The origin of pasting Spring Festival couplets

 

Chapter 5 Spring Festival Couplets

 

The origin of pasting Spring Festival couplets

 

Pasting Spring Festival couplets and changing door gods are important customs among Chinese people during the Spring Festival. Spring couplets are couplets, also known as "door pairs", "couples", "peach charms", etc. It describes the background of the times and expresses good wishes with neat, dual, concise and exquisite words. It is a unique literary form in my country and a kind of couplet. Spring couplets are so named because they are posted during the Spring Festival. Spring couplets are mostly written on red paper. When the Spring Festival is approaching, thousands of households are covered with bright red spring stickers, which can indeed show the fullness of spring.

One source is that Spring Festival couplets come from peach charms; another source is spring stickers. The ancients often posted the word "Yichun" on the first day of spring, and then gradually developed into Spring Festival couplets. Every Spring Festival, every household, whether in urban or rural areas, selects a red Spring Festival couplet and pastes it on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. When posting Spring Festival couplets during the New Year, you must also post horizontal banners. Horizontal banners refer to banners that match the couplets and are generally only used for a small number of necessary couplets. The so-called "horizontal" refers to the horizontal writing method; "patch" means revealing and commenting, and refers to the role of supplementing, summarizing, and improving the theme of the entire couplet.

The folk custom of posting Spring Festival couplets during the Spring Festival began in the Song Dynasty and became popular in the Ming Dynasty.

But as for the origin of Spring Festival couplets, we have to start from the Five Dynasties.

Meng Chang, the leader of the Later Shu Kingdom among the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, was on New Year's Eve in 964 AD. He asked Bachelor Xin Yinxun to write two auspicious words on the Taofu board to celebrate the new year. He didn't like Xin Yinxun's works because of his poor lyrics, so he took up his own pen and wrote:

 

Happy new year

Jiajiehao Changchun

 

This is the earliest Spring Festival couplet in our country. After that, scholars regarded it as an elegant thing to write Spring Festival couplets, and the custom of writing Spring Festival couplets gradually spread.

By the Song Dynasty, posting Spring Festival couplets during the Spring Festival had become a gentry custom. Wang Anshi's poem "Yuan Ri" "Thousands of households are as bright as day, and they always replace old talismans with new peaches." The Song Dynasty's notes also record the literati's preference for writing Spring Festival couplets. For example, Zhang Bangji's "Mozhuang Manlu" states that Su Dongpo visited Wang Wenfu in Huangzhou when he was about to die, and saw his method of treating peach charms, so he wrote a couplet on it saying:

 

The gate is large enough to allow thousands of riders to enter

The hall is unconscious of the joy of hundreds of men

 

In the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, the famous calligrapher and painter Zhao Songxue visited Yingyue Tower in Yangzhou once. The owner asked Zhao Songxue for his Spring Festival couplets. Zhao Songxue wrote:

 

Spring Breeze Langyuan Three Thousand Guests

Mingyue Yangzhou First Floor

 

The content of the Spring Festival couplets was very similar to that of the restaurant. The owner was overjoyed and rewarded him with a purple gold pot. Spring couplets like those written by Zhao Songxue have been regarded as social gifts.

According to historical records, Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, loved couplets so much that he not only wrote them himself, but also often encouraged his subordinates to write them.

One New Year's Eve, he issued a decree: "The homes of ministers and scholars must add a Spring Festival couplet on their door." On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Taizu went on a patrol incognito and was very happy to see the Spring Festival couplets complementing each other. When he walked to a house and saw that there were no Spring Festival couplets on the door, he asked why. It turns out that the owner is a pig butcher, and he is worried that he can't find anyone to write Spring Festival couplets. Zhu Yuanzhang immediately wrote a couplet:

 

Split the road of life and death with both hands

Cut off the root of right and wrong with one knife

 

Zhu Yuanzhang gave this Spring Festival couplet to this family. Later, the owner of the castrated pig learned that the couplet was made by the emperor himself, so he framed it and hung it in the central hall. He regarded it as a family treasure and burned incense to worship it every day. It is said that the official naming of the two characters "Spring Festival Couplets" began with Zhu Yuanzhang, Taizu of the Ming Dynasty. Since then, Spring Festival couplets have been widely circulated in rural towns and villages.

