What is the Day of the Dead?

Four Halloween festivals: March 3rd, Tomb-Sweeping Day, July 15th and October 1st.

March 3 rd festival

In Jianghuai and Jiangnan areas, the third day of the third lunar month is called Ghost Festival every year. It is said that ghosts haunt this day. At night, every household sets off firecrackers in every household to scare away ghosts and drive them away.

Qingming Festival

See the entry "Tomb-Sweeping Day" for traditional festivals in China.

July 14/15

According to legend, from July 1st every year, the King of Yan ordered the gates of hell to be opened wide, so that the ghosts who suffered and were imprisoned in hell all the year round could get out of hell, get a short stroll and enjoy human blood. Therefore, people call July a ghost month, and this month is considered as an unlucky month, neither getting married nor moving.

Every year, the 14th/15th day of the seventh lunar month is Magnolia Festival, also known as Mid-Autumn Festival, July 30th or Ghost Festival. In the past, people prepared some vegetables, wine, rice, gold, silver, clothes and paper at the intersection on this night to offer sacrifices to ghosts and gods.

On July 14/ 15, the tolerance festivals and customs are complicated, including folk ghost festivals, Taoist Mid-Yuan festivals, Buddhist Bonihara festivals, and festivals combining Buddhism, Taoism and Buddhism. Taoism has so-called heavenly officials, local officials and water officials, which are collectively called the three officials. These three officials are the representatives sent to the world by the Jade Emperor. Every year, they inspect the good and evil on earth and report to heaven. The birthdays of the three officials are the fifteenth day of the first month, the fifteenth day of July and the fifteenth day of October, also known as Sanyuan. July 15th, known as the Central Plains, was the time when local officials were pardoned. On this day, he will take out a thick roster and draw a picture according to the performance of immortals, mortals and animals, so as to atone and avoid punishment. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, people engage in some sacrificial activities to save those ghosts and ghosts, which should be related to the forgiveness of sins by local officials. July 15 is the Buddhist Bonsai Festival. It is said that Sakyamuni had a disciple named Mulian. Although her mother is young and beautiful, she has no good words and deeds, loves money and is stingy, and especially hates monks. After her death, she was thrown into the ranks of evil spirits. In accordance with the instructions of the Buddhist group, Mulian prepared all kinds of fruits and utensils on July 15th and put them into pots to support ten monks. Her mother just left the evil world and ascended to heaven. In view of this, the Buddha, by extension, asked Buddhist disciples to be filial and become a Buddhist monk on July 15 every year to repay their parents' kindness. The significance of Buddhist bonsai coincides with Confucian filial piety, and this day has become a ghost festival for folk sacrifices to deceased parents and ancestors.

Lunar July 14/ 15 is the biggest festival in the underworld-Ghost Festival, also known as Zhongyuan Festival or Arahara Festival, and it is one of the three important festivals in the underworld in China. There is a folk legend that the Lantern Festival is celebrated in the underworld and the Ghost Festival is celebrated in the underworld. It is said that on that day, Yan Xihui will spend the festive season with ghosts dressed in costumes. Let us living people bless them together and wish people in another world all their wishes come true and enjoy the happiness that this world has not had time to enjoy. Therefore, many local festivals in our country will hold activities such as offering sacrifices, chanting Buddha, sweeping graves, reviewing, enjoying flowers and fishing to celebrate.

On July 14/ 15, the gate of hell opened wide. Whether it's burning paper money to send blessings, holding daisies to mourn, offering sacrifices to ancestors on the Internet, or setting off river lanterns, today's living people miss the past and send blessings to their ancestors together. This is the spontaneity of human spirit, the extension of feelings and the most basic belief. And at the same time, "the living should cherish every day, not be ashamed of society and friends, and not be ashamed of their loved ones who have left forever." Because, one day we will meet them. At that time, you can proudly say that you are a hero on earth and a ghost hero in the underworld! "

Taoist Mid-Autumn Festival

According to the cultural logic of Taoism, the time and space of a year should be divided into two parts: upper and lower yin and yang. Moreover, according to Taoism in China, the three basic elements for nurturing everything in the world are heaven, earth and water. Therefore, Taoism regards the first half of the year as a celestial official and the second half as a local official. What needs to be explained here is that the "official" mentioned here does not refer to the "official" of human officials, but refers to the fragments in the process of time and space flow, similar to the "official" in China Weiqi game.

