Is Tanabata really not Valentine's Day, from women's courtship to men's and women's betrayal?
When it comes to Tanabata, people's first reaction is that Cowherd and Weaver Girl meet at Queqiao, equating Tanabata with Valentine's Day in China. In ancient times, Tanabata was indeed closely related to the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, but it was a comprehensive festival with women as the main body. On this day, women will visit close friends in the boudoir, worship the weaver girl, learn embroidery and pray for good luck, so Tanabata is also called "Daughter's Day". In the days when women are willing to compete and have fun, men also get together to enjoy it. The engagement between men and women is only a by-product of the "Daughter's Day" incident.
The legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl originated from the records of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl in the ancient star worship literature. In the Book of Songs Xiaoya Dadong of the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was written: "There is Han in it, and there is light in prison. Three of the three, Vega, seven times a day. Although it is not a newspaper, it is not a box. " At this time, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl are just two anthropomorphic stars in the sky. It can be seen that the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Maid originally came from people's awe and worship of the stars.
According to the contents of the bamboo slips of Qin Tomb in Shuihudi, Yunmeng County, Hubei Province, the tragedy of the marriage between the cowherd and the weaver girl has begun to appear and has been widely spread. "Witch god, unitary god, petunia to get Vega and failed. Under the age of three, abandon it. " It means that the marriage between Wu Shen and Ji You and the marriage between Penny and the Weaver Girl are very unfortunate. If people get married at this time, their husbands will leave their wives within three years.
In Huainanzi in the early Han Dynasty, there was a record that "the black magpie crossed the river and the weaver girl", and the earliest paintings and sculptures about the image of the cowherd and the weaver girl were produced in the Han Dynasty. For example, Ban Gu's "Journey to the West" and Zhang Heng's "Journey to the West" all record the fact that there are stone statues of cowherd and weaver girl beside Kunming pool in the western suburbs of Chang 'an.
Nineteen Ancient Poems in the Eastern Han Dynasty has preliminarily explained the legend that the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl fell in love and could not meet again: "The Cowherd is far away, and the Jiao Jiao River is a girl from China. Skillful hands, make a loom. There is no chapter all day, and tears are pouring down. The river is clear and shallow, and there are many differences. Ying Ying is easy to water, and his pulse is silent. "
"Seven" is of great significance to women, so it is natural to pray for good luck and good weaving. Women pray for skilled technology and a happy life by worshipping the Weaver Girl. Ge Hong's Miscellaneous Notes on Xijing in the Jin Dynasty said that women's begging for cleverness originated from Liu Bang's harem in the early Han Dynasty: "Women in the Han Dynasty often put seven-hole needles in the building on July 7, all of which are their aspirations", "When they come to the pool on July 7, they are happy and tied with five colors, which means they even love".
Records of local customs in the Jin and Zhou Dynasties not only describe women offering melons and fruits to the court and praying for a long life, but also add the meaning of begging for the first time for Tanabata: "On the seventh day of July, I swept the night in the court, set up several tables of banquets, sprinkled fragrant powder on the banquets, and prayed for the river drum and the weaver girl, saying that these two stars were gods. The night watchman has a personal wish ... he worships when he sees it, preferring not to have children and begging. "
So why did the ancients set women's begging activities on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month? It turns out that Nu Wa made people on the seventh day, and the seventh day is "People's Day". "Seven" is still a very auspicious number: people have seven orifices, seven sounds of joy and seven emotions, there are seven fairies in the sky, and Cao Zhi becomes a poem in seven steps, and there are seven things in daily life.
In addition, in Huangdi Neijing, seven is defined as the number of women's life: at the age of seven, women's teeth are more open, and at the age of seven, women have a month's development and are ready to give birth. At the age of three, seven, four and seven, she was strong and weak. At the age of six or seven, she began to have white hair and her fertility was terminated.
In this way, the seventh day of July is not only a festival for one person, but also "July" is of great significance to women. Two auspicious figures are superimposed, and it is logical to pray for blessings on Tanabata.
In the Southern Dynasties, the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl was further completed. The weaver girl became the daughter of the Emperor of Heaven and promised to marry the morning cow in Hexi. However, after marriage, the weaver girl was passive, and the emperor was angry. He ordered to return to Hedong and let the cowherd and weaver girl meet once a year. The origin of the love story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is not accidental, but the product of China's "male ploughing and female weaving" production lifestyle.
