Snow into the spring equinox province is rare, half-open peach plum invincible.
Should be ashamed to land on the plum blossoms, but do the sky willow flying.
--Song Sushi
The vernal equinox is the fourth of the twenty-four solar terms, and from March 19 to 22 of the solar calendar every year, the sun reaches 0 degrees of ecliptic longitude, which is the spring equinox. On the day of the vernal equinox, the sun shines directly at the equator, and almost all of the world is of equal length between day and night. After the vernal equinox, for the Northern Hemisphere, the day begins to grow longer than the night, until the summer solstice day reaches the longest day. After the apes separated, the ancient ancestors did not have a very clear concept of time at first. The change in the length of day and night is one of the most observable temporal phenomena in the daily life of the ancestors. The day with the longest day, the day with the longest night, and the day when day and night are equally divided, these key time nodes naturally became the first days noticed by the ancestors, so there was the concept of two-in-two. Therefore, the vernal equinox is also one of the earliest established solar terms among the twenty-four solar terms. The Han Dynasty philosopher Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Prosperity" records that "the spring equinox, yin and yang are half, so the day and night are equal and the cold and summer are flat." "The ancients used the concept of yin and yang to explain the changes in all things in the world, and the equal division of day and night was interpreted as half of yin and yang.
First, the three seasons of the vernal equinox
Twenty-four solar terms account for 15 days per solar term, and the ancients further divided these 15 days into three equals, one every 5 days, to describe the specific natural conditions of each solar term. The spring equinox naturally has three seasons, namely "Genbird Solstice, Thunder Is Sound, and Initiation".
The migration of migratory birds is one of the natural phenomena that the ancients most easily observed with seasonal changes. Therefore, in the seventy-two seasons corresponding to the twenty-four solar terms, there are many expressions related to the activities of migratory birds, such as the red goose coming during the rainy season, and then the xuanbird solstice of the spring equinox. The bird is the swallow, a typical migratory bird. The ancients believed that swallows moved to the north at the spring equinox and to the south at the autumn equinox, so they used this as a marker of the spring equinox.
The second weather thunder occurs, and the third waits for electricity, which is a natural phenomenon that describes the spring equinox. The ancients used yin and yang to explain all things, and both thunder and lightning were considered to be a manifestation of yang. The vernal equinox is "yin and yang half", after the spring equinox, the yang between heaven and earth began to press to the yin qi to take advantage, so lightning began to appear in the sky, and thunder began to occur in the friction of yin and yang.
Second, the folklore of the spring equinox
As one of the four seasons and eight festivals, the spring equinox is a very important time node in ancient China, whether it is to guide agricultural production or simply out of the concept of yin and yang. At the same time, the spring equinox is also one of the oldest of the twenty-four solar terms, so there are many customs in the history of the spring equinox, and some of these customs continue to this day.
In ancient times, the spring equinox day was an important time of sacrifice, and the spring equinox day was dedicated to the sun, which was an official ritual handed down from the Western Zhou Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty literati's notebook "Jisheng in the Age of Emperor Jing", it is recorded: "The spring equinox festival day and the autumn equinox festival moon are the great ceremonies of the country." "Now there is a park called the Temple of the Sun in the southeast of The Chaoyang Gate in Beijing, which is actually where the Ming and Qing dynasties held the ceremony of the Day. In ancient times, there were official sacrifices in two parts, corresponding to the sun, moon and earth, and now the parks in Beijing, such as the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Moon, the Temple of Heaven, and the Temple of Earth, were the places of official sacrifice at that time.
Today's Ritan Park
The official Spring Equinox Festival is mainly to pray for the safety of the people and the smooth wind and rain. But in fact, the worship and sacrifice of the sun has a very long history and is also common in the folk. For example, in the early years of Beijing, there was a tradition of sacrificing the sun with a dim sum called "sun cake". This sun cake is made of five layers, made of rice noodles and sugar, generally round, and often has the pattern of the golden rooster on it, which may have something to do with the legend of jinwu in the ancient sun belief.
In addition to the sun sacrifice, folk also have the custom of worshipping ancestors on the day of the spring equinox. In addition to asking ancestors to bless the wind and rain, in some areas of Hakka, there is also a tradition of naming "Xinding". That is, when the ancestors are worshipped on the day of the spring equinox, the parents carry the baby boy born in the family to the ancestors and give them names by the patriarch.
Folk festivals that have been passed down to this day
In addition to various sacrifices, there are also some dietary customs during the spring equinox. For example, in many places, the custom of "eating spring vegetables" during the spring equinox is popular. The spring vegetables here are not actually a specific vegetable, but a collective term for a series of green vegetables that are energy-saving at this time. Therefore, specific to a certain place, what kind of spring vegetables to eat is also determined by the local product situation. But no matter what kind of dish you eat, this kind of custom of "eating spring" and "biting spring" contains a beautiful wish for health and harvest. In addition to eating spring vegetables, many places on the mainland also have the custom of brewing wine around the spring equinox. For example, in Zhejiang, according to the "Chronicle of Yuqian County", there is a local custom of brewing "spring equinox wine", which is "red in color and taste is not bad for a long time". In Lingchuan, Shaanxi, in addition to making wine on the day of the spring equinox, people also use wine to sacrifice to the first farmers.
Whether it is sacrifice or diet, these customs are actually relatively rare today, and may still be left in remote rural areas. But there is also an interesting spring equinox custom that is still popular today, and has even been crossed by the Internet and evolved into a worldwide game, which is the spring equinox egg.
The custom of erecting eggs is said to have been around for more than 4,000 years. The specific method is to choose a smooth and well-proportioned egg on the day of the spring equinox, gently place it on the table, and if it can stand, it is considered a success. The game of erecting eggs has a certain desire to beg for good fortune and celebrate the arrival of spring. As for why the Ancient Chinese chose the form of vertical egg? There is a view that this is related to the concept of yin and yang of the ancient Chinese. The spring equinox is a day when "yin and yang are half, day and night are equal and cold and hot are flat", and the ancient Chinese people thought that this was a manifestation of yin and yang balance, which was very auspicious. In order to celebrate this auspicious day of yin and yang balance, the ancients invented the ritual of erecting eggs. Over the years, there have also been attempts to explain this folkloric phenomenon with the tools of modern science. There is a theory that the Earth's axis, which is tilted at 66.5° on the day of the vernal equinox, is in a state of relative equilibrium with the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, so that the egg can be erected. Let's take it as a way of saying it.
Resources:
Qiu Bingjun: The Twenty-Four Solar Terms of the Chinese, Chemical Industry Press, 2018.
Song Jingdong: Knowledge of the Twenty-Four Solar Terms of Traditional Chinese Tradition, Tianjin Science and Technology Publishing House, 2018.
Song Yingjie: Twenty-Four Solar Terms, CITIC Publishing House, 2017.
(Author: Dr. Haoran Wenshi Li Yiming)
This article is the original work of Wenshi Science Popularization Self-media Haoran Wenshi, and unauthorized reprinting is prohibited!
The pictures used in this article, unless otherwise noted, are from the network search, if there is infringement, please contact the author to delete, thank you!
We will provide you with wonderful historical articles every day, and we kindly ask all readers and friends to pay attention to our account! Your likes, retweets, comments, this is the best support for us!