Taoism in China is mainly produced in the developed areas of agricultural civilization in China. Therefore, Taoism in China has always believed that heaven and earth are mysterious, everything is born on the earth, water is the foundation of life, and the earth contains water. That is to say, because China's agricultural civilization pays attention to the important role of soil and water in human beings, China's Taoist cultural concept has always contained the "ontology", "epistemology" and "methodology" of observing the world with the earth as the center. According to the Taoist worldview, Taoism is used to calling the fifteenth day of the first month of the year "Tianguan" (the first half of the year) and "Shangyuan Festival"; In the second half of the year, July 15th, the local official festival, was called "Mid-Autumn Festival". Because the earth contains water, water acts on the earth, so1October 15 in the second half of each year is "Xiayuan Festival". These three elements, namely, upper, middle and lower elements, constitute a systematic understanding of the trinity world of Taoism.

Taoism in China is different from many religions in the world. Many religions in the world are the unity of god and man, or just like Christianity, they pay attention to the trinity of "Tao into flesh", which makes religious communicators often highly deified. The purpose of China's Taoist missionary work is very clear. Taoist communicators are not gods, but people. So Taoism teaches students in accordance with their aptitude. For people with high wisdom, the truth in Tao Te Ching is very clear; For those who lack wisdom or have little time to deeply reflect on their own moral and ethical construction, writing stories is to explain the truth. "Education through fun" is a missionary method originated from Taoism in China.

The Mid-Autumn Festival of Taoism in China is actually a festival to spread morality and ethics, that is, to advocate people to pay attention to Xiu De on this day. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, people with thoughts and time will get together to study Laozi's Tao Te Ching, communicate with each other and reflect on themselves. For the general congregation, Taoism has created some stories of "entertaining through education". For example, in the invention of Taoism, a man named Chen Ziqi married the daughter of the Dragon King and gave birth to three children, namely, the "celestial officer, local officer and water officer" on the 15th of the first month, the 15th of July and the 15th of October. These "three officials" are in charge of the three tasks of human blessing, sin forgiveness and salvation respectively. They have infinite magic power, and they want to tour the world in these three days to check whether people's moral quality is good or bad. However, Taoism in China is a very tolerant religion, giving people the opportunity to change and renew themselves at any time. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival is not only a festival of rewarding good and punishing evil, but also a festival of atonement. Therefore, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also a confession festival and atonement festival in China. People who have committed crimes for one year can have various ceremonies on the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The first day of October

The first day of October is called "October Dynasty", also known as "ancestor worship festival". Since ancient times, China has had the custom of offering sacrifices to ancestors in the new harvest season to show filial piety and not forget one's roots. So people also use millet on the first day of October? Sacrifice ancestors. On the first day of October, ancestor worship, including family sacrifice and tomb sacrifice, is held in both north and south. Today, in many areas south of the Yangtze River, there is also the custom of offering sacrifices to new graves on the first day of October. The first day of October is also the first day of winter, and then the climate is getting colder. People are afraid that their ancestors' souls in the underworld are short of clothes and clothes. Therefore, in addition to food, incense sticks, paper money and other general offerings, there is also an indispensable offering-ghost clothing. When offering sacrifices, people incinerate ghost clothes to their ancestors, which is called "sending cold clothes". Therefore, the first day of October is also called "Clothing Burning Festival".

Later, the custom of "burning cold clothes" changed in some places. Instead of burning cold clothes, people burned a lot of ghost paper in a paper bag with the names of the recipients and senders and their corresponding names written on it. This is called "baggage". There is a name of cold clothes, but there is no reality of cold clothes. People think that the underworld, like the dead, can buy many things with money.

Another story about ancestor worship is that Cai Lun made paper and Cai Mo burned paper. When Cai Lun first invented paper, business was good. Cai Lun's sister-in-law Huiniang asked her husband Cai Mo to learn papermaking from Cai Lun. They came back to open a paper mill, but the paper made by Cai Mo was of poor quality and could not be sold, so they were in a hurry. Later, Huiniang thought of a way out of trouble. One night, Huiniang pretended to be ill and died of anxiety. Cai Mo was heartbroken in front of her coffin. While burning paper, he cried and said, "I learned papermaking from my brother and didn't pay attention." The quality of paper is so poor that it makes you angry. I'm going to burn this paper to ashes to relieve my hatred. " When it was finished, he brought paper to burn. After burning for a while, I heard Huiniang shouting in the coffin, "Open the door, I'm back." This is shocking. When people opened the coffins, Hui Niang sang in a pretentious way: the money of the dead can travel all over the world, and the paper of the dead is for business. Who wants me to go home if my husband doesn't burn paper?

