replace the new peach with the old symbol." ”
Spring Union, Door God, Peach Charm, these mascots are collectively known as Nian Hong. "Year" naturally refers to the New Year, and "red" is the festive "true color" of these objects, after all, there is no Chinese red New Year, it is not festive enough. However, the new year is not only festive, behind these countless pieces of red that fly into the homes of ordinary people, there is a long cultural approach of Chinese civilization - how long is it? Secretly tell you: longer than five thousand years.
Lantern Daoist and Zhao Gongming, Zhu Xianzhen New Year Painting, "Ancient Edition New Rhyme - Group Exhibition of Six Traditional Chinese New Year Paintings"
【Door God】
As late as the Han Dynasty, the ancients began to perform door sacrifices at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, and the door gods took the door sacrifice as their origin. In the Han Dynasty, the custom of sticking to the door gods in the New Year has become a formality
The term "door god" is not very old, but its origins can be traced back to three generations of primitive customs: door sacrifice. In the era of animism, the worship of doors by human beings is logical: houses provide human beings with shelter from the wind and rain in the harsh natural world, and the doors that serve as dividing lines are naturally contaminated with sacred meaning. To this day, the mountain gate of the temple still carries a metaphor separating the divine realm from the earthly world.
Judging from archaeological findings and documentary records, China has produced the door sacrifice ceremony of "sacrificial gate" as early as three generations to win the an house. In the Zhou Dynasty, the door sacrifice system had been developed and perfected, and the Ritual Book and Sacrifice Law recorded: "The king established seven shrines for the group of surnames... The Gate of the Nation... The princes are the five gods of the state... The Gate of the Nation... Doctor Li Sanqi... The door... The second ceremony of the suitable soldiers, the door...", it can be seen that the kings and princes of the pre-Qin Dynasty must perform the sacrifice of the "national gate" (that is, the city gate), and the doctors and scholars of the lower status must also perform the door sacrifice.
The earliest form of the gate festival was the killing of chickens. Deng Ping's words are quoted in the "Customs and Customs" to explain: "Waxers, so welcome the punishment and send Deye ... Kill the chicken to thank the punishment, the male to the door, the female to the household, to harmonize the yin and yang, to temper the cold and heat, and to temper the wind and rain. The Taiping Imperial Dictionary quotes the New Words: "In the early years, the head of the sheep was hung, and the head of the chicken was raised in order to seek surplus." The Book of Jin and lizhi on the cloud: "The year dan stands on the reeds, peach stems, and chickens at the gates of the palace and the hundred temples, in order to suppress evil qi." ”
It can be seen from this that as late as the Han Dynasty, the ancients began to perform door sacrifices at the end of the year and the beginning of the year. According to Wu Tianming's "Study of Chinese Mythology", reeds and peaches are actually the ancestors of three generations of ancestors - the Xia people mainly lived in the west of Henan Province, and the reeds grew luxuriantly in this area; the Zhou people were originally born in the wilderness, advocating the tenacious peach trees, so the reeds and peach stems have the remnants of ancient traditions. The cultural origin of the chicken is relatively recent: according to the principle of the five elements of yin and yang, the Western gold, the gold lord tortures and kills, and the twelve branches of the unitary chicken correspond to the West, so the year dan killing chicken is the meaning of sending away the torture and killing, greeting the new spring.
What does the chicken worship door and the door god have to do? The theory quoting the Analects of the Eight Nobles is clear at a glance: "Sacrifice is like being there, and worshiping gods is like gods", so there are naturally door gods when there are door sacrifices, but the title of "door gods" was not officially born until the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zheng Xuan, a great Confucian of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in his commentary on the "Book of Rites and Funeral Dresses": "Junshi cuisine, Limen Shenye. The One who will worship the gods. "This is the first appearance of the Door God in the surviving literature.
