Chapter 24 Section 4 Birthday and Birthday Congratulations

A birthday is an anniversary of a person's birth to the world, and it has special meaning to the individual, so celebrating birthdays is quite popular.Congratulating others on their birthday has become a part of social activities. In our country, the custom of celebrating birthdays for others, that is, "Shangshou" started very early.In the bronze inscriptions, there are a variety of writing styles of birthday characters, which shows that there were birthday celebrations in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.But at that time, birthday celebrations were not fixed on the anniversary of birth.It is difficult to confirm when ordinary people associate birthday celebrations with birthdays due to lack of records.However, according to the textual research of Volume 19 of "Shi Jia Zhai Yang Xin Lu" by Qian Daxin in the Qing Dynasty, the feudal emperors decided to hold large-scale birthday celebrations on their birthdays starting in the Tang Dynasty.In August of the seventeenth year of Tang Kaiyuan (729 A.D.), Emperor Xuanzong held a banquet for his officials to celebrate his birthday.After the banquet, Minister Zuo Prime Minister Yuan Qianyao (yao Yao) and Right Prime Minister Zhang Shuo led all civil and military officials to present the table, and please use August 5th, Xuanzong's birthday, as the "Qianqiu Festival".Since then, the emperors of the Tang Dynasty not only celebrated birthdays on their birthdays, but also took special names for their birthdays except Dezong.For example, Suzong's birthday is called "Tiancheng Diping Festival", Wuzong's birthday is called "Qingyang Festival", Xuanzong's birthday is called "Shouchang Festival", Zhaozong's birthday is called "Jiahui Festival" and so on.Since the beginning of Xuanzong in the Tang Dynasty, every emperor's birthday will be celebrated with a three-day national holiday.In the capital, the ministers congratulated the emperor on his birthday, presenting nectar, alcohol (zhouzhou) and "Long Live Longevity Wine".In order to win the emperor's favor, the various festival envoys presented a large number of treasures and treasures.Officials and common people outside the capital also "have a birthday banquet" to celebrate the emperor's birthday.The customs of the court and the people are mutually influencing, and Yuan Qianyao and others will not be listed on a whim; after the "Qianqiu Festival" is confirmed, the people will not be immune to infection.Therefore, it can be said that, at least in the Tang Dynasty, birthday congratulations had already arisen.

According to "Song History · Li Zhi", in November of the fifth year of Dazhong Xiangfu (AD 1012), on the birthday of Prime Minister Wang Dan, Song Zhenzong ordered 30 sheep, 50 pots of wine, and 20 dendrobium of rice noodles each, and allowed a banquet , playing music, and congratulations.In addition to the prime minister, the princes of the Song Dynasty and the senior bureaucrats favored by the emperor were given gifts by the emperor to congratulate them on their birthdays.Due to the advocacy of the feudal emperors, it became a common practice in the Song Dynasty for bureaucrats at all levels to take advantage of birthday gifts to build relationships and make friends with dignitaries.According to Li Xinzhuan's "Records of Years since Jianyan" in the Southern Song Dynasty, when the treacherous minister Qin Hui was in power, "everyone gave gifts on his birthday. Afterwards, the governors of the prefectures and counties took the lead to accept this gift, which was extremely extravagant."So much so that in the twenty-sixth year of Shaoxing (1156 A.D.), Song Gaozong issued an edict to prohibit serving officials from receiving congratulatory gifts on their birthdays in order to avoid extravagance.However, judging from various literature records, this ban did not have much effect, and the trend of giving birthday gifts was still prevailing afterwards.In the Song Dynasty, in addition to giving gifts on birthdays, there was also the custom of presenting poems on birthdays.The great writer Su Shi's "The Complete Works of Dongpo" has many birthday congratulatory poems, such as "Cousin Cheng Deru's Birthday Poem", "Mr. Le Quan's Birthday Poem with an Iron Pillar as a Birthday" and so on.During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, scrolls with birthday stars were used as birthday gifts.However, according to the nineteenth volume of "Shi Jia Zhai Yang Xin Lu", the atmosphere at that time was "only accepting words, but returning their paintings, but it was just for etiquette".Moreover, scrolls are often returned without being opened, so there is also a phenomenon that "there is no longevity painter, but there is a scroll", and the phenomenon of "sealed in a red embroidered bag" is used to make up for it. "Shi Jia Zhai Yang Xin Lu" records such a case.At that time, a state official named Wang Anli celebrated his birthday, and his officials sent many scrolls according to the etiquette.Wang Anli suddenly had a whim and ordered all the scrolls to be unsealed and unfolded to hang in the hall to show the grandeur of the birthday.But when he happily led all the guests to look at these gifts, he discovered that some of the scrolls were painted with Buddha statues, some with ghosts and gods, and what's more, there were two cats on the picture, which was really dumbfounding.

Birthday celebrations are usually held on the day of the birthday. Family members, clansmen, relatives and friends all salute and recite congratulatory words, so it is also called "birthday worship".There are also those who go to celebrate the birthday the night before, which is called "pre-wishing".If someone goes to celebrate his birthday on the second day of his birthday, it is called "replenishment". There is also a special situation. In ancient times, it was popular for deceased grandparents or parents to "celebrate their birthdays" on their birthdays, called "Ming Shou", "Yin Shou" or "Ming Qing", "Yin Qing".According to the "Hangzhou Customs Remains" written by Fan Zu in the Qing Dynasty, the ceremony of Mingshou is generally like celebrating the birthday of the living.For Mingshou at home, the descendants must wear colorful clothes, set up a birthday hall, and the clan, relatives and friends come to the hall to pay homage.Mingshou gifts are not allowed to give couplets, but can be given as birthday screens and birthday scrolls.Those who gave the birthday scroll wrote the words "immortal mountains will not grow old, and the Buddhist kingdom will last forever", and some people only wrote the word "celebration".If you send peaches, cakes, candles, noodles, etc., you must add ten pairs of paper ingots and two cups of sugar and tea, but no shoes and socks.If there is no celebration at home, both meat and vegetables are acceptable for the banquet, and most of them are vegetarian banquets.If you do Yinshou in a temple, you must worship and repent, or one day, or three days, or seven days, and the day of consummation is regarded as the real day.For those who are more solemn, it is necessary to worship the water and land dojo, and 49 monks will worship and repent for seventy-seven forty-nine days.After the event is over, the yinshou tablet can be placed in the root hall of the temple to receive incense.Doing Mingshou expresses people's nostalgia for the deceased ancestors, and its custom has been passed down to modern times.There are still activities to commemorate the birthday of a certain deceased celebrity, which is his legacy.

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