Huiniang sang many times and said, "I was a ghost just now, but now I am a human being. Don't be afraid. When I went to the underworld, the king of hell made me suffer and my husband gave me money, so many children helped me. Money makes the mare go. " Officer Sancao also asked me for money. I gave him all the money, so he opened the back door of the underworld and asked me to come back. "Cai Mo pretended to be confused:" I didn't send you money? Huiniang said, "The paper you burned is money from the underworld." . "Speaking of which, Cai Mo held several bundles of paper and burned them to his parents.

Hearing this, all the people present thought that burning paper had great benefits, and they all bought paper from Cai Mo. Hui Niang generously gave it to the villagers, and the story spread widely. Villagers from far and near came to buy Cai's paper and burn it to their dead relatives. In less than two days, the backlog of paper was snapped up. Hui Niang's "coming back to life" happened on the first day of October in the lunar calendar. Therefore, on the first day of October, descendants worship their ancestors and burn paper in front of the grave to show their memory of their ancestors. On the first day of October, there is a custom of offering sacrifices to the king of cattle in some places. According to legend, this custom originated from the State of Qin in the Spring and Autumn Period. One day, Qin Wengong ordered people to cut down a catalpa tree, which suddenly turned into a cow. Qin Wengong was hunted. The cow jumped into the water and never came up again. People built a "Noot Temple" to worship this cow god. Nate is a tall, strong and majestic bull. Such a bull, in people's minds, has the function of driving away epidemics and evil spirits and protecting cattle.

The origin of ghost festival

Ghost Festival originated from the story of Manglietia's rescue of mother: "People with Manglietia monks have great strength. His mother fell into the hungry ghost road, and the food mouth turned into flames. Hunger was too bitter. Unable to save her mother, Manglietia asked the Buddha for advice. In order to talk about the Lanpen Sutra, he taught July 15 to be a Lanpen to save his mother. " It is said that at that time, after experiencing all kinds of hardships in the underworld, Manglietia met her dead mother Liu and found that she was tortured by a group of hungry ghosts. Manglietia tried to give her a bowl of vegetable rice, but the vegetable rice was taken away by the hungry ghost. Manglietia had to ask the Buddha for help. The Buddha was moved by Manglietia's filial piety and gave him the Lanjing. According to the instructions, Manglietia dedicated a rare fruit vegetarian meal to her mother on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. The hungry mother finally got the food. Buddhists hold a grand "bonsai" every year to commemorate the filial piety of Manglietia, which is what we now call "Ghost Festival".

According to the book, on this day in ancient times, people would set up a magician's seat and a stone drum platform in front of Jiekou Village in advance. There is a bodhisattva in front of the master's seat, who is the treasure king who crossed the ghost of "hell". Below is a plate of peaches and rice. Shigu stood on the stage, holding three spiritual cards and evocative complex items in his hand. After noon, families put whole pigs, whole sheep, chickens, ducks and geese and various cakes, fruits and melons on the stone drum stage. The person in charge inserted a triangular paper flag of blue, red and green on each sacrifice, and wrote the words "Yulan Festival" and "Manna Gate Open". The ceremony began with solemn temple music. Then, the mage rang the bell and led the monks in the seat to recite various spells and mantras. Then feed, sprinkle a plate of peaches and rice in all directions and repeat three times. This ceremony is called "the opening of the flame". Wang Kaitai, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a poem: "The Dojo is full of ghosts, and the original ancient meaning of Magnolia still exists. However, it is strange that the red plaque is attached to the door, and the meat mountain wine sea celebrates the Central Plains. " It describes the Halloween customs along the southeast coast of China.

It can be seen that "Ghost Festival" is due to the filial piety of traditional virtues. Nowadays, people in northern China still burn paper money on this day to pay homage to their ancestors who died young and express their thoughts for their loved ones. Although the sacrificial way is simple, it basically retains the simple meaning of Ghost Festival. Because of the call of blood, the extension of feelings and the reminder of one's future, Ghost Festival is endowed with rich humanistic connotation. Even if the years are different and the burned gifts are different, the living will never finish reading endless grief and deep nostalgia for their distant relatives. However, "people of different ages have different feelings about this special festival, because the future festival is coming to them mercilessly, from obscurity to clarity, from missing to fear, from fear to calmness. When they miss the people of the past, they are actually thinking about their experiences, contents, ways and pursuits in today's life."

