What day is the Lower Yuan Festival in 2021? The significance of Xiayuan Festival

What day is the Lower Yuan Festival in 2021? The significance of Xiayuan Festival
The fifteenth day of the tenth month in the lunar calendar is the ancient Chinese "Xia Yuan Festival". So what day of the week is the Xia Yuan Festival in 2021? A brief introduction to the significance of the Lower Yuan Festival. Let’s take a look at the following content!

What day is the Lower Yuan Festival in 2021?

Friday, November 19, 2021 (October 15th of the Xinchou Year (Year of the Ox), 285 days away from the Lower Yuan Festival of the lunar calendar 2021)
Folklore activities
A repair fasting

The Lower Yuan Day is also one of the dates for fasting as stipulated in Taoist fasting rules. Taoism believes that all things that require the use of divine power, such as praying for blessings, warding off disasters, relieving suffering, apologizing, seeking immortality, prolonging life, and saving the souls of the dead, etc., all require fasting. The methods of practicing fasting can be roughly divided into two categories: one category has roughly three types, and the first is setting up fasting. That is to set up an altar to offer food and pray to the gods in order to pray for blessings and avoid disasters.
There were nine ways of setting up altars in ancient times: the top three altars were for the state, the middle three altars were for ministers, and the bottom three altars were for the common people. In later generations, the establishment of altars gradually declined. Offering vegetarian food can “accumulate virtue and heal the disease”; second, fasting. The ancients would bathe and change clothes before offering sacrifices, and not drink alcohol or eat meat, in order to keep their external organs clean and their bodies and minds pure, to show their sincerity and respect. This was called fasting. Fasting can "harmonize the spirit and prolong life"; three-heart fasting. Mental fasting can make the mind peaceful and tranquil.
Second, worship the ancestors
The Lower Yuan Festival is also the last moon festival of the year. When the full moon comes, people must carry out the most important ancestor worship activities. The Lower Yuan Festival is a festival for worshiping ancestors on a national basis. There are activities such as "gold and silver bags" during the Lower Yuan Festival. People fold red and green paper into immortal clothes, fold tinfoil into silver ingots, and put them in white paper bags. On the front is written "Respectfully present a piece of treasure from the underworld and a piece of colorful clothes to so-and-so, who receives it", and below is written "Descendants so-and-so pays homage to me a hundred times", and on the back is written "Respectfully sealed on a certain day, month and year". These are commonly known as "gold and silver bags" and are burned after the worship. In addition, there are other common ancestor worship activities. Three seasonal foods
Food customs are an important part of festival customs. In the long-term practice of numerous festival activities, human beings have formed independent and special festival foods, such as eating dumplings during the Spring Festival, eating Yuanxiao on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, eating rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival, eating moon cakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and so on. Like other customs and habits, it is a kind of common emotion and mentality of the nation. It unifies people's festival behaviors and plays an important role in the survival and development of festivals. The Lower Yuan Festival also has its own food customs. Some Puxian folks make stir-fried tofu. They also use newly ground glutinous rice flour to make pancakes. Stuffed with vegetarian fillings, they are fried into "shadow cakes", "scallion pancakes", or fragrant and delicious fried food dumplings, and then served as offerings outside the gate to "fast the sky".

What day is the Lower Yuan Festival in the lunar calendar?

The lunar date of the Lower Yuan Festival is October 15th, also known as "Xia Yuan Day" or "Xia Yuan". This is also the last moon festival of the year. It is the day when the moon is full, so people will hold ancestor worship activities.
According to Taoism, October 15th, the Lower Lantern Festival, is the birthday of the Water God who relieves disasters. The Shangyuan Festival and Zhongyuan Festival, which are as famous as the Xiayuan Festival, correspond to the birthdays of the Heavenly Official who bestows blessings and the Earthly Official who forgives sins respectively. It is said that on this day, in addition to offering sacrifices to their ancestors and the dead, people will also set up temples with balloons and water pipes to help eliminate pain and drive away disasters.

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