Chapter 43 The fifth festival

The La Festival was originally called "wax" in the pre-Qin period. It was a grand ceremony held in December in ancient times to celebrate the agricultural harvest.Whenever agricultural production gets a harvest, people think that this is the result of praying for the new year at the beginning of the year, which is inseparable from the blessing of the god of heaven and earth.Therefore, at the end of the old year and the coming December of the new year, people will hold a general gratitude ceremony to the god of heaven and earth, and at the same time pray for the agricultural production of the next year.

The objects of wax sacrifices are all gods closely related to agricultural production.According to "Jiao Special Sacrifice" in "Book of Rites" and Zheng Xuan's annotation in "Yue Ling", there are more than 10 kinds.Among them, offering sacrifices to the god of agriculture is the worship and commemoration of Shennong, the ancestor of agriculture.Offering sacrifices to the "hundred species" of crop gods is to thank them for providing a rich source of food and clothing for human beings.Sacrifice to the God of Farming Guan Tian (Jun Jun) is to thank him for his contribution in supervising and leading farming.Offering sacrifices to the gods of pavilions and roads in the field is to repay them for providing resting places for farmers and facilitating transportation.Offering sacrifices to gods of animals and animals, such as cats and tigers, is to thank them for their contribution to protecting crops by killing voles, wild boars and other farmland scourges.The god of water conservancy facilities is worshipped because of its functions of flood control and irrigation and drainage.There are also gods of the sun, moon and stars, who are in charge of the sun, rain and dew, and are the foundation of the weather for the harvest of crops.The land god is the geographical basis on which the growth of crops depends.The ancients believed that the souls of the ancestors also secretly helped the descendants to make agricultural harvests, so the ancestors were also included in the wax sacrifice.

Wax Festival is a festive event to thank ghosts and gods and celebrate a good harvest at the end of the year. The ceremony is very grand and enthusiastic, so it is also called "big wax".According to "Jingchu Sui Shi Ji", "December 8th is La Day", which may be the traditional date of Dawa spread among the people.On the day of Dawa, people stop work and rest to participate in the grand event.The main venue is Tianshen Temple (in the southern suburbs of the capital). In addition, the Jongmyo Temple and the mountains, rivers and Yuedu temples also have special personnel responsible for wax sacrifices.At the beginning of the ceremony, the Da Si Yue conductor played music, danced and danced to invite the descending of all creatures and gods.Then, as the officiant, the monarch, dressed in a white dress, sang agricultural prayers in front of the gods, and at the same time, the musicians beat drums and played music, showing a warm and solemn festive atmosphere.After singing and dancing, the officiant put on a yellow dress to perform the sacrifice.It is said that yellow symbolizes the color of earth, which means that the monarch celebrates the harvest with everyone, so as to comfort the farmers and let everyone have a temporary rest.According to literature records, in the Zhou Dynasty there were also rituals of "resting the husband of the field" and "resting the old things".The so-called "Xi Tian Fu" means to let the farmers who have worked hard for a year take a temporary rest; "Xi Lao Wu" means to let the aging farmers retire from now on.This should be an ancient custom left over from the primitive commune era, but in a class society, many ancient customs have actually been transformed into a symbolic means for the ruling class to beautify itself and win over the people.Nevertheless, working people still cherish this day as a day to relax and have fun.At the end of the wax festival, there are usually feasts and dinners to celebrate the festival.

Wax sacrifices generally use hunted animals as sacrifices. In the Zhou Dynasty, they were called "hunting sacrifices" because they were also written as "wax sacrifices" because they were related to meat products, and they were an integral part of the great wax ceremony.Later, "wax" and "wax" were gradually confused, and in the Han Dynasty wax festival was renamed wax festival.After the introduction of Buddhism, because the day of the La Festival coincided with the day when the Buddha Sakyamuni became enlightened, the custom of offering porridge for Buddha in Buddhism merged with the etiquette and customs of the La Festival, and gradually evolved into the folk custom of making "Laba porridge" on December 8. And it has been handed down to this day.