Zongba's Chronicle of Jingchu records the process of begging for cleverness for seven nights in the Southern Dynasties, especially mentioning that cobwebs will bring good omen: "At night, women tie colored threads and wear seven-hole needles, salty people use gold and silver as needles, old melons and fruits beg for cleverness in court, and melons are happy, so they think it is a match."
In the Tang Dynasty, adhering to the style of the Southern Dynasties, the "Kaiyuan Tianbao Legacy" recorded a grand ceremony of needlework: Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei hosted a banquet in Huaqing Palace. On the evening of July 7th, ladies-in-waiting filled the yard with fruits, flowers and wine, begging for morning glory and weaver girl, and catching spiders separately. They were kept in a small box. The next day, they looked at the cobwebs sparsely and spoke skillfully.
From the Tang poetry, we can also see the grand occasion of begging for cleverness at that time. Cui Hao said, "The moon in Chang 'an City is like practicing. Every household is holding a needle and thread this night. Fairy Yu Pei knows that there is no meeting between heaven and earth. "
After the Song Dynasty, the prosperity of urban commerce promoted the development of Valentine's Day in China, and the festive atmosphere was very strong, with traffic and people buzzing. Ye Luo and Jin Yingzhi wrote in "Talking about Drunken Weng": "On Chinese Valentine's Day, there is a business in front of Panlou, asking for clever things. From July 1 ST, horses and chariots poured their throats. For the first three days in Chinese Valentine's Day, horses and chariots were not allowed to pass, and they stopped and stopped smoking. "
In the Song Dynasty, women used fruits, needles and cobwebs, similar to the previous dynasties. They will also soak mung beans and wheat in porcelain, sprout a few inches, and tie red and blue buildings. This is called "planting". In addition, they will build colorful buildings in the yard, which is called "Qiaoqi Building". Children can also take part in clever activities on Tanabata. Boys "seek cleverness" and girls "seek cleverness": "Every child in Shi Jing puts a pen, ink and paper in front of a cow, and the book says,' Beggars are clever'. The children put the sewing box in front of the weaver girl, and the book said' coup'. "
On Chinese Valentine's Day, the streets are full of "grinding and drinking music", also called "Moluo" or "Moluo", which is a clay figurine based on wood carving and colorful clothes, or decorated with red gauze cages or gold beads and teeth. "Moheli" or "Moro" is a Sanskrit transliteration, which means the name of a god in Buddhist scriptures. Buddhist factors began to appear in the Qixi Festival in the Song Dynasty.
The ancient poems turned Qixi into a love plot and a "Valentine's Day in China", which should be said to be the result of the imagination of the literati. The Book of Songs Xiaoya Dadong said: "You are a weaver girl, and there are seven fragrant flowers all day long ... You are a cow, not a servant." This is the earliest writing to record the love legend of "Cowherd and Weaver Girl", which laid the foundation for Qixi to become a love festival for later generations.
Especially after Xiao Tong of Tony Leung Chiu Wai sang the impromptu song "The Altair is in the distance, and the beautiful river is full of China women" ... The water is full of flowers, and the pulse can't be said ",and poets chanting" Tanabata "began to surge. There are more than 80 poems about Qixi in Tang Dynasty. Bai Juyi, Du Fu, Cao Song, Du Mu, Li He, Luo Yin, Liu Yuxi, Li Shangyin, etc. all took Tanabata as the theme, leaving poems praising free love and pinning their love for acacia.
The Song Dynasty can be said to be the heyday of Valentine's Day in China. Throughout the Song Dynasty, there were more than 100 works with the theme of Tanabata, and Queqiaoxian became a famous epigraph. Compared with Tang poetry, poets in Song Dynasty expressed their yearning for free love more.
Whether it's Qin Guan's "If you love for a long time, you can't stay sooner or later", or Fan Chengda's "New love doesn't cover old worries, but adds new ones to go home", or Li Qingzhao's "It will take several years to watch the magpie bridge on the bridge, and you don't hate poverty if you want to be merciful", in addition to pinning the suffering of acacia, it also implies a strong resistance to destroying the system of free love.
With the widespread spread of these poems, the "free love" of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl makes people feel the inspiration of time and space and the light of hope. Therefore, Tanabata's "seeking cleverness through needles" and many material-related customs gradually drifted away, while spiritual things such as longing for free love continued to be passed down.