So, who is the Door God? The answer is also given in ancient texts. The Chronicle of the Jing Chu Dynasty records: "(On the first day of the first lunar month) painting chicken ... Paint the left and right of the two gods, the left god, the right Yu Lei, commonly known as the door god. "The gods here are the first generation of door gods in China. The "On Heng and Ding Ghost" quotes the Shan Hai Jing (山海經) as saying: "The mountain of Dushuo ... There are two gods and men on it, one is the god, and the other is Yu Lei, and the Lord reads and leads all the ghosts. Evil spirits cling to reeds and eat tigers. The Book of the Yellow Emperor is quoted in the "Customs and Customs" to describe the life of this pair of "combinations": "In ancient times, the two brothers were known as Di and Yu. Under the peach tree on the mountain of Shou, Jane Hundred Ghosts. A hundred ghosts carry people, help with reeds, and insist on eating tigers. "The descriptions of Shendi and Yulei in the two ancient books are similar: they can control ghosts and punish evil spirits, so it is most appropriate to use Shendi and Yulei brothers as door gods to ward off evil spirits and exorcise ghosts in the New Year. Cai Yong's "Dictatorship" records that the New Year customs at that time had the depiction of "painting the dragon, building and hanging on the portal, and using the royal fierceness", which shows that the Han Dynasty New Year's custom of sticking to the door god has become a fixed pattern.
The Shendi and Yulei brothers were able to lead hundreds of ghosts, and naturally had a fierce and evil expression. In the portrait of the "Three Sects of Origins and Streams searching for gods", Shen Di and Yu Lei have horns on their heads, bearded tiger whiskers, chests and abdomen, and peach wood swords in their hands. Of course, the shendi and YuLei in the "Three Sects of Origins search for gods" are their state when they are "off work", and once they guard the door for the people, the two immortals change into military uniforms, a samurai outfit with armor and exercises, until the second generation of door gods appear.
Compared with Shendi and Yu Lei, the second generation of door gods are more well-known, they are Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong. Both of them were ranked among the twenty-four heroes of the Tang Chu Ling Yan Pavilion. Why can they be door gods? The Book of Searching for God and The Door God describes a story in which Tang Taizong was disturbed by ghosts and could not sleep at night, and Qin Qiong sang: "Chen Pingsheng kills people like destruction, and accumulates corpses like ants, so why be afraid of little ghosts!" So together with another fierce general, Wei Chigong, he guarded the door for Tang Taizong, and sure enough, the ghost was no longer disturbed. So Tang Taizong ordered someone to paint the full body portrait of the two people and paste them on the door, which was inherited in later generations and eventually became a door god.
This story certainly can't be true. Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong became door gods, which should be related to the rise of folk literature in the Song and Yuan dynasties, a historical or literary role known for bravery and martial arts was loved by the people, and it may occupy a place in the "profession" of the door god, Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong were only a group of "contestants" who stood out among many candidates, and the other competitors were Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"; The Lantern Daoist and Zhao Gongming in the "Fengshen Yanyi"; Meng Liang and Jiao Zan in the "Yang Family General Yanyi", as well as Zhong Kui, Yue Fei, Zu Di, Qi Jiguang, Zheng Chenggong, Liang Hongyu, Mu Guiying, Hua Mulan... In the Qing Dynasty, the door gods were even more powerful, both literary and martial, so that in the "Records of the Yanjing Dynasty", they were so "spitting out": "The door gods are all armored and wielding swords, or shendi, Yu Lei, or Qin Qiong, Jingde (that is, Wei Chigong), in fact, they are not also." ”
The door god has a relatively independent evolutionary history based on the door sacrifice, but since ancient times, many scholars believe that the custom of the door god originated from the peach rune. For example, in the "Moon Order: The December Order", it is believed that "the Taoist is the door god ... Its righteousness is derived from the Peach Rune"; the "Collection of Interpretations of the Truth" quotes the "New Year Miscellaneous Verses and Small Prefaces" as saying, "The god of the Simen, from the peach rune with the god Andi and Yu Lei can ward off evil spirits", where does this come from? This is to introduce the topic to the "Nian Hong" second giant peach symbol.
