MUZI MUZIChinese Matrix

Lantern Festival

The east wind sets a thousand trees of lanterns blooming in the night

Introduction

The full moon of the first month: a night of lanterns that closes the New Year season

The Lantern Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the first full moon of the new year; it is also called Shangyuan, Yuanxi or the Festival of Lamps, and in Daoism it is the Shangyuan day when the Official of Heaven grants blessings. The Jingchu suishi ji of the Liang dynasty already records bean porridge offered at the gates on this day; the festival took its settled form around the Sui, and under the Tang and Song the capitals were hung with lanterns for vast crowds, the Song extending the lantern nights to five and adding lantern riddles. Its customs are lantern viewing, riddles, dragon and lion dances, the night stroll against illness, and yuanxiao or tangyuan rice balls. The Spring Festival season is held to end only after it.

Timeline

Northern and Southern Dynasties to present
550 · OriginZong Lin's Jingchu suishi ji (mid-6th century, Liang) records that on the fifteenth of the first month bean porridge topped with fat was offered at the gates; an early reliable record of the day as a festival.600 · EvolutionThe festival took its settled form in the Sui; under the Tang lantern viewing flourished in the capital and the provinces, with lantern towers and lantern trees.1147 · EvolutionThe Dongjing menghua lu (1147) describes Kaifeng's Lantern Festival: lantern mountains raised before the Xuande Tower from the winter solstice on, gleaming in gold and green, watched by crowds below the platform.2008 · ImpactIn 2008 the Lantern Festival entered the second national intangible heritage batch (X-71).
  1. 550OriginZong Lin's Jingchu suishi ji (mid-6th century, Liang) records that on the fifteenth of the first month bean porridge topped with fat was offered at the gates; an early reliable record of the day as a festival.Literature › Annual Customs of Jing-Chu
  2. 600EvolutionThe festival took its settled form in the Sui; under the Tang lantern viewing flourished in the capital and the provinces, with lantern towers and lantern trees.
  3. 1147EvolutionThe Dongjing menghua lu (1147) describes Kaifeng's Lantern Festival: lantern mountains raised before the Xuande Tower from the winter solstice on, gleaming in gold and green, watched by crowds below the platform.Literature › Record of a Dream of Splendour in the Eastern Capital
  4. 2008ImpactIn 2008 the Lantern Festival entered the second national intangible heritage batch (X-71).

Heritage Listings

  1. 2008National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage2nd batch · X-71 Lantern Festival · no. 978 · nominated by the Ministry of Culture and localities in Beijing · Shanxi · Hebei · Fujian · Gansu and Qinghai