The emergence of Tomb-Sweeping Day.
"Twenty-four solar terms" said: "March Festival, ... at this time everything is clean and clear." Therefore, "Qingming" means the melting of snow and ice, lush vegetation, sunny weather and prosperity of everything. Famous sentences such as "The willow is full of green silk smoke, and the February sky is clear", "The solar terms are clear and the peaches and plums are smiling" and "The original vegetation in the suburbs is soft after the rain" are vivid descriptions of the phenology of heaven and earth in the Qingming season.
Although Qingming, as a festival, was only formed in the Tang Dynasty, Tomb-Sweeping Day Qi, as a symbol of time sequence, has long been known by the ancients and clearly recorded in the Han Dynasty.
"Tomb-Sweeping Day is one of the most important traditional festivals in China. It is not only a festival for people to pay homage to their ancestors, but also a link for the Chinese nation to recognize their ancestors and return to their ancestors. It is also a spring ceremony to hike, get close to nature and spur new students. "
As an important festival in Tomb-Sweeping Day, the customs such as offering sacrifices and hiking mainly come from the Cold Food Festival and Shangsi Festival. The Cold Food Festival is related to the ancient people's understanding of nature. In China, the rebirth of a new fire after a cold meal is a transitional ceremony to bid farewell to the old and welcome the new. It reveals the information of seasonal alternation and symbolizes the beginning of a new season, a new hope, a new life and a new cycle. Later, there was a sense of gratitude, and more emphasis was placed on nostalgia and gratitude for the past. Cold food is forbidden to eat cold food tombs, and Qingming takes a new fire to travel. Before the Tang Dynasty, Cold Food Festival and Tomb-Sweeping Day were two consecutive festivals with different themes. The former mourns the past and the latter seeks new life. One yin and one yang, one breath for life, are closely related. Fire is forbidden to make a fire, and sacrifice to the dead is to save lives. This is the internal cultural connection between cold food and Qingming. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, the imperial court fixed the custom of sweeping graves at the Cold Food Festival in front of Tomb-Sweeping Day by decree. Because cold food and Qingming are closely related in time, the custom of cold food festival has long been linked with Qingming, and grave sweeping has been postponed from cold food to Qingming.
Since the Song and Tang Dynasties, cold food and Qingming have been on holiday side by side, with four to seven days in different years. Song Dynasty is an era of increasingly urbanized life and the development of folk customs in the direction of entertainment. In order to allow people to sweep graves and go hiking in Tomb-Sweeping Day, it is specially stipulated that imperial academy will have a three-day holiday and the martial arts school will have a day off. The Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival depicts Tomb-Sweeping Day at that time.
After that, Qingming and cold food gradually merged into one, and Qingming put the sacrificial customs in the cold food festival under its name. At the same time, Tomb-Sweeping Day has also integrated into the festival custom of "Spring outing on Shangsi Festival". After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shangsi Festival withdrew from the festival system, and the Cold Food Festival basically disappeared. There is only one Tomb-Sweeping Day left in spring. Different from other traditional festivals, Tomb-Sweeping Day is a comprehensive festival that combines "solar terms" and "festival customs". In terms of solar terms, Tomb-Sweeping Day has just passed the vernal equinox. At this time, the weather is warmer and everywhere is full of vitality. People go hiking and get close to nature, which can be said to conform to the weather, help to absorb the pure sun of nature, dispel depressed emotions and be beneficial to physical and mental health.
"Tomb-Sweeping Day is the synthesis and sublimation of almost all Spring Festival, and Tomb-Sweeping Day customs have richer cultural connotations.