Zhenzhai Shenhu, Yangjiabu New Year Painting, "Ancient Edition New Rhyme - Chinese Six Traditional New Year Paintings Joint Exhibition" exhibits
【Peach Charm】
Displaying peach stems was an important part of the Spring Festival customs of the Han Dynasty. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, Taoyin and others were called Peach Charms, and this title eventually became popular among the people
According to the study of Chinese Mythology, The peach is the ancestor of the Zhou people, but even if this sociological examination is faded, the cultural imprint of the peach to ward off evil spirits is still long-standing. Peach wood is also known as "ghost horror wood", the "Left Biography" has a record of "making the witch with a peach, and the funeral of The First One", the "Li Ji Tan Bow" has a record of "king's landing and mourning, with the witch blessing peach, to beg, to go to the go, (ghost) evil also", Zheng Xuan's note cloud "peach, the ghost is evil".
Peaches have the effect of exorcising ghosts, and it is not surprising that the ancients used peach wood to ward off evil spirits at the beginning of the year. The Jade Candle Treasure Code records: "The peach board made on the first day is called the immortal wood." "Yuan Day" is the first day of the first lunar month. In addition, the peach stem is more in line with the meaning of the New Year's resignation and the new year, as the "Customs and Customs" said: "Peach stem, the stemmer is more also, the end of the year is more beginning, and the introduction is also." "It can be seen that at the latest in the Han Dynasty, the display of peach stems has become an important part of the Spring Festival customs.
The processing of peach wood and peach stems has also been different in the past. In the "Warring States Policy And Qi Ce", it is written that "the peach stem of the Eastern Kingdom of Imako is also carved as a person", which shows that in the Warring States period, there was a custom of carving the peach stem into human form. "Dictatorship" states that "the year is december ... It has been established that the Peach People, the Reed Rope, the Danya Tiger, the Shendi, and the YuLei to Persist", the Book of Jin, the Book of Rites, also says that "the Nian Dan standing reeds, peach stems, and chickens in the palace and the gate of the Hundred Temples", it can also be seen that for hundreds of years in the Han and Jin Dynasties, there were customs of erecting peach people and listing peach stems, and there was no conflict with the statues of the gods of the gods and the yu leimen. Roughly speaking, before the Six Dynasties, the ancients often carved peach people, and before the Qin Dynasty, they were more than one peach people, and then gradually transformed into double peach people. During the Han and Jin Dynasties, although peach people and other objects were mostly used on the Yuan Day, they were also seen in other festivals. The Book of Etiquette of the Later Han Dynasty says: "In the midsummer month, all things flourish... The peach seal is six inches long, and the five-colored writing is like the law, so as to apply the portal. The Book of Song and Li Zhi I quotes han yi yun: "The midsummer moon is set up, there are peaches, no chickens." The "peach seal" here has the same meaning as "peach seal", because the peach seal is mostly used for the first day of the first month, so it is called. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, the rise of Taoism because of the use of runes to make ghost plague disease, so the peach seal and so on as the peach symbol, this title eventually became popular in the folk.
Zhang Xian shoots the tengu door god Suzhou Peach Blossom Wood Qing Dynasty Edition Li Wenmo Collection
After the stereotype, the peach charm is about seven or eight inches long and about one inch wide, and the auspicious sentences that drive away evil and blessings, such as "Shendi, Yu Lei", "Jiang Taigong is here, there are no taboos", "There are orders here, and all evils are far away", etc., this shape of the peach symbol eventually replaced the more ancient peach stems and peach people.
It is a matter of course that the peach runes are written on the names of the gods, Shendi and Yulei. Or rather, the encounter between the door god and the peach rune was predestined. Peach can drive away ghosts, the two gods of Shendi and Yulei read and lead hundreds of ghosts, and the legend of Shendi and Yulei has no shortage of peach wood figures. The mythical gods Di and Yu Lei live under the peach tree, and the two gods in Taoism also carry the peach wood sword... The ancients carved the peach symbol at the beginning of the year, and what more suitable name than Shendi and Yulei is to be engraved?