In Chinese, there are countless words composed of "ghost" such as "ghost hero, ghost, ghost genius", and folk legends about ghosts are even more inexhaustible. China's ghost culture has a long history, reaching an almost perfect level.

Ghost festival culture

It is difficult to see the description of the world after death in ancient mythology, and the word "ghost" didn't mean it at first. In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the word "ghost" is a word of understanding, and here is the word "person" with a terrible head on it, which means a monster like a person. Later it gradually evolved into something that changed after death. Book of rites? "Sacrifice to Righteousness" has made it very clear: "All beings have to die, and when they die, they return to scholars. This is called a ghost. " Book of rites? The Sacrifice Law further points out: "Ordinary people in Shu Ren have no temples, and when they die, they are ghosts." That is, after the death of dignitaries, there are temples to worship and sacrifices all year round, and they become gods. Ordinary people die, there is no temple to enjoy sacrifices, and wandering around, that is a ghost. The "ghost" explained in China's first dictionary Shuowen means now. There are many words related to ghosts in pre-Qin classics. Confucius famously said "Stay away from ghosts and gods", which shows that Confucianism believes in ghosts and gods, but it is only "respect". Later, although there was Wang Chong's theory of no ghosts in the Eastern Han Dynasty, it could not shake the superstition of Chinese people about ghosts and gods. By the end of Qing Dynasty, although there were fierce ghosts in Pu Songling's works, most of them were young and beautiful female ghosts who attached importance to feelings and righteousness and understood etiquette. After watching Liaozhai, they felt cute, not scary ghosts.

The perfection and enrichment of Chinese ghost culture benefit from Buddhism and Taoism. Taoism is our real estate, and Buddhism was handed down from the west during the Han and Wei Dynasties, and it was integrated with Confucian culture and secular culture. After death, the underworld (also known as the underworld in Buddhism) is gradually established, that is, the world where ghosts live. The main building of Taoism is Fengdu City, which is demonstrated in Pingdu Mountain on the bank of the Yangtze River in eastern Sichuan. The beautiful Pingdu Yamamoto is one of the 72 blessed places of Taoism. Both the king of the Western Han Dynasty and Yin Changsheng of the Eastern Han Dynasty practiced here and later became immortals. Fengdu is haunted by immortals, which is related to the surnames of two immortals. Wang He and Yin read Yin Wang backwards, thus becoming the "king of the underworld". After the deduction of past dynasties and the rendering of The Journey to the West's ghost stories such as Zhong Kui Biography, Fengdu was built into a gloomy ghost town, so there were Naihe Bridge, the Gate of Hell, the boundary of Yin and Yang, the Temple of Emperor, the Temple of Impermanence and the Temple of the City God. Compared with the Taoist underworld, the Buddhist underworld is much more complete and systematic. Buddhism has the so-called "Ten Realms", that is, there are ten realms in the world, namely, Buddha, Bodhisattva, Jue Yuan, Wensheng, Heaven, Man, Asura, beast, evil spirits and hell. The first four are called "four saints", that is, they transcend the sacred world and get rid of the suffering of life and death. The last six kinds are called "six mysteries", which need endless circulation in filthy soil. The last three kinds are also called "three evils" and "three evils", which is a more unfortunate realm, and hell is the most unfortunate. Speaking of hell, it is chilling, with as many as eighteen floors. The further you go, the deeper the pain. In hell, there are not only demons such as Yamaraja, judges and ghosts, but also all kinds of torture such as knives, frying pans, millstones and saws. Therefore, people are most afraid of entering eighteen layers of hell after death.

