中国鬼节与阴阳五行:从清明节和中元节说起

Ghosts’Festivals and the Theory of the Five Elements

中国有三大鬼节,即清明节、中元节和寒衣节。以往的研究总是将它们分别探究,其中关于中元节的起源通常又归因于佛教和道教。近年来一些研究者认为,佛教盂兰盆节和道教中元节在中国出现前,初秋七月中国已有祭祖祀鬼之俗,故而认为作为民间鬼节的中元节并非因佛、道而产生,但这样立论还是稍嫌不足。本文以阴阳五行阐述鬼节,指出中国鬼节产生的根据就在阴阳五行,中国诸鬼节实际上构成了一个完整的系统。

In China there are three ghosts’festivals:Qingming Festival,Zhongyuan Festival and Hanyi Festival.The earlier studies tended to discuss them respectively and attributed the origin of Zhongyuan Festival to Buddhism and Taosim. In resent years,some researchers hold that Zhongyuan Festival,as one of the folk ghosts’festivals,did not derive from Buddhism or Taoism,because the social custom of offering sacrifices to the dead in the seventh lunar month had already thrived before the Buddhist Ullanbana and the Taoist Zhongyuan Festival appeared in China. But this argument is not enough. This paper offers a perspective of the ghosts’festivals in the light of the theory of yin and yang,and the five elements,which should have been the roots of the ghosts’festival in China. All the ghosts’s festivals in China actually make up a whole system.