Through combing through the history of peach runes and door gods, it is not difficult to find that it is biased to regard peach runes as the origin of door gods. The two should have different origins, and eventually there was a confusion in the development of New Year's customs. However, from the moment the peach charm was engraved with Chinese characters, another period of history began without alarm.
The wooden peach symbol is difficult to resist the invasion of time, but through the Dunhuang manuscript, posterity can know the earliest peach symbol written on the text. There are many peach symbols in the Dunhuang manuscript Stein 0610 volumes, such as the "Year Day" category: "Three Yangs Begin to Cloth, Four Ranks Begin to Open." Fuqing is new, and Shoulu is extended. The three yangs return to the beginning, and the four orders come to the auspicious. Blessings extend the new day, and the celebration of life has no boundaries. Another example is the category of "Li Chun Ri": "The five blessings eliminate the three calamities, and the eternal return to a hundred disasters." Baoji can ward off evil spirits, and Ruiyan can solve Chengxiang... Every year is celebrated, and there is no disaster every month. The chicken returns to ward off evil, yan fu yicai..." These words and sentences are paired with two pairs, and finally end with "Shumen left and right, I am Kangzai", so that the shadow of the Spring League in the later generations has been faintly formed in the peach symbols of the Tang Dynasty as early as the Tang Dynasty...
There is a Song Dynasty that is extremely popular in chongwen, and the peach charm is gradually contaminated with more and more strong literati atmosphere. The court of the Song Dynasty would give officials peach charms before Chinese New Year's Eve, and the Southern Song Dynasty Pavilion Records And Records records that the Southern Song Dynasty Pavilion personnel had "two pairs of peach charms and door gods", and the peach charms here may also be blank peach charms, which need to be filled in by the officials themselves. Liu Kezhuang's "Official Peach Fu Yu Lazy Writing" in Liu Kezhuang's "The Removal of the Year is a Matter", lu Wengui's "Four Poems of Ding Di Xinzheng Ji Huai", one of the "Lazy Peach Symbols on the Verses", Zhang Wei's "Shou Nian" in the "Peach Plate Book Symbols for Old Poems" and other sentences are obviously blank peach symbols.
The blank peach symbol became the best elegant stage for the literati. Most of the officials of the Song Dynasty were literati who were full of reading, and after receiving the peach rune, they were extremely happy to write poems, such as "The poem of the peach plate is still self-written" in Chen Zao's "Yuan Ri", "the poem of the peach plate wants to be unstable" in Yang Gongyuan's "Except for the Night", and the sentence "The poem is nowhere to write the peach symbol" in Lu Bing's "Rui Partridge", which clearly shows the elegance between the Literati of the Song Dynasty and the peach rune. Some literati even marked one of the couplets "for the use of peach charms" at the same time as the poems, such as the jaw link in Fang Hui's "Tongjiang Sequel : Drinking Shang's Pu'an Tang" (颔聯) "Everyone has a life expectancy, and four days and days are spring breezes". Ordinary people who are illiterate are unable to write their own, so they cannot help but ask people to inscribe peach charms, Wang Chen and Liu Kezhuang have the experience of "passing through the door and holding on to Xiang Qian to write peach charms" and "neighbors or Qian writing peach charms" - looking at the eyes of today's people, the peach symbols here are not spring unions?
That's right, Tao Fu and the Door God have made it clear, and then it's the Spring League.
"Spring Thesis Maid Book", selected from "Famous Paintings"
【Spring League】
After the promotion of the Ming Dynasty, the Spring League as a New Year custom has completely come out on top. In the Qing Dynasty, a hierarchical system of spring paper was even developed
There are two most famous legends about the origin of Chunlian.
The first legend is related to Meng Chang, the Later Shu monarch during the Five Dynasties period. The Shu Shu 'Shu Ping, the imperial court with Lü Yuqing knowing Chengdu and Changchun is the name of Taizu's birthday festival, which is in line with this. As a result, "New Year's Celebration, Festive Festival Changchun" has become the first pair of Spring League in the eyes of many scholars, and the Spring League originated from the theory of peach symbols, which was also established.