The history of ghost festival

Grave-sweeping in Tomb-Sweeping Day is related to funeral customs. According to records, in ancient China, "tombs were not graves", that is to say, only graves were dug, and no graves were built, so there was no way to offer sacrifices to sweep them. Later, graves and graves, the custom of offering sacrifices to sweep graves, were supported. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, offering sacrifices to tombs has become an indispensable custom. "Once"? The Book of Ming Di quoted the official etiquette of the Han Dynasty as saying: "In ancient times, there was no tomb sacrifice, and Qin Shihuang slept next to the tomb, so Han remained unchanged. All tombs serve meals with gloom, hope, 24, dog days, society, wax and four o'clock. " The emperor is almost a festival. Ordinary officials and ordinary people don't have so much time and money, so Tomb-Sweeping Day gradually freezes in the 24 solar terms. At that time, the government will allow officials to take time off to offer sacrifices to sweep, and the people will also "go to their parents' graves for fields and roads, full of scholars and women, humble servants and beggars." "In the Tang Dynasty, the sweeping ceremony had combined cold food with Tomb-Sweeping Day. Bloom is warm in spring, so you can go to the grave with wine in your hand. Tomb-Sweeping Day is not only a ghost festival for sacrifice, but also a day for outing and entertainment.

From a secular point of view, the setting of these two ghost festivals is just right. Qingming coincides with the melting of snow and ice in the north. After rain erosion in autumn and winter and snow cover in winter, some loess on the tomb was washed down and became shorter and smaller. Sweep it with Qingming and add some soil to prevent the ancestors' houses from leaking and getting wet. July 15, beginning of autumn has passed, and the weather is getting colder and colder. It's time to add clothes. It's time to send some money to the underground ancestors to buy some clothes so as not to catch cold in winter.

The Chinese nation is a state of etiquette and has always paid attention to paying homage to its ancestors. I remember when my family used to pay homage to their ancestors during the Chinese New Year, the words above were "woody water source" and "Zongshen pursues distant places", which means not to forget the ancestors. During the Cultural Revolution, who dared to burn paper on the grave when capitalism was broken and superstition was opposed? There is no burning paper to buy in the city, but many people still buy white paper to order books for primary school students and secretly burn them to their relatives on the graves. In recent years, with the development of economy, sacrificial supplies have become a major category for businesses to make money. Every Qingming Festival and July 15th, the burning paper in the street is pushed into a hill in front of the store, and the variety and quantity are as many as the fruit boxes piled up during the Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival. Moreover, there are some modern commodities, which are burned into bundles, neat and beautiful, and the marks of ancient coins are evenly printed on them. There are also colorful dollars and Hong Kong dollars, all with large denominations, each of which is hundreds of millions. Coupled with the gold ingots of different sizes in Huang Cancan, if there is a ghost country bank, it will be ashamed of the lack of financial resources and willing to close down. Can burning so much money really make the deceased relatives live a rich life in the underworld? I don't know, there is a saying that "sincerity is the spirit", which means that the heart is there. I remember when I was a child, the old man said that it was not easy to print ready-made burning paper, and no matter how big the face value was, it was useless. It is best to take a chisel that carves wood into copper coins and tap it on the paper with a small hammer. There are many things to pay attention to when typing a paper. It is best to be a descendant of ancestors, and it must be a boy. The hammer must be made of wood, and the marks of hitting cannot be stacked together. When I was a child, I used to do it during the Spring Festival or two Halloween. The old man told me that it would be good to put a seal on it, for fear that he would not know. When he goes to the underworld, he always hits hard. He is also afraid of having less money and not enough ancestors, so he has been playing closely. Although there is more paper now and it looks beautiful, I think the paper money I played when I was a child in later generations can better reflect my true feelings for my ancestors. Of course, on the day of Ghost Festival, from Shan Ye to the street, there are flames everywhere, smoke everywhere, paper scraps flying, causing environmental pollution, and sometimes causing fires and unnecessary losses. What can we do? The custom handed down from ancestors, China people have not learned to use flowers to express their grief and nostalgia for their deceased relatives like westerners. Halloween sacrifice cannot be simply regarded as superstition. In western Christian countries, modern science has sent people to the moon and rockets to Mars, but they still believe in God, which is actually a spiritual sustenance. We burn some paper for our deceased relatives, which seems vulgar, but in fact it contains rich moral and ethical connotations. This is a kind of gratitude and nostalgia for the deceased relatives, a dialogue with people in another world, an exchange with ancestors and a continuation of human race and spirit. Even if relatives are alive, there are cases of unfilial or thoughtless care. When burning paper on the grave, you can get a psychological balance by chanting a few words. Perhaps with the development of the times and the improvement of people's education level, our nation will find a better way to commemorate our ancestors, but in any era, it is indispensable to pay tribute to and remember our ancestors.

Legend has it that July 15 of the lunar calendar is a day when the gates of hell are wide open, and you can spend a day among the dead, including some ghosts who can accept sacrifices from the dead, so that day is also called Ghost Festival.