By the Qing Dynasty, the ideological and artistic quality of Spring Festival couplets had been greatly improved. Liang Zhangju wrote a monograph on Spring Festival couplets called "Three Couples on the Threshold", which discussed the origin of the couplets and the characteristics of various works one by one. Spring couplets had become a literary and art form at that time.

There are many types of Spring Festival couplets. According to the place of use, they can be divided into door centers, frame pairs, horizontal drapes, spring strips, and squares, etc. The "door center" is affixed to the upper center of the door panel; the "frame pair" is affixed to the left and right door frames; the "horizontal stripe" is affixed to the crossbar of the door; the "spring strips" are affixed to the corresponding places according to different contents; "Dojin" is also called "door leaf", which is square and diamond-shaped, and is often attached to furniture and screen walls.

Corresponding to the Spring Festival couplets, chickens were also painted on doors and windows during the Spring Festival in ancient times. Dongfang Shuo's "Book of Divination" of the Han Dynasty said: "The first day of the first month of the year is a rooster, the second day is a dog, the third day is a pig, the fourth day is a sheep. The fifth day is a zodiac sign. Cows occupy horses on the sixth day, and people on the seventh day." After the six animal days have been arranged, it is the turn of the seventh day of the lunar month to be the human day.

Why such an arrangement? In ancient times, there was a popular book called "Farmer's Miscellaneous Affairs" that had three theories: One theory was that it was arranged in the order in which humans tamed the six animals. Chickens were the first to be domesticated as poultry, followed by dogs, and so on. Another way of saying it is that the livestock are ranked according to their size, with the smaller ones in front, so chickens are ranked first, and the others are ranked behind. There is another saying that the animals are arranged according to their distance from people. Chickens and dogs are kept in the house, close to people, followed by pigs and sheep. Cattle and horses have stalls, which are farthest from the living room, so they are ranked at the back. It seems that the latter theory seems to be the most reasonable.

So why do people rank behind the six animals? Perhaps as a higher-level animal that can create tools and have thoughts, humans appeared later than lower-level animals, which is in line with the principles of biological evolution.

People draw chickens during the Spring Festival probably because the first day of the Lunar New Year is Rooster Day. "Xuanzhongji" written by people from the Jin Dynasty talks about a rooster on Dushuo Mountain. It is said that when the sun just rises and the first ray of sunlight shines on this big tree, the rooster crows. As soon as it crows, all the chickens in the world will start crowing. Therefore, the chicken cut during the Spring Festival actually symbolizes the rooster.

However, in ancient mythology, there is also a saying that the chicken is the transformation of the Chongming bird. It is said that during the reign of Emperor Yao, the friendly countries in the south paid tribute to a Chongming bird that could ward off evil spirits. Everyone welcomed the arrival of the Chongming bird. However, the tribute envoys did not come every year, so people carved a wooden Chongming bird or cast a copper Chongming bird. Place it on the door, or draw a Chongming bird on doors and windows to scare away demons and ghosts so that they do not dare to come again. Because the Chongming birds resemble chickens, people gradually changed to painting chickens or cutting window grilles and pasting them on doors and windows, which became the source of paper-cut art in later generations.

In ancient my country, chickens were particularly valued and were called “the bird of five virtues”. "Han Shi Wai Zhuan" says that it has a crown on its head, which is a virtue; it has a distance behind its feet and can fight, it is a martial virtue; it dares to fight in front of the enemy, it is a brave virtue; it has food to greet its kind, it is a benevolent virtue; it keeps vigil at night without losing sight of it. At this time, the dawn announces the dawn, which is faith. So people not only cut chickens during the Chinese New Year, but also designate the first day of the New Year as Rooster Day.