Twenty-four solar terms | Tian Zhaoyuan: Qingming is a festival full of vitality

【Editor's Note】Folklore related to festivals and festivals has been passed down for thousands of years and contains the wisdom and culture of ancestors. In modern society, we are gradually drifting away from traditional folk customs, but at a certain moment, we will still be amazed by the names of the 24 solar terms such as Qingming and Guyu, and will be moved by the Lantern Festival's "flower market lights like day", and will go to our hometown from a distant hometown during the Spring Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Folklore is the memory of Chinese that flows in the blood.

In collaboration with the Institute of Folklore of East China Normal University, The Paper has launched a column on traditional folk festivals to introduce festivals that are very important in traditional Chinese culture and related folk customs, which have not disappeared and are still in our daily lives.

Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, during the "Qingming" season, spring and Jingming, plants on the ancient Huai River sprout and grow new leaves, full of spring. Visual China figure

Among the twenty-four solar terms, Qingming is special. It is both a solar term and an important traditional festival, which is a relatively rare occurrence among the twenty-four solar terms. At this time, it is the 15th day after the spring equinox, and the whole country has truly entered the spring, and Vientiane is renewed.

"Spring, winter solstice, and Qingming are three very important festivals in the twenty-four solar terms. Both Spring and Winter Solstice mean 'beginning', while Qingming is in alternating seasons. Although Lichun is also in spring, the weather is still cold, and the Qingming season has truly reached spring, and it is warm and cold at first, and people can feel the process of life alternation the most. ”

Tian Zhaoyuan, a professor at the Institute of Folklore of East China Normal University, believes that it is precisely because of the strong perception of life that the festivals and customs around the Qingming Dynasty are presented in two distinct directions: on the one hand, it is to pay tribute to the tomb and commemorate the ancestors; on the other hand, it is to travel in the spring and gather for fun. These two aspects of folk activities seem to be in opposite directions, but in fact, they all point to a theme, that is, the perception and importance of life.

Ancestor worship in the Song Dynasty became an important custom

Ancestor worship in the Qingming Dynasty is an important folk custom that continues to this day. Before and after the Qingming Dynasty, the cemetery of the ancestors experienced wind, frost, rain and snow throughout the year, and it was urgent to be swept away. The ancient Chinese people pursued the "unity of heaven and man", and people chose to sweep the tomb in the Qingming Dynasty where all things were revived, which was a remembrance of the ancestors and a "dialogue" between the living and the dead.

"Tomb sweeping in the Qingming Dynasty became an important tradition during the Song Dynasty." Tian Zhaoyuan introduced that the custom of sweeping tombs and worshipping ancestors in the Qingming Dynasty has undergone a long process of evolution, in this process, the Qingming gradually integrated the customs of the Cold Food Festival and developed the tradition of tomb sweeping.

In the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, there were basically no graves, so there was no way to "sweep the tombs". Literature and archaeological materials have set the appearance of the tomb in the Spring and Autumn Period, and people even say that the inventor of the tomb is Confucius.

The Book of Rites and the Tan Bow writes: "Confucius was buried in defense, saying: 'I have heard that the tomb of the ancients is not a grave.' Imaya, the people of the east, west, south, and north, can't know it. So he sealed it, and revered it four feet. ”

"Confucius felt that he was wandering around, afraid that he would not be able to find the place where his parents were buried, so he piled up a four-foot-high grave." Tian Zhaoyuan said that although Confucius repaired the tomb for his parents, he was very conflicted in his heart and felt that it was "contrary to ancient etiquette."

But the emotion of sacrificing ancestors requires many people to have, before the development of tomb sacrifices, the practice of conforming to the ritual system was to sacrifice in the temple and sacrifice in the ancestral hall. "But this is aristocratic etiquette, ordinary people are not so exquisite, ordinary people do not have ancestral halls, their feelings for their ancestors cannot be sustenance, and sweeping tombs has become a very good way."

Folk practices gradually radiated to the temple. In the Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin brought the cold food festival customs that spread in Shanxi to the royal family, and then radiated to the whole country, developing the custom of cold food tomb sweeping, and he even issued a tomb sacrifice decree to institutionalize the tomb sacrifice. The Cold Food Festival thus became an important festival.

"The Song Dynasty truly popularized the tradition of going to the tomb of the Qingming Dynasty and fulfilled people's desire to visit the graves of their ancestors." Tian Zhaoyuan said that in the Tang Dynasty, there were still conflicts of opinion on whether to "sweep the tomb", and everyone felt that the tomb sweeping was not in line with etiquette, and should go to the ancestral hall to pay tribute. Li Shimin would go to visit the tomb, but Han Yu was very disgusted by it, because it was not in line with ancient etiquette.

Although the Song Dynasty did not inherit the tradition of the "Cold Food Festival", it inherited tomb sweeping as a tradition and put it in the Qingming Dynasty. The Cold Food Festival gradually faded from people's vision and became a niche festival. However, qingming in the twenty-four solar terms has become a very important traditional festival, on which people lay the foundation to visit the grave and remember the ancestors.

