The "Flower Festival" during the planting season is the day when the ancients sent flowers to the gods. The twenty-seventh time in "Dream of the Red Chamber" specifically writes that the Daguanyuan Qunfang "feasted on the flower god" in this time.
(27th day) to the next day is April 26, which turns out to be the day of the planting of mango seeds. Shang ancient customs: On the day of the Festival of Mango Seeding, all kinds of gifts should be arranged, and the god of flowers should be sacrificed, and once the mango seed is planted, it is summer, all the flowers are unloaded, and the flower god abdicates, and it is necessary to go for forgiveness. However, this custom was more popular in the boudoir, so the people in the Grand View Garden all got up early. The girls, or woven into a palanquin with willow branches with petals, or folded with aya brocade sarongs into dry buildings, were tied with colored thread. On every tree, on every flower, these things are tied. The garden is full of embroidered belts and fluttering jaws, flowers and branches, and these people are dressed up in peach and shame, swallows are jealous of warblers, and they can't say enough for a while.
The "flower god" is to send off the flower god. With the "flower god" returning to echo the main theme of the daughter of "Dream of the Red Chamber" "Qianhong One Cry (Cave), Wan Yan and Sorrow (Cup)", how not to write a special book.
Regarding the theory of the flower god, the earliest recorded deity is called "Nuyi". Western Han Dynasty "Huainanzi Astronomical Training": "The female Yi drum song is based on Si Tianhe, with long hundreds of grains, birds, grass and trees." ”
Subsequently, the "Record of Customs and Soils" of the Zhou Dynasty of the Jin Dynasty, the "Guangqun Fang Genealogy" of Wang Hao of the Qing Dynasty, and the "Compilation of The Moon Order" written by Qin Jiamu all have records related to the god of flowers.
There is also a legend that the flower god originated from the saying "flower girl".
The Tang Dynasty Fifth Dynasty Du Guangting's "Records of the Immortals of Yongcheng" records that Huagu's name is Huang Lingwei, a Native of Linchuan, and is a beautiful female Taoist. She was blessed with the two victories of Lady Wei (one of the Four Great Goddesses of Taoism and the first generation of the Shangqing Sect) in The Two Victories of Heshan and Linchuan, and was enlightened by Professor Tuomeng of Wei after teaching. It is also recorded in detail in the Taiping Huanyu Chronicle.
"Moon Order Broad Meaning Spring Order" Yun: "Spring Garden Ancestral Flower Girl." "Flower and Wood Record": Lady Wei's disciple, good at planting flowers, trumpet flower girl. "These are the early sources of the flower god.
If there is a flower god, there is a sacrifice, so the flower festival should be born from time to time. Especially during the reign of Empress Wu Zetian, the Flower Dynasty Festival was widely promoted and reached its peak in the Song Dynasty.
On the day of the Flower Festival, people put flowers on their hairpins, hang colored strips on the branches, and also go to the mountains and wild lands to play together, collect wild vegetables, hold "picking vegetable feasts", eat hundred flower cakes, drink hundred flowers wine, etc. On the day, there will be butterfly throwing, blessings, worship of the gods, flower markets, keju... and so on.
Tian Rucheng of the Ming Dynasty recorded in the "Xi Dynasty Pleasures": "Flowers are in the moon and the moon, the secular constant words, February and August are the half of the spring and autumn, so the february and a half is the flower dynasty, and the august half is the moon and the sunset." ”
The Flower Dynasty Festival is February 15th, corresponding to the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th.
However, the Qing Dynasty's "Guangqun Fangpu Tianshi Spectrum II" quotes the "Chengzhai Poetry": "Tokyo (present-day Kaifeng) february 12 flower dynasty, for the butterfly society." He also quoted the "Book of Hanmo": "Luoyang customs, with February 2 as the Flower Dynasty Festival." Shishu play, but also for the picking of vegetables festival".
It shows that the folk dates of the Flower Dynasty Festival in the Tang and Song dynasties are not the same and fixed, and there are three dates of the first two, twelfth and fifteenth days of the first month of February.
By the Ming and Qing dynasties, the date of the Flower Dynasty Festival was basically determined by the flowering period in the north and south. In the north, most of the flowers are based on February 15, corresponding to the Mid-Autumn Festival. In the south, February 12 is the day of the 100 flowers.
