Chang'an Zaxing Effect Bamboo Branches
Thousands of trees are cool and frosty, the air is clear, and the nine roads in the middle of the first month are bright.
Children compete for green lotus leaves, and thousands of silver flowers scatter the city on fire.
The poem "Chang'an Mixed Bamboo Branches" by Pang Nai, a poet of the Qing Dynasty, depicts the scene of children playing together with lotus leaf lanterns on the night of the Ghost Festival.
According to the Buddhist Bon Bon rituals, releasing river lanterns is just a small program and does not seem to be that important. In the folk customs of the Ghost Festival, lighting up lanterns is more important. River lanterns are also called "lotus lanterns". River lanterns usually have lamps or candles placed on the base. They are placed in rivers, lakes and seas on the night of the Ghost Festival and allowed to drift. The purpose of placing river lanterns is to bring away drowned ghosts and other lonely ghosts in the water. A paragraph from the modern female writer Xiao Hong's "Hulan River Biography" is the best footnote to this custom: "The fifteenth day of July is a ghost festival; the dead souls of resentful ghosts cannot be reborn, and lingering in hell is very painful. , I want to survive, but I can't find a way. If there is a dead ghost holding a river lantern on this day, I have to survive." Probably the road from the underworld to the human world is very dark, and it is impossible to see the road without a light. So putting up a lamp is a good deed. It can be seen that the living gentlemen have not forgotten the dead ghosts.