Since the Yuan Dynasty, Tanabata has been called "Girls' Day". It was Yuan Zaju that first called Tanabata "Girls' Day". The Yuan Dynasty's Analysis of Jin Lu said: "Shu Ren, the court servant, made a salty shed, hung Qixi paintings, filled with melons, fruits, wine and cakes, and invited women to celebrate Qiaojie, which was called Daughter's Day. "
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Dragon Boat Festival, Chinese Valentine's Day and Double Ninth Festival were all called "Daughter's Day". The custom of threading needles on the "Daughter's Day" on Tanabata has changed to throwing clever needles and seeking cleverness, and the time for seeking cleverness has also changed from evening to noon. When a woman prays for good luck, she will put a bowl full of water in the midday sun, and then let the embroidery needle float in the bowl. If the needle shadow in the water is like a flower, a cloud, or the shape of a bird or an animal, it is considered as "begging for luck"; If the shadow is as clumsy as a mallet or crooked, it is considered as "begging clumsily". In Chinese Valentine's Day and Beijing in the Qing Dynasty, the "Daughter's Day" changed to throw twigs or pine needles.
In the Qing Dynasty, Jiangnan women also had the custom of dyeing their nails on Tanabata: "On Tanabata, women poked their nails with impatiens, as red as amber." And nail dyeing also has a magical effect, which can make the eyes of the elderly blind. Jia Qinglu recorded the custom of Suzhou in July: "Pouring Impatiens juice, dyeing nameless fingertips and little fingertips, it is called Red Nail. According to legend, it will be preserved until New Year's Day next spring, and the old people will read it, so that their eyes will not dim. "
Qixi culture has a far-reaching influence on Asian countries.
The legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has also spread to ethnic minority areas in northwest, northeast and southwest with ethnic exchanges, and has deeply influenced Japan, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries. There may be regional and ethnic differences in story names, hero names and story details in these countries and regions, and they always maintain similar themes and characters to the Han motif stories.
Japan also has a begging festival and holds similar commemorative activities. Ye Wan Collection is the earliest collection of Japanese peace songs, most of which were written in Nara period (the eighth century). In Ji, there are more than 130 Tanabata Peace Songs. Since the mid-Nara era, it has become a practice for the Japanese court and upper class to imitate Chinese Valentine's Day, Nvhong and Qixi poems.
In Japan, besides offering sacrifices to stars, uncovering clothes and printing books, people also write their wishes on colored paper and hang them on bamboo branches. The next day, bamboo branches and lanterns floated along the river, symbolizing their hope to reach Tianhe. "Tanabata Stream" is an important Tanabata activity before Meiji. Boys and girls hung lanterns on bamboo, then made a boat and put dolls on it. On the morning of the 7th, while singing and praying to God, they threw the boat into the sea.
Dexingli Tomb, excavated in Korea 1976, was built in 408. The owner of the tomb has two titles: China and Koguryo. In the murals in the tomb, there is a clear picture of the cowherd and the weaver girl, who are opposite to the cowherd across the Milky Way. This shows that the nobles of Koguryo in North Korea were deeply influenced by the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl in the Northern Wei Dynasty.
"Common Sense of Korea" clearly records that the ancient king of Korea Palace once took his wife to worship Altair and Vega, lost princess royal's pagoda in Lu of the Yuan Dynasty, and gave her salary to officials that day. During the Li Dynasty, North Korea's activities on Qixi mainly included begging for cleverness, fighting for cleverness, begging for literature, exposing clothes and printing books, worshipping stars and making wishes. There are also Tanabata Tea Ceremony and Tanabata Memorial in the court.
In China, Tanabata is now mistaken for Valentine's Day. Should the media, businesses and the public know more about the true meaning of this festival? In 2006, China Valentine's Day was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
Since 2005, "Guangzhou Qiao Qi Cultural Festival" has been strongly supported by the local government. In 2008, the Xihe Qiaoqi Festival in Longnan, Gansu Province was upgraded to a national intangible cultural heritage. People in many other places are taking action to protect traditional culture.
Even the gifts with designs of magpie, love birds, red beans, lotus seeds and lotus flowers bought in buy buy stand out from the same western-style gifts such as roses and chocolates. At the same time, perhaps we can start with dolls, get rid of the dross that men are superior to women, and take its essence, so that children can strengthen their knowledge of festival culture in wishing for stars, poetry reading and manual games, and cultivate their awareness of the continuation of traditional culture in China.
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