What is the Ghost Festival and what does it commemorate? What are the folk customs of the Ghost Festival?
The Zhongyuan Festival is a Taoist festival that takes place on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month every year. Want to know more about the Ghost Festival? What are the taboos and precautions in the lunar calendar for July? The special topic on the seventh month of the lunar calendar in 2021 has also provided answers for you. You can click on Shuimo.com to check the seventh month of the lunar calendar in 2021.What is the Ghost Festival?The Zhongyuan Festival is the name of Taoism (called the Yulan Festival in Buddhism), commonly known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Ancestor Worship Festival, and the 15th of July. The Zhongyuan Festival is a festival for sacrificing ancestors, also known as the "Ghost Festival" among the people. It can be traced back to the ancient times when people worshiped their ancestors and performed related sacrifices, namely the 15th day of the seventh lunar month.The main customs of the Ghost Festival include ancestor worship, releasing river lanterns, worshiping the dead, burning paper ingots, and worshiping the land. Among them, ancestor worship is the most important and is the core of the Ghost Festival today. But in the past, the 15th day of the seventh lunar month was a festival for people to celebrate the harvest and thank the earth in early autumn. When some crops matured, people would worship their ancestors and offer sacrifices such as new rice to report the autumn harvest to their ancestors. Therefore, celebrating the harvest was more important. However, whether in the past or now, the Zhongyuan Festival is a traditional cultural festival to commemorate ancestors, so its cultural core is still respecting ancestors and being filial. What are the folk customs of the Ghost Festival?1. Ancestor worshipThe Zhongyuan Festival is a traditional festival for worshipping ancestors. The worship ceremony is usually held in the evening of mid-July. The tablets of the ancestors are taken out one by one and placed respectfully on a table specially used for worship. Incense is then burned in front of each ancestor's tablet. Tea and food are offered three times a day, in the morning, noon and evening. Because customs vary slightly from place to place, the ways of celebrating festivals are also different, and the time of festivals may also vary. 2. Burning paper Legend has it that on the day of the Ghost Festival, the gates of hell open wide, so deceased relatives will return to the human world to visit their descendants, who then need to burn paper money and send money to their ancestors. Usually when burning paper at the grave, a few sheets are left to be burned at the crossroads. The purpose is to give some alms to homeless ghosts so that they will not snatch the money given to the ancestors. 3. Eat duck Many places across the country choose to eat duck during the 15th day of the seventh lunar month because ducks swim in the water, which symbolizes the lighting of river lanterns and praying for the salvation of the soul. There is also a saying that "duck" is a homophone for "pressure", and eating duck is to suppress the "soul". This statement is a bit far-fetched, because in many places "duck" and "pressure" have different pronunciations. People in Dongguan usually eat lotus root stewed with duck. 4. Burning the bundle On the night of the 14th or 15th of July every year, people burn incense and firecrackers outside the door, and at the same time "burn bundles" (also called "offering bundles"). "Burning bundles" means taking a stack of paper money and sealing it into small envelopes, on which are written the title and name of the recipient, the number of envelopes received, the name of the person burning the paper and the time, and then burning them for deceased relatives and ancestors. 5. Release river lanterns There is a custom of releasing river lanterns during the Zhongyuan Festival, which is said to have evolved from the custom of hanging lanterns during the Shangyuan Festival (Lantern Festival). People believe that the Shangyuan Festival is a human festival, while the Zhongyuan Festival is a ghost festival. Humans are yang, ghosts are yin, land is yang, and water is yin. Therefore, lanterns are hung on land during the Shangyuan Festival, while those are hung on water during the Zhongyuan Festival. 6. Pray for a good harvest Offering sacrifices on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month is often associated with praying for a good harvest. On the night of Shi Gu, every household would burn incense at their doorsteps and pray for a good rice harvest. They would also stick incense sticks into the ground, which was called "butian" (transplanting rice seedlings). The more they planted, the better, as it symbolized a good rice harvest in autumn. Do you want to know your own Bazi? Want to figure out where your golden marriage is? Click on the [Premium Calculation] below to calculate your horoscope and fortune! |
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