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There are many festivals in ancient China, and each festival has a unique value, but if you talk about the most romantic festival, I am afraid that it is only the Flower Dynasty Festival. Many people must be surprised, this name is like a pheasant without a name, straw sandals without a name, and the most romantic? Yes. Not only romantic, but also entertaining, even rich.
Its romance, eating flower cakes, drinking flower wine, watching flower exhibitions, worshipping the god of flowers, using "flowers" to show the romance to the extreme; its entertainment, stepping on the green, fluttering butterflies, fighting grass, watching lanterns, carrying people's happiness from morning to night; its richness, the appearance of the twelve flower gods, adding a distinct connotation to it.
There are different theories about the date of the Flower Dynasty Festival, such as February 12 and February 15, but the difference is not large, and they are all in the middle of spring. At this time, everything recovers, flowers bloom, and it is the most enjoyable. Although "the spring breeze in February is like scissors", it can't stop people's enthusiasm for spring. On this day, people often go to the countryside or gardens to enjoy the flowers.
Now, let's go back to ancient times and enjoy the flower festival together.
The origin of the cutting and untidying mess
When did the Flower Dynasty Festival originate?
Some people say that this festival has been around since the turn of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. What is the basis for this? There is a saying in the Ming Dynasty agricultural book "Tao Zhu Gongshu": "February 12 is the birthday of a hundred flowers, and there is no rain and a hundred flowers are ripe. "Tao Zhu Gong is Fan Li, is a figure in the late Spring and Autumn Period, if this is true, then the Flower Dynasty Festival has a history of at least 2,000 years. However, this inference is less than a flower to withstand the beating, the full name of "Tao Zhu Gongshu" is "Tao Zhu Gongfu Qi Shu", which is a book published in the late Ming Dynasty to guide agricultural production, obviously attached to the posterity.
If you look for it again, you will find two more historical materials.
▲ "Female Music Picture", Ming Qiu Zhu
The Jin people are in the "Records of the Wind and Soil" and recorded: "The customs of Zhejiang, the spring order is in the middle, and the flowers are blooming, which is the time to enjoy it." ”
According to the Ming scholar Peng Dayi's "Mountain Hall Examination", Wu Zetian visited the garden during the Flower Dynasty Festival, asked the palace maids to collect flowers, and then smashed steamed flower cakes in rice and rewarded them to his cronies.
The above two historical materials, one is old enough, and the other is gimmicky enough. Looking at it this way, the Flower Dynasty Festival should have been a local festival in the Jin Dynasty, and in the Wu Zhou Dynasty, it was already an official festival.
However, there are also suspicious aspects of this. Let's talk about "The Legend of the Wind and Soil", most of this book has been lost today, and the record of the "Flower Dynasty Festival" that we can see is from the quotation of Chen Yuanliang's "Shilin Guangji" in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the authenticity is greatly reduced.
The Victory of the Flower God, Pan Zhenyong (1852-1921)
Let's look at another piece of evidence.
During the reign of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty (779-805), the New Day of the Second Lunar New Year (i.e., the first day of the first month of February) was designated as the Neutralization Festival. According to this, the Ming scholar Xie Zhaoqian made a challenge in his book "Five Miscellaneous Groups": if the Flower Dynasty Festival was already popular in the Tang Dynasty, and its date was in the middle of February of the lunar calendar, it would be too close to the Zhonghe Festival at the beginning of the month, which contradicted Tang Dezong's desire to set up the Zhonghe Festival in February, the empty month of the festival.
As for Peng Dayi's "Examination of the Mountain Hall", it is not clear what the basis is.
Some people may ask, Bai Juyi's "Pipa Xing" has "Spring River Flowers and Autumn Moon Night", and the Flower Dynasty Festival has been written into the poem, is it a real hammer?
▲ "Hairpin Lady", painted by Zhou Fang in the Tang Dynasty. It is now in the collection of Liaoning Provincial Museum. The painting depicts six aristocratic women and their maids enjoying the flowers in the garden at the turn of spring and summer.
