What kind of festival is Midyear Day?

The Midyear Festival is also known as the Day of the Dead, the month and a half. The fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar is the Midyear Festival. Ancestor worship activities are widely carried out among the people.

Rich and poor, they should prepare wine, food, and paper money to pay tribute to the deceased to show their remembrance of their deceased ancestors. The mid-year festival is generally seven days, and there are new dead and old dead. Those who died within three years are called new deceased, and those who died three years ago are called old deceased.

Superstition says that the old and the new should go home to see during this time, and it is also said that the time for the new and old dead to come back is not the same, the new dead will return first, and the old dead will return later. Therefore, they should be sacrificed separately. The time to burn paper money is chosen in the dead of night, first sprinkle a few circles in the yard with lime, saying that it is to burn the paper money in the circle and the lonely ghosts dare not come to rob it, and then burn it in a pile, and keep chattering in the mouth when burning:

So-and-so came to collect the money. "In the end, I have to burn a bunch outside the circle, saying that it is for lonely souls and wild ghosts. On the day when the deceased go back, whether rich or poor, they must cook a good meal to honor the deceased, also known as "sending the dead".

Half of July"Originally, it was a folk ancestor worship festival in ancient times, and it was called"Midyear Festival", is derived from the Eastern Han Dynasty after Taoism.

Zhongyuan Festival is the name of Taoism, the folk and secular are called the seventh and a half months, and the Buddhism is called the Bon Festival. The festival habits mainly include ancestor worship, river lanterns, worship of the dead, burning paper ingots, sacrificing land, etc. Its birth can be traced back to the worship of ancestral spirits in ancient times and related time sacrifices.

July is the auspicious month, filial piety month, July and a half is the folk early autumn celebration of the harvest, reward the earth of the festival, there are a number of crops ripe, the folk according to the routine to worship the ancestors, with new rice and other sacrifices, to the ancestors to report the autumn success. It is a kind of cultural traditional festival to remember the ancestors, and its cultural core is to respect the ancestors and fulfill filial piety. [1-2] [38] In the Book of Changes, "seven" is a changing number, the number of resurrection.

I Ching: "Repeating its ways, seven days to repeat, heaven also." "Seven is the number of yang, the number of days, after the yang energy between heaven and earth is extinguished, after seven days can be reborn, this is the way of heaven and earth, the principle of yin and yang cycle, the folk choose to worship their ancestors on July 14 (27) and the number of resurrection is related to "seven".

The Taoist festival of Zhongyuan and the Buddhist festival of Obon are celebrated on July 15. [1-2] "July and a half" was originally a folk ancestor worship festival in ancient times, and the name "Zhongyuan Festival" originated from Taoism after the Eastern Han Dynasty. Buddhism calls the seventh half of the month "Obon".

In a certain sense, the Half-Ancestor Festival belongs to the folk secular, the Zhongyuan Festival belongs to Taoism, and the Obon Festival belongs to Buddhism. [2-3] July 14 and 15 Ancestor Worship is a traditional cultural festival popular in the countries of the Chinese character cultural circle and overseas Chinese areas. [39] Together with Chinese New Year's Eve, Qingming Festival, and Chongyang Festival, it is a traditional ancestor worship festival of the Chinese nation.

In May 2010, the Ministry of Culture selected the "Midyear Festival (Chaoren Yulan Festival)" declared by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and included it in the national list of intangible cultural heritage. [3-6]

The fifteenth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar.

Commonly known as the "Ghost Festival", the festival is celebrated for a month from the beginning of the seventh lunar month until the 30th day of the seventh month.

Buddhism and Taoism have different interpretations of the meaning of this festival, with Buddhism emphasizing filial piety; Taoism focuses on "purdue" for the ownerless and lonely souls released from the underworld.

**。The ritual used by Buddhists to celebrate the festival is called "Obon-kai", and the celebration is not only to pay homage to deceased loved ones, but also to commemorate Mulene as a day for Buddhists to praise his filial piety. Taoists believe that from the beginning of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the underworld opens the ghost gate and releases lonely souls and wild ghosts to the world to receive sacrifices.

In order to avoid the interference of ghosts and gods, the world set up "Zhongyuan Pudu" on July 15 to offer food and burn dead paper to appease those lonely souls.

What kind of festival is Midyear Day?The Midyear Festival is also known as the "July Festival.""or Obon", one of the three major Halloween festivals. The Midyear Festival is a Taoist saying"Zhongyuan"The name originated in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and is commonly known in some places"Halloween"、"Shi Gu", also known as the Day of the Dead, the seventh half of July. According to ancient books:

The Tao Sutra takes the fifteenth day of the first month as the upper yuan, the fifteenth day of the seventh month as the middle yuan, and the fifteenth day of October as the lower yuan.

Since the Shang Dynasty, China has believed in ghosts and gods very much. Although in their beliefs, in addition to human ghosts, there are also gods and earthly beings, but the "human ghosts" are the central beliefs. The Midyear Festival is a festival that has a close relationship with people and ghosts.

The origin of the midyear festivalThe name "Zhongyuan" originated in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the Zhongyuan Festival is also known as the "Ghost Festival" or "Menglan Bon Festival". According to the records of the Five Miscellaneous Scriptures: "The Tao Sutra takes the fifteenth day of the first month as the upper yuan, the fifteenth day of the seventh month as the middle yuan, and the fifteenth day of the tenth month as the lower yuan."

The practice record says: "On the first day of the seventh month, the magistrates descended to determine the good and evil in the world, and the Taoist priests chanted sutras at night, and the prisoners of hunger were also liberated. Buddhism also holds a transcendental puja on this day, called "Yalan Mana" (ullambana in Hindu), or "Menglan Meeting".

The meaning of the Menglan basin is upside down, life'The pain is like a bat hanging upside down on a tree, hanging and miserable. In order to save sentient beings from the suffering of hanging upside down, it is necessary to chant sutras and give food to the lonely souls and ghosts. This move coincided with the Chinese Ghost Moon Worship, so the Midyear Festival and the Menglan Festival were handed down at the same time.

The midyear festival is commonly known as the Ghost Festival and the seventh half of the month, and it is called the Obon Festival in Buddhism. On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Han nationality called the Shangyuan Festival, which is to celebrate the Lantern Festival, which has been in ancient times; On July 15, the Han nationality called the Zhongyuan Festival, sacrificing to the ancestors; On October 15, the Han nationality called the Xia Yuan Festival, which is to eat cold food and commemorate the sages.

The festival falls on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, and partly on the 14th day of the seventh month. It was originally a small autumn, and a number of crops were ripe, and the people routinely wanted to worship their ancestors, and use new rice and other sacrifices to report the autumn to their ancestors. Therefore, every mid-year festival, every family worships their ancestors, and when they make offerings, they perform rituals.

On July 15, go to the grave to sweep the grave and worship the ancestors. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Taoism set three meetings and five wax days, of which July 7 is the moral wax, and it is the day when the middle meeting is the fixed Taoist people to the governance center to accept the examination. This ancestor worship date in July was later fixed on this day as Taoism fixed the birthday of Zhongyuan Diguan and the corresponding sacrifice date on the fifteenth day of the seventh month.

Legend has it that on that day, all the ghosts were released, and the people quietly carried out the activities of sacrificing ghosts and ghosts. Where there is a new mourner, for example, to go to the new grave, and generally in the local sacrifice to the lonely soul and wild ghosts, so it is a festival centered on worshipping ghosts, which is one of the largest sacrificial festivals in Chinese folk.