There is no mention of the Flower Dynasty Festival in "Dream of the Red Chamber", but the birthdays of Lin Daiyu and Hua Xiren are February 12, especially Lin Daiyu corresponds to the god of hundreds of flowers and the head of the group, which is undoubtedly the date set by the author to adopt the Flower Dynasty Festival.
Of course, if you trace back to history, the "Tao Zhu Gong Ling" of the Spring and Autumn Period has the saying of the flower dynasty, and the "Chu Ci" uses "vanilla" to describe the beauty. Anthropomorphize the flowers.
Similar to the Daizhu Fairy, it was originally the Daizhu Immortal Grass on the banks of the Western Spirit River, which was irrigated by the nectar of the attendant of the god Ying, and the allusion that could be transformed into a female body adult for a long time abounded.
The Daizhu Fairy is equivalent to a "main flower god" created by Cao Xueqin, and the Daguanyuan Qunfang below her corresponds to the "Qunfang Night Feast Flower Stick", and the peony flower god, the apricot flower god, the peach blossom god, the begonia flower god, the flower god and the hibiscus flower god are counted as the reincarnation of the Twelve Nobles of Jinling. It is also what The Great Master said of the "evil ghost".
Most of the Chinese gods are derived from the folk, and the Flower Dynasty will refer to the main flower god, and there will be a main flower god in each of the twelve months. Folk are divided into two sets of flower gods for men and women to be sacrificed.
The main story of the Qing Dynasty's "Mirror Flower Edge" is the experience of the Hundred Flowers Fairy being degraded to find the "Twelve Flowers", which is particularly interesting.
Liu Mengmei of "Peony Pavilion" was once included in the god of plum blossoms by the people. Jia Yuanchun's sentence "Durian blossoms where the palace is illuminated" refers to the May durian flower god, Empress Pan Shu of Eastern Wu Sun Quan. I won't go into it all.
If there is a flower festival, there will be a flower festival. The Flower Festival is the god of welcoming a hundred flowers, and the Flower Festival is the god of sending a hundred flowers. The "Mangsang Flower God" described in the twenty-seventh time of "Dream of the Red Chamber" refers to the "Flower Festival" of the Grand View Garden.
The Flower Festival is just as lively as the Flower Festival and is loved by her daughter.
The dates of the Flower Festival vary from place to place, but the Flower Festival is fixed on the day of the planting of flowers.
Southern Dynasty Liang Cui Ling'en (Qing Ma Guohan Series) "Three Rites and Righteous Sects": "Those who are cultivated in May can plant the valley of mangs when they speak, so in the name of mangs, the mangsai festival holds a meeting to sacrifice the god of flowers." ”
The flower festival and the ceremony of sending flowers are similar to the Jia Family Ancestral Hall. Chinese New Year's Eve the opening ancestral hall to greet the ancestors, and on the sixteenth day, the ancestors were sent back to the throne and closed the ancestral hall.
The Dictionary of Practical Customs records that on the day of the "Flower Festival", a variety of gifts were arranged, either woven into a palanquin with petals and willow branches, or hung with silk on the flower branches, for the flower gods to feast, with a view to meeting again in the coming year. The form is similar to that of the Flower Dynasty. The twenty-seventh time Cao Xueqin described it in great detail.
It should be noted that before the Mangzhong Day Flower Festival, it is Jia Baoyu's birthday (April 18), and the Flower Dynasty Festival is Lin Daiyu's birthday. Cao Xueqin's design is clearly a clever thought.
Lin Daiyu represents the Lord of Hundred Flowers, but Jia Baoyu is the one who sends flowers. Therefore, "Funeral Flower Yin" has "how many teardrops there are in the eyes, how to flow from autumn to winter, spring to summer", and it is not Daiyu who shed tears, but Jia Baoyu.
Unfortunately, today, the Flower Festival and the Flower Festival have been annihilated in history and are not found in the folk tradition. It's a shame.
Wen | Junji Yakan Red Chamber Illustration | Qing Dynasty painter Sun Wen's "Dream of the Red Chamber"
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