First, "Pipa Xing" was created in the 11th year of Yuanhe (816), in the setting and after the festival. Second, the "flower dynasty" in the white poem is the meaning of the morning when the flowers bloom, and the "moon and evening" together form a beautiful scenery. As there is a saying in the "Old Tang Book": "Every flower is in the morning and the moon, and Binzuo is very affectionate." ”
The life experience of the flower dynasty festival has become a fog in this way, and it is often attached to a dynasty, and it is immediately falsified by the masters. The only thing that can be confirmed is that the Flower Dynasty Festival has become an important festival in the Song Dynasty at the latest, because Yang Wanli of the Southern Song Dynasty has a clear record in the "Chengzhai Poems" that Kaifeng is the Flower Dynasty Festival on February 12 every year. Wu Zimu of the Southern Song Dynasty also mentioned in "Menglianglu" that the fifteenth day of Zhongchun is the flower festival. Although the days are a little different, the Flower Dynasty Festival, a festival where the factory date has been painted many times, has finally arrived.
Lin'an Flower Dynasty Festival Fun Strategy
If you travel back to the Southern Song Dynasty and become a citizen of the capital Lin'an City, and it coincides with the second lunar month, you can have a long-cherished Flower Dynasty Festival in ancient times. If you want to have a great time, then check this guide first.
First of all, prepare the play items the day before: a pair of paper and pencils, a small shovel, a vegetable basket, and a few copper coins.
On the fifteenth day of mid-spring, you can go straight to the outskirts of Lin'an in the morning. On this day, people will go in groups to pick wild vegetables, which is the so-called "picking vegetables". The Flower Dynasty Festival has the nickname of "Picking Vegetables", which is derived from this activity (picking vegetables is not exclusive to the Flower Dynasty Festival, such as the second day of February). On this day, there is a certain scientific reason for the whole people to pick. Before and after the Flower Dynasty Festival, it is the time when wild vegetables such as shepherd's cabbage and white artemisia are vigorous and tender, and they are fried out, which is really nutritious and delicious, delicious and free.
▲ The site of the renovated Flower Temple in Huayuangang Village, Hangzhou, the predecessor of the village was the official garden of Hangzhou when the capital was built in the Southern Song Dynasty.
After watching the agricultural persuasion ceremony, it is already noon, and there is some hunger in the stomach, so you should hurry to the West Lake, where there is a flower festival carnival including eating, drinking and playing waiting for you.
In the later generations of Ming Zhang Dai's "Dream Memories of Tao'an", the name of this carnival can be found - West Lake Xiang City. Because every year to the flower season, a hundred flowers are gorgeous, and the West Lake is full of tourists, naturally forming a market dominated by selling flowers. After buying flowers, find a stall to eat some potpourri wine and potpourri cakes, recover some strength, and go to the recreation area around the corner. There, singing and dancing, hundred operas, juju, swings, fighting flowers and plants, and selecting officials and immortals, there are everything, as if walking into the "Qingming Riverside Map", playing in Si, and indulging in Si.
When you have fun, you can go to some gardens to enjoy flowers and compose poems. At this time, you will fall into a kind of sweet distress: Where to go to enjoy the flowers? The jade pots, ancient willow forests, and Yangfu cloud caves outside the Qiantang Gate are full of flowers; the Qingle and Xiaohu gardens outside the Qianhu Gate are steaming and the clouds are shining; and the Baojia Mountain is full of peach blossoms, swaying in the wind, and the mountains are lovely. I simply didn't hesitate anymore, found a peach and plum place, took out the paper and pen I brought, and wrote down my love for the scenery and people of the Flower Dynasty Festival.
▲ Flower God Picture, Otomi (1905)
Seeing that the sun is about to set on the lonely mountain, I am not in a hurry to go back, because there is still the last project of the day - putting lanterns. In the area of Jiang Village, Xixi, Hangzhou, the lanterns are well-known. The lamp is made of a hundred flowers, under the moon on the branches, the lights are bright and off, red and green mottled, very beautiful.
After watching the lanterns, the full moon is full of sky. At this time, walking slowly and comfortably home, the poem in Song Ren Yi Shida's "Flower Burning Lamp" "The warbler flower world is half spring, and the moon is full of lights", I can't help but chant out of my mouth.
Flowers and maidens
The reason why the Flower Dynasty Festival is favored by the people is because on this day, the girls are liberated, walk out of the spring boudoir, and at the same time look at flowers in the streets and alleys, they also become flowers in the eyes of others.