Fusion of cold food, Shangmi festival customs

Qingming took tomb sweeping and ancestor worship as the most important festival, but the Qingming festival was more than that. Qingming and the mainland's traditional festivals of cold food and shangwei time are similar. The Cold Food Festival is one or two days before the Qingming Dynasty, and the "March 3rd" Shangwei Festival is also close to the Qingming time. These two traditional festivals have become increasingly niche, and their festivals and customs have been merged into the Qingming Festival, and a variety of Qingming festival customs have been developed.

Along with the Qingming Festival, there are a series of mass entertainment activities around "stepping on the green", including folding willows, swinging, cockfighting, walking green, fighting eggs, tug-of-war and so on.

"All activities revolve around life, a contest of life forces." Tian Zhaoyuan explained Qingming's rich sports and recreational activities in this way. In his view, Qingming is a festival full of vitality, and people's series of activities revolve around the perception of life, which is also in line with the natural theme of the recovery of all things in spring.

Fang Yun, a lecturer at the School of International Education of Shanghai University and a doctor of folklore, mentioned the custom of changing the fire of the Qingming cold food, "In order to ensure the convenient use of fire such as lighting, cooking, and heating, people often save the fire and make it unquenchable day and night." In this way, fire seems to have a life. The ancients believed that the more newly taken the fire vitality, the more exuberant; what is important is that the ancients also believed that the vitality of fire will affect people's vitality through the use of fire, and eating cooked rice from the old fire all day is not conducive to good health. In order to avoid the damage of the old fire, it is necessary to change the fire regularly, that is, to extinguish the old fire at a certain time and regain the new fire. In the "Zhou Li Xia Guan", there is a special official in charge of changing the fire, called Si Yaoshi, who "holds the government decree of fire, and changes the national fire at four o'clock to save the disease."

The Tang Dynasty people revived this activity and held it on the Qingming Festival. Taking advantage of the custom of banning fire for three days during the cold food festival that prevailed at that time, they extinguished the fire when the cold food festival came (the iconic time of the cold food festival was 105 days after the winter solstice), forming a situation of "the whole world extinguishes the flame, and the smoke is hidden in the ground", and then re-ignites the fire on the day of the Qingming Festival, thus achieving the purpose of changing the fire.

"On the day of Qingming, giving new fire to the hundred officials is a luxurious ceremony. Similar to the ignition ceremony of the Current Olympic Games. It is not that the fire is rare, it is this ritual that means that the emperor is carrying the heavens and paying homage to nature. Of course, the fire and torch must be solemn and chic. So countless officials have documented this pomp and circumstance. Fang Yun said.

Realizing the exuberance of vitality in the form of "changing fire" is also in line with the theme of "life" in the Qingming Dynasty. The good stories of the Shangwei Festival's waterfront prayer, qushui flow, and Lanting Yaji are also the individuals' pursuit of marital autonomy, prosperity of heirs, and a happy life, which is the thinking of literati and scholars on liberating from earthly troubles and the authenticity of life, which is also in line with the theme of "life".

The online festival sweep is in line with the Qingming tradition

Tian Zhaoyuan also mentioned that the festival of Qingming also has the meaning of "epidemic prevention". "There is a custom in Shanghai, don't go around before and after the Qingming Festival, it is easy to bring unclean things to the home. Although the Qingming festival is an exchange with a deceased relative, it is still an outdoor behavior, and ordinary people do not want to bring this behavior to their homes. According to the scientific method, it is also reasonable, the Qingming season is warm and cold, there are epidemic germs, and not visiting the door actually has a certain effect on preventing the spread of epidemic diseases. Qingming does not visit the door is a tradition, and the tradition also has some practical significance of epidemic prevention. ”

This year, due to the epidemic, Qingming sacrifice activities in many places cannot be held normally, and methods such as "substitute sacrifice" and "online sacrifice sweep" have become new choices for people.

"In essence, qingming festival is the communication between the living and the dead, the communication between the world on this shore and the world on the other side." Tian Zhaoyuan believes that the network sacrifice and the online spiritual hall are communicated between the world on the other side and the world on the other side in the form of a digital virtual world, in this sense, the network sacrifice also has a realistic background, which is the collision and unity of science and technology and tradition. Under the epidemic situation, everyone cannot go to the cemetery to visit the grave, and online sacrifices can also send mourning.

He specifically mentioned East China Normal University's "Campus Sage Festival", which has been held for ten years to express the memory of meng Xiancheng, the school's first president, by holding a sacrifice in Qingming. In Qingming, everyone gathered on campus, folded willows to send their thoughts, and recited the university ideal put forward by Meng Xiancheng: "The creation of wisdom, the fusion of character, the development of the nation and society." "I look forward to his educational spirit and educational philosophy being inherited."

This year, The Chinese Normal University also held such a memorial service on the Internet, where everyone read out the sacrifice text and also played Meng Xiancheng's documentary to watch online together, which is something that cannot be done in the real world. "I think the online ritual sweep is in line with the Chinese Qingming tradition, and it is also a dialogue between the living and the dead, which is essentially the same." Under the scientific and technological meta-universe, the Qingming culture can be better inherited. Tian Zhaoyuan said.