The origin of the Mid-Autumn festival
The word "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the summer: "Mid-Autumn Festival, teach soldiers." As early as the Zhou Dynasty, people thought this beautiful scenery was a good opportunity for training. However, according to the current literature, the Mid-Autumn Festival should have become a festival in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Because according to the earliest monograph "Chronology of Jingchu Age" in China, there was no concept of "Mid-Autumn Festival" at least in the Southern and Northern Dynasties.
However, if we discuss the Mid-Autumn Festival, we can start with the autumn worship and Yue Bai in the pre-Qin period. China is an ancient agricultural country. The development of agriculture has a lot to do with seasons, and autumn is a harvest season. Shuowen Jiezi interprets "autumn" as "cooked grain". In the era of extremely low productivity and underdeveloped science, although there is no systematic concept of God, people have directly worshipped natural objects and natural forces as objects with will. One of the worship of celestial bodies is the worship of the moon. "The night is bright, and the moon is also sacrificed", "Sacrifice the sun to the altar, and sacrifice the moon to the ridge, so as not to be quiet and bright, and control the up and down. Sacrifice to the east, the west of the moon, the length of yin and yang, the end of the tour, and the sum of the world all illustrate this point. "Sacrificing the sun" is called "Spring Prayer" and "Sacrificing the moon" is called "Autumn Newspaper". As a result, a series of ceremonies and fashion activities appeared around the "Autumn Newspaper". "In Tian Zi, the sun shines in spring, the sun shines in autumn, and the moon comes in the evening." The "late moon" here is the autumn equinox to worship the moon at night. It can be seen that the theory of offering sacrifices to the moon has been confirmed in pre-Qin ancient books, and the Mid-Autumn Festival was developed on the basis of the autumnal equinox. In ancient times, there were only activities of the autumnal equinox, but there was no Mid-Autumn Festival. The autumnal equinox is around August 15, but it may appear at any time from the beginning of August to the end of August because it is a leap month. However, the autumnal equinox is the festival of the moon, and people always associate this festival with the moon. If the autumnal equinox appears in the second half of the month, or even at the end of the month, it is difficult for people to see the moon. Sacrificing the moon on a moonless night loses its original meaning. Therefore, people later fixed the activities of "offering sacrifices to the moon" from the autumnal equinox to August 15th, and designated August 15th as the Mid-Autumn Festival.
How did the Mid-Autumn Festival come about?
Usually, many people say that the Mid-Autumn Festival originated in the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon. According to historical records: "Yesterday, Chang 'e took the medicine of the Queen Mother of the West to live forever, so she went to the moon with the essence of the moon. "Chang 'e paid hard labor for this move, and she can't return to the world for life. Li Bai was very sad for this, and wrote a poem: "The white rabbit pounded medicine in autumn, and came back to life in spring. Who is the female neighbor? " Although Chang 'e herself feels good about the Moon Palace, she can't bear loneliness. She returns to Earth to reunite with her husband all night on August 15 every year, but she must return to the Moon Palace before dawn. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, the world not only wants to get together with Chang 'e on the moon, but also hopes that Chang 'e can come down to see her beauty. Therefore, when many people burn incense in Yue Bai, they pray, "Would a man like to go to themoon early and climb the fairy laurel? Women want to look like Chang 'e and round like the bright moon. "Year after year, people celebrate this day as a festival.
It has been suggested that the Mid-Autumn Festival was originally the anniversary of the uprising that overthrew the rule of the Yuan Dynasty. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the people could not stand the government's rule. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, they wrote, "Kill Tatars and destroy the Yuan Dynasty; The note "Let's do it together on August 15" is hidden in a small round cake made of chromium and passed to each other. On the evening of August 15, every family United and overthrew the rule of the yuan dynasty. Later, every Mid-Autumn Festival, we all eat moon cakes to commemorate this historic victory.
Qiantang River Tide in Mid-Autumn Festival
Qiantang River Tide is a wonder in the world. The 16th to 18th (August) of the lunar calendar is the most prosperous.
When the tide surges from Haikou, Zhejiang, it looks almost like a silvery white line. The tide is getting closer and closer, just like the tide coming from Yucheng Xueling. The sound is like thunder and lightning, shocking and stirring, engulfing the sky and setting off the sun, with great momentum. In Yang Wanli's poem, "Silver in the sea is the country and jade in the river is the waist" describes such a scene. Every year (in August of the lunar calendar), the governor of Lin 'an Prefecture in Kyoto comes to Zhejiang Pavilion to review the navy, and hundreds of warships are on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. Then, five formations rehearsed, suddenly accelerating, jumping, separating, merging, and various changes. At the same time, there are people riding horses, dancing flags, raising guns and wielding knives on the water, as if stepping on the flat ground. Suddenly there was yellow smoke everywhere, and the people on the shore and the people on board could not see each other at all. There was a roar of water explosion, which sounded like a mountain collapsed. When the smoke cleared, the water surface was calm again, and there was no trace of a ship, leaving only the "enemy ship" destroyed by the fire, drifting with the tide. Hundreds of Wu Er, who is good at swimming, have long hair, are painted with literary colors, and hold ten colorful flags in their hands, scrambling to swim against the current and meet the tide. (Their figures) appeared in the stormy waves at the beginning of the year, tossing their bodies and changing their postures, but the tail of the flag was not wet at all, so they showed their (superb) skills with this (performance).