Since ancient times, China has compared famous flowers to beauties, and "the peach blossoms on the human face are red" is regarded as a good product by the literati. Therefore, when the flower dynasty comes, and the famous flowers are happy in the city, it will also provoke the literati and peddlers, pawns to laugh and look at each other.
On this day, no matter in the city or the countryside, as long as there are flowers, there are traces of girls. The poet Fang Hui of the Yuan Dynasty described it like this: "There are many wandering women in the suburbs of Xiqing, and they are intoxicated by the twilight stream." In the Jiaxing area, "women travel more and go out." This day is even called a "women's festival" by some scholars because of its "strong feminine color".
Landscape viewing
Qing people painted "Baimei Garden Map"
In early spring, butterflies dance, girls walk among the flowers, to flutter butterflies for fun, so the flower festival has the classic bridge of "butterfly fluttering meeting". The poet Gong Baiyao wrote in "Memories of the Old Man in Taoyuan": "Who will flutter butterflies in the flower dynasty, and the flowers will fall lightly." As a girl's favorite activity, butterfly fluttering is accompanied by the Flower Dynasty Festival, presumably Cao Xueqin has also witnessed the butterfly fluttering meeting held in which home, so she will be deeply touched and write the classic plot of "Baochai Butterfly Fluttering".
After fluttering butterflies, the girls also have a more social and competitive game - fighting flowers and plants. The so-called douhua grass is to let the two grasses (or flower stems) cross, two people each pinch the two ends of the grass, pull hard, until a grass is pulled off, and the side of the grass is the winner.
▲ Ming Dynasty painter Chen Hongshou "Butterfly Lady Picture Axis"
The history of fighting flowers and plants is far longer than the flower festival, according to legend, in the spring and autumn period, Wu Wangfu and Xi Shi are in the palace of the pavilion, and they often take the flowers and plants as fun.
Before the girls play, they will go to the grass to carefully select their "contestants", just as the Ming Dynasty poet Huang Zichang wrote in "Qiluo Xiang" "Steal all over, green path smoke" - quietly look in the roadside grass, ready, "sweep the flower steps, mattress display hibiscus", clean the steps, and then lay a mattress embroidered with hibiscus, and the ring is finished!
The next step is to pull the two sides long and short, and the winner can take out a bamboo chip from the bamboo tube next to it. The trophies are some small jewelry that girls like - "Grab the Chip, Win the Jade Yoga".
▲ Ming Dynasty painter Chen Hongshou "Bucket Sketch", courtesy of Fotoe
In the eyes of the ancients, girls also had to have a demure and beautiful appearance, fluttering butterflies, fighting flowers and plants, and having a lot of fun, but also had to arrange a quieter activity - appreciating red to calm the nerves.
Enjoying red is when girls from all families tie red cloth to tree branches for appreciation. This activity originated from the legend of the Tang Dynasty Cui Yuanhui who used a red cloth to protect flowers. According to legend, Cui Sheng dreamed of pomegranate flower essence at night asking for help, and asked him to use red cloth as a curtain to protect a garden of flowers and plants on the fifth watch. He did according to the flower essence in his dream, and sure enough, at the fifth watch, the wind suddenly rose. The flower was saved by the red mantle, and he also received a similar praise of the "flower messenger" from the flower essence, and finally became an immortal.
Landscape viewing
▲ Hanfu twelve flower god beauty picture. Photo courtesy of Licorice's Garden
Most of the girls have heard this legend, protect the god of flowers, do a good job, maybe you can also get the favor of the immortals! The favor that the girls want to get is probably not Cui Yuanhui's feathered immortal, but youth and beauty, is to meet Ruyi Langjun, just like the last sentence in "Qiluo Xiang" - "The silk chest belt is empty and suitable for men, and it is not a pity that Lang has not returned?"
The years are different from year to year
In ancient times, the Chinese could not do without sacrifices during festivals, and major festivals and small festivals had to be sprinkled and swept to sacrifice the corresponding gods. The Flower Dynasty Festival is no exception, and it is natural to go to the temple to respectfully worship the main god of this day, the god of flowers.
The so-called god of flowers is the god in charge of a hundred flowers. Chinese have worshiped flowers since the time of primitive ancestors, advocating their prosperity and beauty. Therefore, in the 305 chapters of the Book of Songs, there are more than 150 kinds of plants mentioned, and as many as 132 species belong to the category of flowers.