The second legend is related to Zhu Yuanzhang, the ancestor of the Ming Dynasty. Chen Yunzhan's "Miscellaneous Records of the Qiuyun Building" records: "The establishment of the Spring League began with the Ming Taizu. The imperial capital Jinling, Chinese New Year's Eve, suddenly passed on the instructions: "On the door of the Gongqing Shishu's house, a picture of the Spring League must be added." 'Emperor Weixing is out of sight, the occasional family is alone, inquiring about the butcher, and has not yet written an ear. Emperor Wei wrote the big book 'Split the road of life and death with both hands, cut the root of right and wrong with a knife', threw the pen out, and the lieutenant rushed away... And Taizu gave Tao Anmen a post that 'the national dynasty strategy is unparalleled, the first hanyuan article'... He also gave Liao Yongzhong a lacquer card, and the book 'Gong ChaoQun General, Zhi Mai Xiongshi' eight characters, hung at the head of the door..." Zhao Yi, in addition to examining the evidence, said: "Then the door is pasted on Ming Taizu, which is reasonable or might be true." Therefore, there are also folk legends that the Spring League began with Zhu Yuanzhang.
In fact, these two legends are worth scrutinizing. Meng Chang's story is too coincidental and playful, and judging by its penmanship, it is likely to be a legend invented by the Song people, and the evidence lies in the fact that there are many conflicts between different versions of the same story. In the "Chronicle of the Ages", the cross of "New Year Na Yu Qing, Festive Festival Number Changchun" comes from xin Yinxun's hand, and in "Maoting Keshu Shu Precursor", not only the author changed to the Prince of Houshu, but even the content of the Spring League became "Heavenly Sunset Yuqing, The Ground Receives Changchun" Eight characters. In the "Records of Luo Zhong", the version of the Spring League has become "Heaven descends to celebrate, and the holy relics are changchun". From this point of view, the allusion of Meng Chang's creation of the Spring League is more or less a joke like "false language village dialect".
In the second legend, the story about "splitting the road of life and death with both hands, and cutting the root with one knife" is also too legendary to be verified. Moreover, the Tao Fu has already bred the prototype of the Spring League by the hands of the literati of the Song Dynasty, and its content is even relatively perfect, and it is probably not rigorous to impose the birth time of the Spring League on a certain monarch of the Ming Dynasty. However, at the time of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the "Spring League" did not appear, until the Ming Dynasty, the two titles of "Spring Union" and "Peach Symbol" began to be mixed, and there was a trend of the scholar class taking the Spring League as the mainstay, and the folk took the peach symbol as the mainstay, which was naturally promoted by Zhu Yuanzhang, so it was not impossible for the "Spring Union" to originate from Zhu Yuanzhang's hand.
After the promotion of the Ming Dynasty, the Spring League as a New Year custom has completely come out on top. In the Qing Dynasty, there was even a hierarchical system of Spring Paper, such as the "Yanjing Chronicle of the Spring League", which records: "Or use Zhu Notes, or use red paper, but the inner court and the Grandmaster Prince and other examples use white paper, with red edges and blue edges, and non-clan members are not allowed to use it." In fact, the yellow tile red pillar of the clan chamber is indeed not suitable for the use of Zhu note or red paper, so "routine white paper" has become a natural thing.
Door god, peach charm, spring union, as the three giants of the year, there is no doubt that for thousands of households to support the "façade" of the New Year. On such days, you don't have to care too much about who conceived who and whose predecessors. Just keep this pride in the festivities of this Chinese: they are old, they are new.
In the "Beijing Customs Atlas", it can be seen that the Spring Union Gate God has become a "fixed collocation"
Author: Jiang Yinlong
Editor: Fan Xin
Planner: Fan Xin
Editor-in-Charge: Xiaofang Xing
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.