While putting such beautiful sentences as "the peach is dying, scorching its flower" into the poem, the ancestors imagined and depicted the image of Si Baihua as a flower god in their minds. may be because he is too partial to flowers, and later there is more than one god of flowers, there are also men and women, and with the evolution of the history of elegance, too many celebrities have been carried into the flower world fairy class one after another. The flowers are similar every year, but the "gods" are different every year.
▲ "The Death of the Peach" in the Book of Songs.
The earliest god of flowers was called Nuyi. There is a description of this generation of flower gods in "Huainanzi Tianwenxun": "Nuyi drum song is based on Si Tianhe, and it is used to grow a hundred grains, birds, plants and trees. "Nuyi beats drums and sings, following the laws of nature, breeding plants, trees, flowers and birds and crops in the world.
When the Eastern Han Dynasty white horse came to the Buddhist scriptures, they also brought new idols to the incense of the flower temple - Rulai and Kaye Bodhisattva. These two Buddhist figures are taken because of the Buddha's mastery - if you come to pick flowers, Ka Ye is one of them laughing. The flower in the hands of the Buddha carries the wordless communication of the wise, and it also has a soul. When Rulai and Jiaye were invited to work part-time as flower gods, the Chinese flower gods bid farewell to the image of officials who mainly focused on agriculture, but had wisdom and resourcefulness.
▲ Qing dynasty Xu Liangbiao painted "He Xiangu crosses the sea chart fan"
Seeing that the Buddhists have a representative of the god of flowers, the Taoists also submitted a candidate, this person is called Hua Gu, who believes in Mrs. Wei, the founder of the Shangqing faction, and ranks in the immortal class. And because he usually likes to plant flowers, he turned into a flower god and grew a hundred flowers.
The ancients always had compassion, for the weak, and the same for the gods. Because he was worried that an immortal would not be able to govern a huge business, he would recommend many subordinates to him. One is divided according to space, similar to the relationship between the public security bureau and the police station, with a family and a courtyard and a flower god. For example, in Tang Xianzu's book "Peony Pavilion", when Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang met and fell in love, the flower god who was blessed by the side was the flower god who was in charge of the back garden of Nan'an Mansion.
Landscape viewing
▲ Twelve flower gods. Source: "Chinese Heritage"
There is also a division, which is by month. Managing flowers seems to be just a trivial matter of watering and fertilizing, but it is necessary to think that the flowers are different in four seasons - there are peaches and plums in spring, lotuses in summer, chrysanthemums in autumn and plums in winter, which must be carefully taken care of, so it is more than twelve months of attachment, and twelve flower gods are set up.
Because it is a meticulous job to manage flowers and plants, the first people to take up posts are women, and the new flower gods are no longer immortals, but real people who can represent a certain kind of flowers in history. For example, the flower god of plum blossoms in January is the plum concubine favored by Xuanzong, and Xuanzong once set up a plum pavilion and planted a plum forest for it. Later, because of Xuanzong's empathy for Yang Yuhuan, Concubine Mei lamented the sluggishness of the dynasty in the last years of Tianbao, and once wrote poems and grievances, and was sent to the cold palace. During the Anshi Rebellion, she refused to surrender to the rebels and died tragically by jumping into a well. Because of their love for her character, the people elected her as Concubine Mei.
▲ Qianlong court painting of the Qing Dynasty, "February" in the anonymous courtyard book "December Moon Order"
And Yang Yuhuan, who indirectly hurt Concubine Mei, is also ranked in the Flower God Enjoyment Palace. The identity of her god of flowers, because there are multiple versions and a little complicated, one is said to be the god of apricot blossoms in February: it is said that because after the jade ring hanged itself in Ma Wei Slope, Xuanzong missed it very much, so he sent people to find the remains, and saw that there was an apricot tree on Ma Wei Slope, white as snow, quite like the color of a concubine. Out of love for the scapegoat, the people offered her as the god of apricot blossoms.
But in another version, Yuhuan is the god of peony flowers in April, and the reason is well known, it is Li Bai who made Yuhuan a peony in "Qingping Tune". The grace and luxury of the jade ring like a peony also makes this arrangement deeply desirable.
▲ Qing Dynasty wooden-handled silk painted flowers poems and texts hold a fan, and 100 kinds of flowers are painted on the fan surface.
It seems that in the selection of the position of the god of flowers, the principle of adhering to is "I have flowers, do you have a story?", so many historical and cultural celebrities who have an indissoluble relationship with flowers have come one after another, and the god of flowers also has a male version, a female version, a mixed version and other versions.
The selection of many flower gods is burdened with Confucian teachings, from the allegiance of the osmanthus flower god Luzhu (a famous prostitute in the Western Jin Dynasty) to the plum blossom god Lin Kui (a poet of the Northern Song Dynasty) of the forest and springs, and the god of flowers from agricultural supervisors to evangelists, and then to Confucian moral models, the three religions take the god of flowers as the highland and export their own values.
For thousands of years, the Flower Dynasty Festival has been a major festival, but it suddenly plummeted in popularity during the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, and then collapsed to the present. Its encounter is full of bitterness.
▲ The "God of Flowers" in the 87 version of "Dream of Red Mansions". Screenshot of the video
On the hill on the north side of Suzhou Street in the Summer Palace in Beijing, there is only one pocket version of the flower temple, presumably the flower god in it, sitting in this cramped one-bedroom room every day, reminiscing about the supreme glory of his ancestors -
In the first-tier cities of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the flower temple is like a top chain department store, often sitting in the core area, according to the historical records of the Ming and Qing dynasties, only in the area of Suzhou Shantang Tiger Hill, there are four flower temples standing side by side. Legend has it that Ji Xiaolan, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, also inscribed a famous couplet for the flower temple near the Tiger Hill Sword Stone: "One hundred and eight bells evoke the spring dream of ten thousand families; ”
Nowadays, some famous flower temples can be counted on one hand, and the reputation of the Tiger Hill Flower Temple is not as good as before; Nanjing Flower Temple was destroyed, and it can only be seen on the name of the subway station and the overpass, and it is now newly built. Beijing's is even more miserable, next to the one-bedroom flower temple, is a one in Beidali, the Qing Dynasty's royal flower temple, now only one temple gate remains. Because of negligent management, it has become a wishing wall for candidates across the country, from once "bless the prosperity of flowers" to now "I must be admitted to Peking University", if the god of flowers has a spirit in the sky, I don't know if it will be a little embarrassing.
▲ The Flower Temple on the shore of Weiming Lake of Peking University has only a lonely mountain gate left. Photo courtesy / Picture Worm Creative
Why did the once beautiful Flower Dynasty Festival fall to such a field?
First, social unrest. The flower temple in Peking University was first destroyed by the soldiers of the Eight-Nation Alliance. The turmoil of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China followed, the main building of Nanjing Flower Temple, first destroyed in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and then burned down by the Japanese army invading China after the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Second, the loss of economic soil. In the past, the flower temple was mostly funded by the local flower farmers, and the flower god was bless the prosperity of the business. However, due to turmoil and war, urban planning, the flower market was either relocated, or the flower market in Shanghai was moved to skyscrapers, the market was gone, and the flower temple naturally declined day by day. After the change of customs, the new flower temple was no longer established, and the end of the green and yellow was that the vast majority of the flower temple was demolished, and the rest were "lingering" and lost their glory.
Some readers may ask, the fall of the Flower Temple has a great impact on the Flower Dynasty Festival? The answer is yes, relying on the Flower Temple, in order to have a place to gather popularity, and the concept of the Flower Dynasty Festival can return to the collective consciousness of the people in the prosperous popularity. Just like there is no courtyard house, the courtyard culture will eventually become a dead culture that can only live on paper.
Therefore, when many places are excavating history and culture and building Internet celebrity cities today, they all think of the Flower Dynasty Festival. And the first step is mostly to rebuild the temple of flowers. In this regard, there are all praises.
I often wonder what it would look like if I personified the Flower Dynasty. After thinking about it, he should be an uninvited guest, and no one remembers when he broke into the banquet of history and culture. Immediately, with the attitude of abundance and the connotation of romance and delicacy, it won a full house.
Landscape viewing
▲ Hubei Yichang Hanfu lovers are sacrificing to the god of flowers. Photo courtesy / Picture Worm Creative
However, I don't know when I left, leaving too much nostalgia and emotion. But our festival culture should not be without it, without it, there will be too many flowers, garden fairs, elegant words and ode to joy. History and festivals leave us with too much seriousness, and we need to look at the flowers, take a break, and move forward.